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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..314cf37 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68859 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68859) diff --git a/old/68859-0.txt b/old/68859-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 57a180d..0000000 --- a/old/68859-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9668 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The weight of the name, by Paul -Bourget - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The weight of the name - -Author: Paul Bourget - -Translator: George Burnham Yves - -Release Date: August 28, 2022 [eBook #68859] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Dagny and Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made - available by Hathi Trust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEIGHT OF THE NAME *** - - - THE WEIGHT OF - THE NAME - - - - - BY - - PAUL BOURGET - - Author of "A Divorce," "Pastels of Men," etc. - - - - - _Translated from the French by_ - - GEORGE BURNHAM IVES - - - - - Boston - - Little, Brown, and Company - - 1908 - - - - -CONTENTS - -CHAPTER - -I. Landri - -II. A Grand Seigneur - -III. The Tragic Underside of a Grand -Existence - -IV. The Tragic Underside of a Grand -Existence (_Concluded_) - -V. In Uniform - -VI. The Will - -VII. All Save Honor - -VIII. On a Scent - -IX. Separation - -X. Epilogue - - - - - THE WEIGHT OF - THE NAME - - - - -I - -LANDRI - - -The automobile turned sharply about the chevet of -Saint-François-Xavier. With an instinctive movement, Landri de -Claviers-Grandchamp seized the megaphone. He called to the chauffeur to -stop before one of the side entrances. The powerful limousin was still -in motion when he jumped out upon the sidewalk and disappeared within -the church, to reappear a few seconds later, by way of the main portal, -on Boulevard des Invalides. With the elegant and self-assured bearing -characteristic of Landri, with his charming face, at once soldierly and -thoughtful, which a proud, almost haughty mouth, beneath the slightly -tawny veil of the mustache, would have made too stern had not the eyes, -of a caressing brown, softened its expression, that childlike stratagem -could mean, but one thing,--the desire, to guard from curiosity and -comments a clandestine rendezvous. - -It was true, but--a circumstance which would have made the officers of -the dragoon regiment in which the young count was serving as a -lieutenant burst with laughter--he had this rendezvous with a woman with -whom he was madly in love without having ever obtained anything from -her. What do I say? He had not even ventured, except on one occasion, to -speak to her of his sentiments. - -How many elements in his life had conspired to make him a fop and -blasé: that face and that profession, his fortune and his name--one of -the best in France, which had lacked nothing but the éclat of great -offices at court! But Landri was born romantic. He was still romantic at -twenty-nine. In him, as in the hearts of all genuinely tender-hearted -men, emotion neutralized vanity. - -He had met Madame Olier in 1903. That was the name of the woman in -question, a widow to-day, then the wife of one of his comrades. It was -now 1906, so that he had loved her for three years. It had never entered -his head that such perseverance in a dumb and unselfish devotion was a -delusion. He thought so less than ever on this warm and, so to speak, -languid morning of late November, as he went his way, drawn on, uplifted -by a proximate hope. - -Although he had reasons for very serious reflection, the air seemed -light to him, his step was buoyant on the sidewalks of that ancient -quarter, of which he recognized the most trivial features. Behind him -the dome of the Invalides stamped the gold of its cupola on a pallid, -pearl-gray mist. At his right the slender towers of Saint-François -soared aloft in a transparent vapor. At his left the trees of a large -private garden waved their almost leafless branches over the enclosing -wall, and, as far as one could see, the populous Boulevard de -Montparnasse stretched away, swarming with tramways and omnibuses, with -cabs and drays. - -In due time the young man turned into Rue Oudinot, then into Rue -Monsieur. There he paused before a porte-cochère, the door of which, -although it was ajar, he hesitated for some seconds to open. This door -gave access to a courtyard, at whose farther end was hidden one of those -dainty, oldish hôtels, pleasing to the eye, albeit out of style, of -which that street with its _ancien-régime_ name contained some -half-score or more a quarter of a century since. Alas! they are -vanishing one by one. As soon as the owner of one of them dies, the -crowbars of the demolishers set to work. An aristocratic plaything of -stone is razed to the ground. In its place rises one of those vulgar -income-producing houses, on whose threshold one finds it difficult to -imagine the lingering of such a lover as this. To be sure, it is simply -prejudice. In the eyes of a man in love, the profile of his mistress, -espied in the cage of an elevator, would bedeck with poesy and -fascination the staircase of one of those monstrosities in brick and -steel which the Americans brutally call "sky-scrapers." All the same, -there is a more intimate, a more penetrating sweetness in a perfect -accord between the setting in which a woman lives and the passion that -she inspires. This sweetness Landri de Claviers had ecstatically -intoxicated himself with in all his visits to that hermitage on Rue -Monsieur. Never had he savored it more deeply than at this moment, when -he was about to risk a step most important for the future of his love. - -He had come to Valentine Olier's house with the firm determination to -bring about a decisive interview between them, and to ask her for her -hand. If he had insisted that she should receive him at a most -unseasonable hour, he had had for that insistence imperative reasons -which excused him beforehand for his indiscretion. His timidity before -that day, and the rapid throbbing of his pulse as he finally crossed the -courtyard, did not come from an embarrassment of the sort that can be -explained. It was the sinking of the heart from excess of emotion, which -accompanies over-powerful desire in untried sensibilities. Naturally -refined, Landri had not aged himself prematurely by the abuse of -precocious experiments. To this young man, who was really entitled to be -so called, what awaited him behind the curtains of that ground floor was -the happiness or the misery of his whole life. But, we repeat, he hoped. - -His eyes feasted themselves, as their custom was, on the lines of that -façade, so closely associated with the image of his Valentine. Ah! -would she ever be his? A reflection of her person illuminated in his -eyes that two-story building, charming in very truth, whose light -pilasters, modest decorations, pediment with balustrades, and niches -adorned with classic busts, presented a perfect specimen of the -architecture of the time of Louis XVI,--a composite style, antique and -pastoral, like that extraordinary epoch itself, in which a moribund -society played at idyls--awaiting the tragedy--amid Pompeian -architecture. - -This hôtel had been the "folly" of one of the luxurious farmers-general -of that day. To-day the _petite maison_, divided bourgeois-fashion into -small apartments, numbered among its tenants, besides the officer's -widow, a retired magistrate on the first floor, and on the second the -head of a department in the ministry. Thus an elegant caprice, -originally designed for the suppers of a rival of Grimod de la -Reynière, found itself giving shelter to existences of quasi-cloistral -regularity. How gratifying to Landri was Madame Olier's choice of a -habitation so retired! - -Left free and alone, at twenty-seven years, with an infant son, with no -near relatives, having few kindred in the world and a modest fortune, -Valentine had valued in that apartment the very thing that would have -disgusted so many women,--the charm of oblivion, of silence and of -meditation. On the other side the ground floor looked upon a very small -garden, adjoining others much larger; and as the dividing wall was -concealed beneath a cloak of ivy, that enclosure of a few square yards -seemed like the corner of a park. - -As he pressed the electric bell, Landri was sure that the only servant, -answering the ring, would conduct him through the narrow reception-room -and the salon with its covered furniture, to a tiny room, looking on the -garden at the rear, which Madame Olier used as a second salon. She would -be there, writing, at the little movable table which she placed by the -fire or by the door-window according to the season. Or else she would be -reading, seated on the bergère covered with an old striped stuff, dead -pink and faded green, always the same. Or else her slender fingers would -be busy with her embroidery needle. Correspondence, reading, work or -music,--a piano which she rarely opened except when alone, told of that -taste of hers,--her occupation would be constantly interrupted by a -glance at the path in the garden, where her son Ludovic was playing. -Landri found therein an image of what the whole life of that widow and -mother had been during the year since she had lost her husband! Great -God! how dearly he loved the young woman for having thus proved to him -how justly he had placed her so far apart from all other women from the -moment of their first meeting! - -Valentine was there, in fact, in the small salon softly lighted by the -morning sun which was just making its way through a last film of mist. -She was apparently engrossed by an endless piece of embroidery. But the -music portfolio, still open on the piano, and the stool pushed back a -little way, might have betrayed to the young man how she had passed the -time while awaiting his coming. Still another sign betokened her -agitation. She had not her child with her. Contrary to her custom she -had sent him out to walk at ten o'clock. Why, if not that she might be -alone with her thoughts? Her self-control, however, enabled her to -welcome her visitor with the same inclination of the head as usual, -friendly yet reserved, the same smile of distant affability. At most the -quivering of the eyelids betrayed a nervousness which was contradicted -by the even tones of her voice and by the impenetrable glance of her -limpid blue eyes. - -Such women as she, with hair of a pale gold, almost wavy, with slender -hands and feet, with a tapering figure, and dainty gestures, seem -destined to allow their faintest impressions to appear on the surface, -one judges them to be so vibrant and quivering. On the contrary, it is -generally the case that no one can be more secretive than such -creatures, all delicacy and all emotion as they are. Their very excess -of nervousness becomes in them a source of strength. From their first -experience of the world they comprehend to what degree the acuteness of -their sensations renders them exceptional, solitary beings. By one of -those instincts of self-defence which the moral nature possesses no less -than the physical nature, they manœuvre so as to conceal their hearts, -in order that life may not brutalize them. They become, as it were, -ashamed of their emotions. They hold their peace, at first concerning -the most profound of them, then concerning the most superficial. And -thus they end by developing a power of external impassiveness which adds -to their charm the attractive force of an enigma, especially as this -intentional dualism, this constant watch upon themselves, this prolonged -contrast between what they show and what they feel, between their real -personality and avowed personality, does not fail to exert some -influence even on their manner of feeling and thinking. They are capable -of the nicest shades of discrimination, even to subtlety, when they are -pure; and, if they are not pure, even to stratagem, for the fascination -or the despair of the man who falls in love with them, according as he, -in his turn, is very complex or very simple. - -Landri de Claviers-Grandchamp was both, for reasons which were connected -with the peculiar features of his destiny. Thus he had already suffered -much through that woman, and still had owed to her the most delicious -hours that his youth, darkened by an inborn and acquired melancholy, had -ever known. The first words exchanged between him and Madame Olier will -enable us to understand why, and at the same time what dangerous, almost -unhuman, chimeras can suggest themselves to a scrupulous sentimental -woman like Valentine, who loves love and fears it, who cannot determine -either to deprive herself of an affection that is dear to her, or to -sacrifice her self-esteem by abandoning herself to it, who becomes -agitated without losing her head, and whose pulses throb without causing -her to abdicate her reason. - -But the hour had come to have done with all equivocation. The young -man's mind was made up. The young woman had read it between the -enigmatical lines of his letter. She read it in those eyes, whose -glances she had so often dominated in the past three years, simply by -her attitude. No earthly power would prevent Landri from speaking -to-day. She knew it. She knew what words he would utter, and she was -preparing to listen to them, and then to reply, perturbed to the inmost -depths of her being, and outwardly so calm in her mourning garb. She was -dressed as if to go out, in order to have a pretext for breaking off the -visit at her pleasure. The black cloth and crêpe gave to her delicately -hollowed cheeks an ivory-like pallor which made her even lovelier. - -After the first words of commonplace courtesy, amid which she found a -way to slip in an allusion to an errand to be done before luncheon, -there ensued one of those intervals of dumbness that occur between two -persons at the moment of uttering words which cannot be retracted, and -which they crave and fear in equal measure. The crackling of the fire on -the hearth, and the ticking of the clock, suddenly made themselves heard -in that silence, which the officer broke at last, in a tone in which his -emotion betrayed itself. - -"Doubtless you understood, madame," he began, "that it was a very -serious matter which made me presume to ask you to receive me at this -hour. I had no other at my disposal. I must start for Saint-Mihiel -to-morrow evening. I was able to obtain only a very short leave of -absence. My father awaits me at Grandchamp, where he is hunting to-day, -and you know how much importance he attaches to his hunt. I must be -there before the end, or run the risk of disappointing him. I succeeded -in catching the train at Commercy last night. I was at the Gare de l'Est -at nine o'clock. In an hour and a half by automobile I shall be at -Grandchamp. I tell you all this because--" - -"Because you do not think me your friend," she interrupted, shaking her -head. "But I am, and most cordially. You have nothing to apologize for. -You have accustomed me to a too loyal devotion, which I know to be too -loyal," she repeated, "for me not to divine that a very important motive -dictated your letter. Tell me what it is very simply, as a friend, I say -again, a true friend, who will answer in the same way." - -She had assumed, as she said these few words, a very gentle but very -firm expression. Her voice had dwelt with especial force on the word -"friend," which she repeated thrice. It was a reminder of a very -hazardous and very fragile engagement. Thousands of such engagements -have been entered into, since passionate men, like Landri, are able to -respect those whom they love, and since women secretly enamored, like -Valentine, dream of reconciling the emotions of a forbidden affection -with the strict requirements of virtue. The rare thing is not that one -suggests and the other accepts the romantic compact of friendship -without other development, but that the compact is adhered to. Absolute, -almost naïve sincerity on the part of both contracting parties is -essential, a sincerity which excludes all trickery on his part, all -coquetry on hers. There must also be a voluntary separation of their -lives, which does not permit too frequent meetings. He who says -sincerity does not always say truth. One may maintain sincerely a -radically false situation, may obstinately abide by it through mute -rebellions, through secret and long-protracted suffering, through hidden -anguish, like that the memory of which quivered in the young man's -reply:-- - -"A friend!" What bitterness those soft syllables assumed in passing -through those suddenly contracted lips! "I knew that, at the outset of -our conversation, you would shelter yourself behind my promise. I knew -that you would anticipate the sentences that I wish to say to you, and -that you would not allow me to say them. God is my witness, and you, -too, madame, are my witness, that I have done everything to maintain the -absolute reserve which you imposed as a condition upon the relations -between us.--Let me speak, I deserve that you should let me speak!" he -implored, at a gesture from Valentine, who had half risen. He put such -mournful ardor into that entreaty, that she resumed her seat, without -further attempt to arrest an avowal which her woman's tact had foreseen -only too plainly during these last days. Accustomed as she was to -control herself, her constantly increasing pallor, her more and more -rapid breathing, disclosed the agitation aroused in her by the voice of -him whom she had pretended to look upon only as a friend, and who -continued: "Yes, I deserve it. I have been so honest, so loyal in my -determination to obey you! Anything, even that silence, was less painful -to me than to lose you altogether. And then, I had given you such good -reason! I have reproached myself so bitterly for that madness of a few -minutes, three years ago! That I had confessed to you what I ought -always to have hidden from you, since you were not free, crushed me with -such profound remorse! Every day at Saint-Mihiel I pass the wall of the -garden where that scene took place. Never without seeing you again, in -my thoughts, as I saw you after that mad declaration, abruptly leaving -me and going back to the house, without looking back. And what weeks -those were that followed, when we met almost every day, and I did not -exist for your glance! 'She will never, never forgive me,' I said to -myself, and the thought tore my heart. I was sincere when I determined -to exchange into another regiment, to leave Saint-Mihiel; sincere when I -tried, before my departure, which I believed to be final, to speak with -you once more. I felt that I must explain my action to you, must make -you understand that no degrading thought of seduction had entered my -mind, that I must have been demented, that I had never for one second -ceased to have such unbounded esteem and respect for you! Ah! I shall be -very old, very cold-blooded, when I am able to recall without -tears--see, they are coming to my eyes now!--your face on that day, your -eyes, the tone in which you said to me: 'I have forgotten everything. -Give me your word that that moment of aberration shall never return, and -I will see you as before. I do not wish your life to be turned -topsy-turvy because of me.'--While you were speaking, I was saying to -myself--that hour is so vivid to me!--I was saying to myself: 'To -breathe the air that she breathes, to see her go to and fro, to continue -to hear her voice, there is no price I will not pay.' And you marked out -the programme of our relations in the future. You said that the world -did not place much credit in a disinterested friendship between a man -and a woman, but that you did believe in such a thing provided that both -were really loyal. I could repeat, syllable for syllable, every word -that you said that afternoon. I listened while you said them, with an -utterly indescribable sensation, of assuagement and exaltation as well, -through my whole being. It was as if I had seen your very soul think and -feel. Yes, I solemnly promised you then that, if you would admit me once -more to your intimacy, I would be that friend that you gave me leave to -be, and nothing more. That promise I have the right to say again that I -have kept. I declare that I would continue to keep it if the -circumstances had remained the same. But they have changed. Ah! madame, -if one could read another's heart, I would beseech you to look into -mine. You would see there that at the news of the misfortune which -befell you, I had no selfish reflection concerning that change. I -thought only of your grief, your solitude, your orphan child. So long as -the catastrophe was recent, I was ashamed even to glimpse a new horizon -before me--before us. But I cannot prevent life from being life. At -twenty-seven a woman is entitled to reconstruct her life without -offending in any wise the memory of him who is no more. On my part, I am -not breaking my plighted word when I say: 'Madame, the worship, the -adoration that I had for you three years ago, and that you justly -forbade me to express to you then, I still entertain. My silence -regarding my sentiments since that time is a guarantee of their depth. I -break it to-day, when you can listen to me without having the -protestation of the most fervent, the most respectful, the most -submissive of passions cause you remorse. What I said to you in the -garden I say again to-day, adding to it an entreaty which you will not -deny. I love you. Let me devote to you what I have left of youth, my -whole life. Allow me to be a support in your solitude, a consolation in -your melancholy, a second father to your son. Be my wife and I will -bless this long trial, which justifies me in repeating to you what I -felt on the first day that I met you,--but how could you have failed to -suspect it?--I love you, and I never have loved, I never shall love, -anybody but you.'" - -This impassioned harangue, so insistent and so direct, bore little -resemblance to the one that Landri had prepared during the long waking -hours of the night and in the cold light of dawn, while the express -train of the Chemin de Fer de l'Est bore him away from the little -garrison town where his destiny had caused him to meet Captain Olier and -his charming wife. What diplomatic stages he had marked out for himself -beforehand! And he had hurried through them all to go straight to that -offer of marriage, put forth, abruptly, with the spontaneity that is -more adroit than all the prudence in the world with a woman who -loves,--and Valentine loved Landri. She loved him despite complexities -upon which we must insist once again in order to avoid the illogical -aspects of that woman's nature, loyal even in its subtleties, even to -the slightest appearance of coquetry. She loved him, but in a strange -ignorance of the elements of love, despite her marriage and maternity. -Her union with a man older than herself, arranged by her family, had not -caused her to know that total revolution of her existence, after which a -woman is truly woman. With her, affection had never been anything more -than imaginary. In the chaste and artless delights of this intimacy, -without caresses or definite words, with a young man by whom -nevertheless she knew that she was loved, and whom she loved, she had -found the only pleasure which her sensibility, still altogether mental, -could conceive. To tell the whole fact, she loved--and that friendship -had sufficed for her! It was inevitable, therefore, that at the first -attempt of her alleged "friend" to draw her into the ardent world of -complete passion,--and this offer of marriage, under such conditions, -was such an attempt,--she should throw herself almost violently back. -She ought, however, to have foreseen it, that step which would put an -end to the paradoxical and unreliable compromise of conscience devised -by her between her conjugal duties and her secret love. Yes, she had -foreseen it, and on the day after her husband's death. Her habit of -reflection, intensified by the monotony of her semi-recluse existence, -had led her to take an almost painful pleasure in a minute scrutiny of -the reasons for and against a decision, and she had ended, in the false -perspective of solitary meditation, by thinking solely in opposition to -her heart. She had ceased to see anything but the force of the -objections, the insurmountable difficulties, and she had taken her stand -with the party most strongly opposed to her passionate desire. With that -she had soothed herself with the chimerical hope of postponing from week -to week the explanation which had suddenly forced itself upon her so -imperatively. She came to it deeply moved and at the same time prepared, -overwhelmed with surprise and, as it were, armored rather than armed -with arguments long since thought out. She ran the risk thus of seeming -very cold when she was deeply moved, very self-controlled and -conventional, when she was all a-quiver. How near to weakness was her -borrowed energy from the moment that she began her reply! - -"You have made me very unhappy, my friend,--for I shall continue to give -you in my heart that name which you no longer care for. I do not -reproach you. It was I who deceived myself, in thinking that your -feeling for me might change, that it had changed. Perhaps such a -transformation is not possible. I too have acted in good faith in -wishing for it, in longing for it, in hoping for it. You know it, do you -not?--Now that dream is at an end." She repeated, as if speaking to -herself: "At an end, at an end." And, turning toward Landri: "How do you -expect me to permit you to come here now, to indulge myself in those -long conversations and that correspondence which were so dear to me, -after you have talked to me in this way? One does not try such an -experiment twice. Three years ago I was able to believe in an -unconscious outbreak of your youth, in an exaltation which would soon -subside. To-day, I am no longer able to flatter myself with that -illusion. But on one point you are right. The circumstances are no -longer the same. If at that time it was my right and my duty to judge -severely a declaration which I should have been as culpable to listen to -as you were to make it, how can I blame you now for a step in which -there is no other feeling for me than respect and esteem? I have not -lived much in the world,--enough, however, to realize that the fidelity -of a heart like yours, prolonged thus and under such conditions, is no -ordinary thing. It touches me far more than I can tell you."--Despite -herself, her voice trembled as she let fall those words which signified -too clearly: "And I, too, love you."--"But," she continued, firmly, -"this interview must be the last, since I cannot answer you with the -words that you ask, since in that hand which you offer me I cannot place -mine." - -"Then," he faltered, "if I understand you, you refuse--" - -"To be your wife. Yes," she said; and this time her blue eyes beneath -their half-closed lids gazed steadfastly at Landri. Her delicate mouth -closed in a fold of decision. Her whole fragile person was as if -stiffened in a tension which proved to the lover the force of the -emotion that she held in check. She repeated: "Yes, I refuse. I could -find many pretexts to give you which, to others, would be good reasons, -and which should be so to me. I have a child. I might say to you: 'I do -not want him to have a stepfather.' That would not be true. You would be -to him, I am sure, as you said, a second father. I might dwell upon my -loss, which is so recent, in order to postpone my reply until later. -Later, the reason which makes me decline the offer of your name would be -the same, for it is just that name, it is what it represents, which -forbids me to abandon myself to a liking of which you have had too many -proofs. I shall soon be twenty-eight, my friend. I am no longer exactly -a young woman. I have reflected much on marriage. I know that if people -marry to love each other, they marry also to live and remain together, -to have a home, to be a family. For that it is essential that there -should not be, between the husband and wife, one of those unalterable -differences of birth and environment, which make it impossible that her -people should ever be really related to his.--Your name? It is not only -very old, it is illustrious. It is blended with the whole history of -France. There was a Maréchal de Claviers-Grandchamp who was a comrade -of Bayard, a Cardinal de Claviers-Grandchamp who was a friend of -Bossuet. Claviers-Grandchamps have been ambassadors, governors of -provinces, commanders of the Saint-Esprit, peers of France. Your house -has contracted alliances with ten other houses of the French or European -aristocracy. You are cousins of English dukes, of German and Italian -princes. You are a _grand seigneur_, and I a bourgeoise, a very petty -bourgeoise.--Do not you interrupt me, either," she said, placing her -slender hand on the young man's arm and arresting thus his protest; "it -is better that I should say it all at once. In all this I am moved -neither by humility nor by pride. I have never understood either of -those sentiments, when there is question of facts so impossible to deny -or to modify as our situation. I am a bourgeoise, I say again. That -means that my people lived in straitened circumstances at first, then -modestly. I consider myself rich with the thirty thousand francs a year -that they saved for me, in how many years! It is a fortune in our world, -in yours it would be ruin. When I walk in that quarter, before those -ancient hôtels which are still to be found there, on the afternoon of a -grand reception, I see their courtyards, the coupés and automobiles -waiting, the footmen in livery, all that luxury of existence which you -no longer notice, it is so natural to you,--and do you know what my -feeling always is? That if it were necessary for me to live there, and -in such fashion, I should be too much out of my element, too -overpowered! These are trifles. I mention them to you because they -represent a whole type of customs, an entire social code. Do not say -that you will not impose those customs on your wife, that you will -liberate her from that code. You could not do it. To-day, as a bachelor, -and because you are an officer, you have been able to simplify your life -a great deal. But your wife would not be merely the companion of -Monsieur de Claviers-Grandchamp, a simple lieutenant of dragoons, -stationed at Saint-Mihiel, she would be also the daughter-in-law of the -Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp, who lives in a veritable palace in -Paris, and who has a historic château in the Oise. He is a widower. He -would require, and he would have a right to require, his -daughter-in-law, with him and for him, to do the honors of those -princely residences. And besides, he would begin by not accepting me. -You have talked so much to me about him! I know him so well, without -having seen him. Not for nothing do you call him the 'Émigré.' So many -times you have exerted yourself to prove to me that he is not a man of -our time; that he has the pride, the religious veneration of his race -and of old France. And such a man would consent that his heir, the only -survivor of his four sons, should take for his wife the widow of an -officer who was the son of a physician, herself the daughter of a -provincial notary, who, before she became Madame Olier, bore the name of -Mademoiselle Barral? Never! To marry me, my friend, would be first of -all to quarrel with your father, and, more or less, with all your -relations and your whole social circle. What do you care? you will say. -When two people love, they suffice for each other. That is true and it -is not true. You would suffer death and torture that I should be -humiliated, even in trifles, that I should not have the rank due to your -wife, being your wife. I should suffer to see you suffer, and perhaps--I -do not make myself out any better than I am--on my own account. People -are so ingenious in all societies in wounding those whom they look upon -as intruders. If we should have children, would they feel that they were -really the brothers and sisters of my boy, of a poor little Olier, they -who would be Claviers-Grandchamps? And if--But what's the use of -enumerating the miseries comprised in that cruel, wise, profoundly -significant word--mésalliance. No. I will not be your wife, my friend, -and the day will come when you will thank me for having defended you -against yourself, for having defended us--dare I say it?--But not -effectively, for I could not prevent your saying words which are -destined to break off forever, for a long time at all events, relations -so pleasant as ours.--So pleasant!" she repeated. And then, with -something very like a sob: "Oh! why, why did you speak so to me again?" - -"Because I love you," he replied, almost fiercely. "And you! But if you -loved me, you would bless them, these differences between our -environments, instead of fearing them! You would see in the hostility of -my circle--I admit that I had not thought of it!--a means of having me -entirely to yourself. I should have heard you simply discuss the matter -and hesitate. But the coldness of your reply, this keen analysis of our -respective social positions, this balance-sheet of our families spread -out before me, calmly, coldly, mathematically, when I had come here, mad -with emotion, and thinking only of the life of the heart!--I am more -deeply hurt by that than by your refusal. I might have discussed it and -argued against your reasons. One does not discuss, one does not combat -indifference. One submits to it, and it is horrible!" - -"How unjust you are, Landri!" she exclaimed. It very rarely happened -that she addressed him so, by his first name. That caress of language, -the only kind that she had ever bestowed on him, and that so seldom, -came to her lips in face of the young man's evident despair. A woman who -loves can endure everything, conceal everything, except the compassion -aroused by a sorrow which she has inflicted upon the man she loves; and, -destroying, by that involuntary outburst of her passion, the whole -effect of her previous refusal, she added: "I! indifferent to you! Why, -of whom was I thinking when I spoke, if not of you, solely and only of -you, of your future and your happiness?" - -"How happy I should be," he interrupted, "if, on the other hand, you -would think only of yourself, if you would have the selfishness of love, -its exigences, its unreasonableness! And yet," he continued with the -asperity of a passion which feels that it is reciprocated, despite all -manner of resistance, and which is exasperated by that assurance, "it is -true. You have some feeling for me in your heart. You are not a -coquette. You would not make sport of a man who has shown you so plainly -that he loves you, and how dearly! I said just now that you didn't love -me. At certain times I believe it, and it tortures me. At other times I -feel that you are so moved, so trembling--see, now!--Oh! by everything -on earth that you hold sacred, Valentine,"--he had never before allowed -himself that familiarity, which made her start like a kiss,--"if you -really regard me with the feeling that I have for you, if my long -fidelity has touched you, answer me. Is it true, really true, that -between me and my happiness,--for you are my happiness, only you, I tell -you,--between your heart and my heart there is nothing but that single, -wretched obstacle, my name?" - -"There is nothing else," she replied, "I swear." - -"And you expect me to bow before that, to give you up because I am -called Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp and you Madame Olier, and because my -social circle will frown upon the marriage!" - -"It is not I who expect it," she replied, "it is life!" - -"Life?" he repeated in a voice that had suddenly become dull and harsh; -"what do you mean by that? But what need have I to ask you? As if, ever -since my youth, I had not seen that same barrier always standing in the -path of all my impulses: my name, always my name, again my name! I shall -end by cursing it! I am a _grand seigneur_, you say. Say rather a -pariah, before whom so many avenues were closed, when he was twenty -years old, because he is called by that great name; and the woman he -loves won't have him because of it! Ah! how truly I shall have known and -lived the tragedy of the noble,--since my evil fate decrees that I am a -noble,--that paralysis of the youthful being, quivering with life, -hungry for action, because of a past which was not his own, suffocation -by prejudices which he does not even share.--Valentine, say that you do -not love me. I shall be terribly unhappy, but I shall not feel what I -felt just now, and with such violence,--a fresh outbreak of that old -revolt through which I have suffered so keenly, which I have always -fought within myself, and which goes so far, at times, as downright -hatred of my caste. Yes, I have been, I am now sometimes, very near -hating it, and that is so painful to me, for I belong to that caste, in -spite of everything. It holds me a prisoner. I know its good qualities. -I have its pride at certain moments, and at others, this one for -instance, it is a perfect horror to me!" - -"Do not speak so, do not feel so," pleaded Madame Olier. "You frighten -me when I see you so unjust, not only to me,--I have forgiven you,--but -to your own destiny. It is tempting God. You speak of barriers, of -prison, of suffocation. For my part, I think of all the privileges you -received at your birth, and first of all, and greatest of all, that of -being so easily an example to others. If you could have heard the -remarks that were made about you when you came to Saint-Mihiel, you -would appreciate more justly the value of that name which you all but -blasphemed just now--and for what reason? I heard those remarks, and I -am still proud for you. 'He's the Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp, and he -works! He'll have three hundred thousand francs a year and he passed his -examinations brilliantly! He's a good fellow. He treats people well. He -has all the qualities of a leader of men.'--You call nobles pariahs, -because they arouse much envy. But when they are worthy of their rank, -what influence they can exert! And all this is no longer of any account, -because you can't bend to your will the will of a poor woman, who, in -ten years, will be _passée_! And you will say of her then, if you -recognize her: 'Where were my wits when I thought that I loved her so -dearly?'" - -"And if, ten years hence,--I still love her," said the young man, "and -if I have employed those ten years in regretting her! Suppose it should -happen that that woman's refusal were coincident with one of those -crises as a result of which one's whole life is transformed? Suppose I -had reached one of those times when a man has to make a decision of -tragical importance to himself, and when he needs to know upon what -support he can count?" - -He seemed to hesitate, and then continued in the altered tone of one -who, having just abandoned himself to the tumult of his emotions, puts -constraint upon himself and resolves to confine himself to a formal -statement of facts: "You will understand me in a moment. I came here -with the idea of beginning with this. Your presence moved me too deeply! -I have told you that I was able to obtain only a very short leave of -absence, forty-eight hours, and that with difficulty. Our new colonel -does not agree with you about nobles. He is strict and harsh with them. -He made this remark about me the other day, because of my title and my -'de': 'I don't like names with currents of air.' Under the circumstances -he was not wrong in requiring me to return to-morrow night. Within a few -days, we know from official sources, there will be two church -inventories made in the district. And they anticipate resistance." - -"Is it possible?" cried Valentine, clasping her hands. "Since the law of -separation was passed, I have never read about a scene like those at -Paramé and Saint-Servan without trembling lest you should be caught in -one of those cases of conscience of which so many gallant officers have -been the victims! I thought that at Saint-Mihiel everything had passed -off quietly and that the troops had not had to interfere. Besides, they -so rarely use in that business the arm of the service to which you -belong." - -"They will use it this time," Landri replied; "we have been warned. It -is logical. Either the chasseurs or we will have to serve. Those two -regiments contain a considerable number of people who bear names 'with -currents of air,' one of whom is that same Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp, -who 'works,' who 'treats people well,' who 'has all the qualities of a -leader of men.' It is an excellent opportunity to break his ribs and -those of some others of his sort! The pretext is all ready: the two -churches to be inventoried are those of Hugueville-en-Plaine, and the -Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Montmartin. In the former there is an old -priest, revered for fifty leagues around, who has declared from the -pulpit that he will not yield except to force. You know the devotion of -the department to the Madonna of Montmartin. It is essential to act -quickly, very quickly, so that the peasants may not have time to -collect. Hugueville and Montmartin are a long way from Saint-Mihiel. The -cavalry is already selected. If the dragoons march, as my term of duty -comes at the end of the week, I have an excellent chance of being in the -affair." - -"My poor, poor friend!" said the young woman, enveloping the officer in -a glance eloquent with the affection which she had sworn so often to -conceal from him; "so you, too, are going to be forced to leave the -army, of which you are so fond, and in which so fine a place is in store -for you--" - -"I shall not leave it," he interrupted; and his face was, as it were, -frozen in an expression so stern that Valentine was amazed by it. - -"What do you mean?" she asked. - -"That I have questioned myself closely, and have not found in my -conscience what my comrades of whom you speak have found in theirs. They -were believers, and I--you know too well that I have doubts which I do -not parade. I shall have to execute certain orders with repugnance. But -repugnance is not scruple. I shall go ahead. I shall not leave the -army." - -"Even if it is necessary to order your men to break down the door of a -church?" - -"I shall give them that order." - -"You!" she cried. "You--" - -"Finish your sentence," he rejoined with a still more gloomy expression. -"'You, a Claviers-Grandchamp!' You dare not say the word. You think it, -you have it on the end of your lips. In another than myself, you would -consider it perfectly natural--you above all, who know our -profession--that he should execute, in my frame of mind, a military -order, and that he should see, in the taking possession of the church of -Hugueville or Montmartin, simply a matter of duty to be done. In me you -do not admit it. Why? Again, because of my name! And you are surprised -that I break out in explosions like that of a moment ago against -a servitude of which I alone know the weight!--Oh, well!" he -continued, with increasing wrath, "it is precisely because I am a -Claviers-Grandchamp that I don't propose to leave the army. I propose to -do my duty. You hear, _to do my duty_, not to be a useless idler, a rich -man with a most authentic coat-of-arms on his carriages. I do not -propose, for the purpose of handing down an example for which I am not -responsible, to undo the work of my whole youth, to become an 'Émigré' -within the country, like so many of my kinsmen, so many of my -friends,--like my father!" - -"You are not going to deny him, him too!" she implored. "You loved him, -you admired him so much!" - -"I love him and admire him still," replied the young man in a tone of -the utmost earnestness; "yes, I admire him. No one knows better than I -his great qualities and what he might have been. What a soldier! He -proved it during the war. What a diplomatist! What an administrator! -What a Councillor of State! And he is nothing. Nothing, nothing, -nothing! Why, it is the whole tragedy of my thoughts, the evidence of my -father's magnificent gifts, paralyzed by his name, solely by his name! -Since I have become observant, I have seen that he, intelligent, -generous, straightforward as he is, makes no use of his energies, takes -part in none of the activities of his time. And yet there is a -contemporaneous France. He is in it, but not of it. It will have none of -him, who will have none of it. He will have passed his youth, his -maturity, his old age, in what? In taking part in a pompous parade of -the _ancien régime_, what with his receptions at Paris and Grandchamp, -his stag-hunting, and the playing the patron to an enormous and utterly -unprofitable clientage, of low and high estate, who live on his luxury -or his income. I felt the worthlessness of all that too soon; he will -never feel it. He is deceived by a mirage. He is close to a time when -the nobility was still an aristocracy. My grandfather was twenty-six -years old in 1827, when he succeeded to my great-grandfather's peerage, -and my great-grandfather was colonel of the dragoons of Claviers before -'89. For there were dragoons of Claviers-Grandchamp as there were of -Custine and Jarnac, Belzunce and Lanan. They are far away. But in my -father's eyes all those things so entirely uprooted and done away with -are still realities. He is in touch with them. He has known those who -saw them. As a little boy he played on the knees of old ladies who had -been at court at Versailles. One would say that that past fascinates him -more and more as it recedes. To me it is death, and I desired to live. -That was the motive that led me to enter the army. Indeed, I had no -choice. All other careers were closed to the future Marquis de -Claviers-Grandchamp.--These are the privileges you spoke of just now. I -let you have your say.--Yes, closed. Foreign affairs? Closed. My father -would have been welcomed by the Empire at least. To-day they no longer -want us. The Council of State? Closed. The government? Closed. Can you -imagine a nobleman as a prefect? They were under Napoleon and the -Restoration. The liberal professions? Closed. Though a noble had the -genius of a Trosseau, a Berryer, or a Séguin, no one would have him to -treat a cold in the head, to try a case about a division fence, or to -build a foot-bridge. Commerce? Closed. Manufacturing? Closed, or -practically so. To succeed in it we nobles must have a superior talent -of which I, for my part, have never been conscious. Politics? That is -like all the rest. People blame nobles for not taking up a profession! -They forget that they are excluded from almost all, and the others are -made ten times more difficult by their birth. And you would have me not -call them pariahs! I say again, I resolved not to be one. The army was -left. I prepared at Saint-Cyr, not without a struggle. There at least I -knew the pleasure of not being a creature apart, of feeling that I was a -Frenchman like the others, of not being exiled from my time, from my -generation, from my fatherland; the delight of the uniform, of touching -elbows with comrades, of obeying my superiors and of commanding my -inferiors. That uniform no one shall tear from me except with my life. -In losing it I should lose all my reasons for living.--All, no, since I -love you. I wanted to speak to you to-day to learn whether I shall keep -you in the trial that is in store for me. It will have its painful -sides!--Now that you know what the crisis is that I am on the point of -passing through," he added, "will you still answer no as you did a -moment ago? I have no pride and I ask you again, will you be my wife? -Not the wife of the Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp, whose father and whose -environment you dread, but of a soldier with whom that environment will -have no more to do, whom his father will have spurned? If I should ever -have superintended the taking of a church inventory, it will arouse in -the mothers another sort of indignation than for a mésalliance, as you -call it, and as I do not call it. If I have you, the wound will bleed, -doubtless, but I shall have you. You and my profession, my profession -and you, those are enough to make me very strong." - -"You have disturbed me too profoundly," said Valentine. "I no longer -know anything. I do not see clear within myself. I have felt your -suffering too keenly. Mon Dieu! when I received your letter, I did guess -what you wanted to speak to me about. I did not guess everything. I had -taken a resolution. I believed that I was sure of keeping to it. In the -face of your trouble I can not.--Listen. Be generous Do not urge me any -further. Give me credit for the answer that you ask. I told you just now -that I could not receive you any more after this. I have no pride, -either. I withdraw that also. As you will pass through Paris again -to-morrow, returning to Saint-Mihiel, come again to see me. I shall have -reflected meanwhile. I shall be in a condition to answer otherwise than -under the impulse of an emotion which discomposes me. Oh! why, in all -the talks we have had together in these last three years, have you never -told me so much about all these intimate details of your life? I would -have helped you--I would have tried, at all events." - -"That is another of the misfortunes of the noble," Landri replied. -"There is one subject that he can never broach first, the precise -subject of his nobility. But calm yourself, I implore you, as I do -myself. See. It is enough that you do not repeat the 'never' of a few -moments ago, for me to recover my self-control. I will be here -to-morrow, and if you still cannot answer me, I will wait. I have seen -that you pity me, understand me. That is one piece of good fortune which -wipes out many disappointments! Am I as you would have me? Do I speak to -you as you wish?" - -"Yes," she replied, more touched than she chose now to betray, by this -sudden softening, this return of submissive affection after his bursts -of passion. "But," she insinuated, "if you were really as I would have -you, you would let me give you some advice." - -"What is it?" he inquired anxiously. - -"To confide in your father. Yes, to talk with him of your plans,--of me -if you think best,--but first of all, and at any cost, of your -apprehension on the subject of these impending inventories. You owe it -to him," she insisted at a gesture from the young man. "I say nothing of -the bond that binds together the members of the same family, in order -not to return to that question of the name, although bourgeois and -nobles are equal when the common honor is involved. You owe it to him -from respect for his noble heart. He loves you. A determination so -opposed to his wishes is likely to cause him very deep sorrow. He must -not learn it first from another than you, so that he may not misconstrue -your motives. You must tell him what they are, and even if he blames -them, at all events he will know that you deserve his esteem. I know it -well, I who am a believer, and to whom that proceeding will be so -grievous if you carry it out. Ah! how earnestly I will pray God to spare -us, your father and me, that trial! But you must speak to Monsieur de -Claviers. You realize yourself that you must, don't you?"' - -"I will try," replied the young man, whose eyes once more expressed -genuine distress. "You do not know him, and what an imposing effect he -has, even on me. I ought to say, especially on me, since I can read his -heart so well. But you are right, and I will obey you." - -"Thanks," she said, rising. "And now think that you must not prepare him -to receive in bad part what you have to say, by displeasing him. Since -he was urgent that you should come to Grandchamp for this hunt, you must -go. You must do it for my sake, too, for I need a little rest and -solitude. Besides you still have to lunch, and it is quarter to -twelve."--The clock of a near-by convent struck three strokes, whose -tinkling cadence reached the little parlor over the trees of the garden. -The clock on the mantel-piece also emitted three shrill notes.--"You -have just time." - -"With the automobile I shall be at Grandchamp in an hour and a half," he -replied. "But I mean to continue to be obedient, as obedient as I have -been rebellious." He had taken the young woman's hand and he pressed it -to his lips as he added: "I forgot. I have to stop on Rue de Solferino -to inquire for a friend of my father who is very ill. It won't take very -long." - -Valentine Olier withdrew her fingers with such a nervous movement that -Landri could not help exclaiming:-- - -"Why, what's the matter?" - -"Nothing," said she. "Rue de Solferino? Then it's Monsieur Jaubourg, -this sick friend? it is to Monsieur Jaubourg's that you are going?" - -"Yes. How do you know his name?" And then, answering his own question, -"To be sure, I have been to his house several times on leaving you. I -have talked about him to you, and rather unkindly. I am sorry now. He -has never shown much liking for me, and when I wanted to enter -Saint-Cyr, he did much to excite my father against me. I bore him a -grudge for it. But that was long ago, and he is mixed up in so many -memories of my childhood! The news of his illness touched me. According -to my father's despatch which I found at the house, asking me to go to -see him, he is dying." - -"He is dying!" she echoed. "Mon Dieu! I hope you will not be admitted. -In your present state of wounded sensibility, that visit will be too -trying, and it's of no use. Promise me that you won't try to see him!" - -"Dear, dear friend!" exclaimed Landri, bestowing a second kiss on -Valentine's clenched hand, "I tell you again that you do not know how -completely you have restored my tranquillity, nor how brave I should be -at this moment before the worst trials. And this visit would not be a -trial to me. But I will manage to do what you wish, even in so -unimportant a matter. I shall deserve no credit for it. I prefer not to -place any too painful image between what I feel here"--he pointed to his -heart--"and my return--to-morrow. How far away it is, and yet so near!" - -"Until to-morrow, then," she rejoined with a half smile, as to which he -could not divine that it was forced. "Come at two o'clock as usual,--and -now, adieu." - -"Adieu!" he said. Instinctively he drew near to her. In his eyes blazed -a gleam of passion instantly subdued by her eyes. He repeated "Adieu!" -in a voice stifled by the effort he made to control himself and not to -give way to his ardent longing to cover with kisses that fair hair, that -pure brow, that quivering mouth. - -He rushed from the salon. She listened to the young man's step as he -passed through the adjoining room, then through the reception-room and -the street door, which opened and closed. When he had gone from the -house, and doubtless from the street, a long while, she was still on the -same spot and in the same attitude, steadfastly contemplating her -thoughts. What she saw was not the refined and soldierly profile of the -young man whom she loved, who loved her, and whose wife she _knew_ now -that she would be. No, she saw herself at Saint-Mihiel, a very long time -before. She fancied that she was living through that hour again. Landri -had just joined the regiment. Valentine had a friend, one Madame Privat, -the wife of one of the officers of the garrison. On several occasions -she had fancied that that friend was extraordinarily cold to the -newcomer. Inconsiderately enough she had asked her--she could hear -herself putting the question: "Monsieur de Claviers-Grandchamp seems so -antipathetic to you. Why is it?" And she could hear Marguerite Privat -reply:-- - -"I admit it, but it's an old, a very old story. We have a distant -cousin, a Monsieur Jaubourg, of whom we used to see a great deal. I say -we; I should say my parents. They had a little plan for having him marry -one of my aunts. Suddenly the relations between us lost their warmth. -The marriage didn't take place. This coldness dates from the day that he -became intimate with the Claviers. He had, at all events my parents -thought so, a passion for Madame de Claviers. They even believed that -there was a liaison. In families many things are known that the public -doesn't understand. He seemed to avoid us. My parents did not seek a -reconciliation which would have seemed to be based on self-interest. -Monsieur Jaubourg is the son of a broker and very rich. I witnessed my -father's grief from this rupture, which was the cause of a very unhappy -union contracted by my aunt out of spite. I have always blamed Madame de -Claviers for it, perhaps unjustly. The sight of her son stirs those -memories and is painful to me." - -Yes, that was long, long ago, and lo! Madame Olier found anew in her -heart the melancholy sensation with which Madame Privat's words had -suddenly oppressed her. Must it be that she loved Landri even then, -unconsciously? The truth of that confidence was guaranteed both by the -character of her who made it and by the chance that led to it. But -perhaps it was all a matter of chance. So that Madame Olier did not -believe in it altogether. However, she had retained an ineradicable -doubt. How often she had wondered whether the young man's mother had -really made a misstep, and whether he was in danger of ever hearing of -it! She had had a little shiver every time that he had mentioned the -name of Jaubourg, by chance, in their conversations; and deeply stirred -as she was, all those complex and confused sensations had suddenly -reawakened when he had spoken of his proposed visit to Rue de Solferino. -She had fancied him at the bedside of a sick man who, in his last -moments, would perhaps let a terrible secret escape his lips! Her -apprehension had been so great that an impulsive entreaty had followed, -most imprudent if the relations between Jaubourg and the late Marquise -de Claviers-Grandchamp had really been culpable! - -"I am mad," she said, rousing herself from the sort of waking dream, -which had reproduced with the detail of an hallucination that brief -scene, her apartment at Saint-Mihiel, Madame Privat's face, her voice, -her very words. "If Monsieur Jaubourg had been Madame de Claviers' -lover, he would not have continued to be Monsieur de Claviers' friend -after her death. If only my movement and my exclamation did not arouse -suspicion in Landri's mind! I should never forgive myself. No. He is so -honest, so straightforward. He has too noble a heart to imagine in -others the evil that it would be a horror to him to commit. If he will -only speak to his father about that possibility of an expedition against -a church! He promised. He will speak to him. His father will prevent him -from following out that shocking purpose. For my part, I cannot. I love -him too well. Mon Dieu! how I love him! how I love him! I defended -myself too long. Ah! I feel that I am all his, now!" - -And as, at that moment, she heard laughter through the partition, -announcing little Ludovic's return, she opened the door to call her -child, and, pressing him to her heart, she embraced him frantically, to -prove to herself that this love to which she was on the point of -abandoning herself, by promising to become the wife of a second husband, -would take nothing from the son of the first; and she said to him:-- - -"You know that your mother loves you, you know it, tell me that you know -it." - - - - -II - -A GRAND SEIGNEUR - - -Madame Olier's prevision was just: that little unthinking gesture, as of -a hand extended to prevent a fall, was destined to be one of the signs -which should arouse in Landri the most painful of ideas, but not until -later. That youthful heart--Valentine had read it accurately in this -respect, as well--was too noble not to entertain an instinctive -repugnance for suspicion, that calumny of the mind. How could he have -made an exception in his mother's case? He had never ascribed a criminal -motive, even for a second, nor imagined that any one could ascribe such -a motive to the assiduities of one of the intimate friends of their -family. The tears that he had shed on Madame de Claviers-Grandchamp's -death had been the loving, sincere tears of a son, with no alloy in his -veneration. And so, while he returned from Rue Monsieur to Place -Saint-François, to get his automobile, no suspicion entered his mind. -The imprudent entreaty that his friend had addressed to him not to see -the invalid on Rue de Solferino was only a proof of an affection a -little too easily disturbed, and he was the more touched by it. - -"How I love her!" he exclaimed, echoing, and conscious of it, the -passionate sigh which she, on her side, was breathing toward him. "And -she loves me, too. She fights against it still, but I understood it, I -saw it, I know it. I know that she will be my wife.--My wife!" he -repeated, with an intimate quiver of his whole being which made him -close his eyes. Suddenly Valentine's image brought before his eyes that -of his father, and the memory of the undertaking he had entered into -abruptly crushed that outburst of joy. "She is right," he said to -himself, without transition, mentally repeating the very words that she -had used. "I owe it to him to speak both of her and of all the rest. I -owe it to him from respect for his noble heart. I will do it." - -The bare thought of that explanation oppressed the young man with an -agony of timidity. He had always suffered from it in the presence of -that man whose name he bore, whose heir he was, whom he loved, and by -whom he was loved, and he had never been able to open his heart to him -fully, to explain himself concerning his inmost thoughts. His character, -which was very manly in respect to important decisions, but extremely -sensitive, and consequently easily disconcerted in its outward -manifestations, had always been taken by surprise as it were by that of -the marquis, so unhesitating, so dominating, so impervious to argument. -His resistance to this moral despotism was not altogether conscious. It -was that which incited him in his constant effort not to be an -"émigré," as he said, to make himself useful, to belong to his own -time, "to do his duty"--another of his phrases. We must repeat it. There -are none more just. Many another young man of his class has felt, as he -did, that magnanimous and praiseworthy appetite for efficient and -beneficent action. Many have, like him, tried to rebel against the -ostracism which France, the offspring of the Revolution, practises, by -her customs as well as by her laws, against the old families. They have, -like him, stumbled over obstacles. They have rarely felt them, as he -did, as tragedies. This excessive and morbid view of his destiny -betrayed in Landri a lack of equilibrium, of certainty. In truth, if, in -certain directions, his ideas were absolutely opposed to those of his -father, in others he underwent a veritable hypnotism at the hands of -that powerful personality, and he was very near the point of doubting -himself before an irreconcilability which he had not dared really to -face but once, when it was a question of entering Saint-Cyr. His mind -had been developed by reading, observation, reflection, all solitary, -constantly held in check by the loud speech, the imperious intelligence, -the steadfast and logical convictions, in a word, the decision, of the -marquis. Landri, too, had decision, but by fits and starts, and when he -had provided himself with very well-considered reasons therefor. His -father had it always, gaily, buoyantly, as he walked, as he breathed, by -an unfolding of his inward energy, if one may say so, which was as -natural in him as the muscular development is in a lion. The prestige of -that opulent and powerful nature maintained so complete a domination -over the temperament, more refined perhaps, but less masterful, of his -son, that he had been on the point of equivocating when Valentine asked -him for that promise. He had given it, however. His lover's pride would -have been too deeply humiliated to confess a weakness of which he was -now sensible once more. - -"Yes," he repeated, "I must speak to him--but how? Of her? That will be -very difficult, but let him once see her and my cause will be won. She -is so refined, so pretty, such a lady!--Of the inventories? It is -impossible. She understood me at once, devout as she is. Their religion -is not the same. To her the Church is the faith. Those who haven't it -are simply to be pitied. To him the Church is like the monarchy, like -the nobility, the essential condition of public order. It is the -hierarchy that guarantees all the others. What answer can I make? I -should think as he does if our time were not our time." - -Soliloquizing thus he reached the side of the Church of -Saint-François-Xavier, at the spot where he had left his automobile. -His chauffeur, when he did not return, had left his car in the care of -one of the numerous idlers who transform that isolated square into a -club of bicyclists and tennis-players, and had gone to refresh himself -at one of the wine-shops in the neighborhood. - -"Deuce take it!" said the young man ill-humoredly, "Auguste isn't here! -I shall never get to Grandchamp. I sha'n't have any lunch, that's all," -he concluded. "But how is the machine?" and while the small boy who had -been left in charge of the vehicle ran off to fetch the conscienceless -chauffeur, he began to examine the different parts of the machine with a -connoisseur's eye. That too was one of the small points upon which he -had based his self-esteem as a "modernist." He understood how to repair -and handle his automobile as well as a professional. "Everything is in -order," he said. "I will drive myself. We shall go faster, and I shall -not irritate my nerves by thinking." He began therefore to put on the -cloak and cap and goggles and gloves of the profession, and Auguste had -no sooner joined him, than he started his heavy machine with as much -precision as if he had not borne the name of Landri, which denoted in -the family of Claviers-Grandchamp pretensions more or less -justified--but they date back to the twelfth century--of descending from -the kings of the first race. And this car of the latest model bore on -its panels the curious arms which, with the device, _E tenebris -inclarescent_, symbolize that legendary origin: three frogs _or_ on a -field _sable_. These were, according to some authorities in heraldry, -the arms of our first kings. Géliot waxed wroth over it long ago, in -his "Vraye et parfaite science des armoiries."[1] He saw therein only -three roughly executed fleurs-de-lys. He would have enjoyed maintaining -that opinion before the choleric marquis. "And to think," reflected the -heir of the pseudo-Merovingian, "that it took years to make my father -admit the mere idea of the telephone, of electricity and the automobile! -But at last we have one, and of an excellent make. I shall be there -before the hunt is over." - -He had, in obedience to a childish whim in which all young men will -recognize themselves, instead of driving straight along the boulevard, -the Esplanade and the quay, taken Rue de Babylone, in order to pass Rue -Monsieur. He longed to see once more the outside of the little -hôtel of the time of Louis XVI. Valentine became once more so present -to his mind that he was absorbed anew in that inward vision -when he reached the house in which Jaubourg lived. Lovers, even the most -affectionate,--especially the most affectionate,--are almost savagely -insensible to what does not concern, either nearly or distantly, the -object of their passion. He had no need to remember his promise, in -order to avoid trying to see the invalid. - -"There should be a bulletin in the concierge's lodge," he said to -Auguste; "get down, copy it, leave my name and come back quickly. We -haven't five minutes to waste." - -The chauffeur jumped down from his seat, with the reckless haste of a -servant who seeks to earn forgiveness for a fault. He disappeared like a -gust of wind behind the door of the enormous porte-cochère which -imparted a seignorial aspect to the abode of the unique personality, -untitled, but of the most unexceptional elegance, that Charles Jaubourg -had been. In order that his name should have been so much as mentioned -in connection with Madame de Claviers-Grandchamp, it must have been that -he, who came of such a widely different social caste, had been able to -win for himself an exceptional position in society. Of that supremely -refined man, of the great bourgeois, who had become, by dint of -adaptability of manners, and, in due time, of wit, a notable member of -Society, there remained only a poor tattered remnant, an old man at the -point of death with pneumonia, behind those high windows. The straw -spread upon the pavement to deaden the noise of passing vehicles -attested the gravity of a condition of which Landri had a more decisive -proof. His messenger reappeared, holding in his hand a paper on which -was written this laconic and ill-boding bulletin: "A very bad night. -Condition stationary.--Professor Louvet, Dr. Pierre Chaffin." - -The officer read these words in an undertone; and with an indifference -which, under the circumstances, was of an irony no less unintentional -than cruel, he folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket, saying: -"All right. Let's be off!" - -"The concierge told me to tell Monsieur le Comte," interposed the -chauffeur, "that Monsieur Jaubourg had given special orders to send -Monsieur le Comte up to him when he came." - -"Me?" exclaimed the young man, with unfeigned surprise and vexation. -There was a gleam of hesitation in his eyes, and he started to get down. -"But no, I really haven't time!" And with this exclamation, the irony of -which was even more cruel, he started the automobile once more. It had -already crossed the Seine, turned into Rue des Tuileries, passed the -Opéra, the Gare du Nord, the barrier, and Saint-Denis, and entered upon -the road through the forest of Hez, beyond which is the château of -Grandchamp, before the mind of Madame de Claviers' son had even begun to -detect behind that second little sign the mystery which was destined, a -few hours later, to revolutionize his career forever. - -"Jaubourg dying and wanting to see me? Why, when he has never in his -whole life shown anything but antipathy to me? It's easily explained. My -father had told him I would call. Really, I ought to have gone up. But -what more should I have had to take to Grandchamp than this bulletin? -And then, Chaffin is there. He must have been sent by my father, and -he'll keep him posted." - -Pierre Chaffin was the son of Landri's former tutor, become, under the -more distinguished title of secretary, the marquis's steward and man of -business. The younger man, formerly intern at a hospital, and very -eminent in his profession, was now the head of the clinical staff of -Louvet, who had been the Claviers-Grandchamps' physician from time -immemorial. - -"Besides," continued the lover, "I promised"; and his mouth, which was -open to inhale the cool breeze caused by their speed, closed as if to -place, despite the distance, a last kiss on his friend's burning hands. -That recollection sent the blood coursing more hotly through his veins, -and the automobile flew the faster through the wild flight of the -houses, already beplumed with smoke, of the autumn crops, of the misty -fields, of that whole landscape, which ordinarily was to Landri the -source of reflections rather than of sensations. How many times, on his -way to Grandchamp, had he noticed that multiplicity of small estates, -which checker the land, isolate the châteaux, surround them, as if -determined to conquer them! A symbol of the upward progress of the lower -classes. To-day he saw nothing save space to be devoured, at the end of -which he would stand face to face with his father and his promise. He -had chosen to drive, in order not to think; and, despite himself, he -formed and unformed in his mind the plan of that interview, while he -drove on, leaving behind him, one after another, Saint-Denis and its -basilica, Groslay and its moss-covered roofs, the forest of l'Isle-Adam -and its white quarries, Beaumont and the long blue ribbon of the Oise, -the charming nosegay of Cahet, the wood of Saint-Vaast, Cires-lès-Mello -and its mills, Balagny, and peaceful Thérain, Mouny and its graceful -gables. - -"Thirty-three minutes past one," said the chauffeur, looking at his -watch, when the first houses of Thury appeared at the end of the road, -and the oaks of the forest of Hez. "That is travelling! And Monsieur le -Comte never drove better." - -"Now all we have to do is find the hunt," Landri replied. "It hasn't -been a bad run, that's a fact. Take the wheel now, Auguste, please. I am -going to search the avenues with my glass. Let's go toward La Neuville, -and drive slowly, so as not to lose any sound." - -The forest, over whose gravel roads they were now driving, told no less -clearly than the fields the story of the parcelling out of old France. -It formerly joined the forests of Compiègne and of Carnelle, and the -whole formed, between the Seine and the Oise, a vast region teeming with -game, of which only fragments remain. This of Hez occupies a plateau, of -a slightly irregular surface, which the automobile traversed at a very -slow pace. There were constant halts, to ask information of some -passer-by, to investigate with the glass the interstices in the hedges, -and above all to listen for the baying of the hounds. Several times -Landri had thought that he detected a "Vue!" or a "Bien allé." Suddenly -he put his hand on the chauffeur's arm. He heard distinctly a blast of -the horn. - -"Why, that's a _hallali_!" he exclaimed. "So soon?--Yes.--And it's not -far away. To the left, and a little speed. There we are. I see the hunt. -Stop a moment while I look! Oh! what a beautiful sight!" - -A sharp turn of the road had disclosed a depression in the ground. At -the end of the avenue appeared one of the infrequent clearings of that -dense forest. In a frame formed to perfection by the horn-beams and -beeches, which blended their rusty foliage with the pale gold of the -birches and the dark verdure of the firs, was being enacted the final -scene of that too short day. Victorias and automobiles were arriving at -the cross-roads. They drew up in line along one of the roads. In the -centre a considerable crowd had already gathered in a circle, composed -of country people come to assist at the finish, guests who had followed -the hunt in carriages, and hunters, whose costumes in the colors of the -hunt--Spanish snuff-color with blue lapels--heightened with a dash of -brilliancy that truly charming and picturesque little tableau. Here -grooms were covering with blankets the horses heated by the ardor of the -chase. Farther on servants were bringing baskets filled with provisions -for the lunch. The mellow autumn light bathed with its invigorating rays -those groups, over whose heads rang out blasts of the horn, blended with -the baying of the restless hounds; and each blast, by its few notes, -explained to Landri the movements which were taking place in the crowd, -and which he amused himself by following with his glass.--The horns blew -the _mort_. The dogs were led away from the game. The first huntsman cut -off the right fore-foot and handed it to the master of the hunt. The -horns blew the honors of the foot. The master presented the foot to one -of the ladies whose three-cornered hats could be seen beside the velvet -caps of the men. The horns blew the _mort_ anew. The baying of the pack -redoubled. From his post of observation Landri could distinguish quite -plainly all the details of the _curée_: the whipper-in, standing -astride the stag, waved the head, by the antlers, before the slavering -jaws, held in respect by the raised whip of the huntsman. Another blast. -The whips had fallen. The dogs had hurled themselves on the bleeding -mass of which already nothing remained. - -In the front rank of the spectators of this ancient and savage ceremony, -the young man had had no difficulty in making out his father's imposing -profile. In his costume of master of the hunt, completed according to -the old fashion by a three-cornered hat turned back with a copper -button, the Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp instantly justified, by his -aspect alone, the sobriquet of "Émigré" which his son often bestowed -upon him. He inevitably recalled the image of one of those sportsmen -represented in the charming paintings of the staircase at Fontainebleau, -or that exquisite picture at Versailles which depicts one of the -hunting-parties of the Prince de Conti in the neighborhood of -l'Isle-Adam. - -The marquis was a man of sixty-five, whose sturdy old age put to shame -the worn-out middle-aged men of to-day. He was very tall, very straight, -and was still slender, although powerfully built, with a handsome face, -high-colored, of which his snow-white hair intensified the ruddy hue. -His long, delicate, tapering nose, a little too near the epicurean and -clever mouth, gave to his profile a vague resemblance to that of -François I. He was conscious of it, and he emphasized the likeness by -the cut of his beard, which was snow-white, like his hair. His face did -not need that adventitious aid to make even the most ignorant say of him -when they first saw him: "He's a walking portrait." Everything in him -was eloquent of race, the prolonged existence of a family in the -constant enjoyment of energy, wealth, and domination. His whole person -was instinct with kindliness of nature, and yet there emanated from it -an indescribable atmosphere of dignity, and the self-assurance of one -who has always maintained his rank, not only through himself, but -through all his kindred. - -At this moment his eyes, deep-blue and piercing none the less, -expressed, as did his whole haughty countenance, the most complete and -heartfelt satisfaction. His lips laughed gaily and disclosed his large -white teeth, of which not one was missing. He had beside him two men of -his circle whom Landri knew very well, a M. de Bressieux and a M. de -Charlus. The latter, who was very small, almost puny, seemed a dwarf -beside the superb master of the hunt. His refined features also savored -of race, but of a meagre and worn-out type. He was only fifty-five, but -he was the older man. Bressieux, who was younger, was more comely of -aspect, and yet there was in his face a something which vitiated it, and -his cold arrogance contrasted no less strangely with the simple grand -manners of the marquis. - -At that short distance Landri was able to study the group in detail with -almost photographic accuracy, and he felt once more the sentiment of -which he had told Madame Olier, a heartfelt admiration for his father. -Monsieur de Claviers-Grandchamp realized in every respect the physically -and mentally superior type of aristocrat, of the best. He was built of a -more ample, richer human material. What a difference between his -generous, his magnificent way of carrying off his rank, and the -bickerings of Charlus about questions of precedence! That was the sole, -contemptible occupation of that most refined and upright man, who was -nevertheless hypnotized by trivial details concerning his nobility, -though it was of the most authentic! What a difference, too, between the -spontaneous geniality of Monsieur de Claviers and the obsequiousness of -a semi-sharper which Bressieux displayed beneath his assumption of -importance, in order to maintain the course of an ultra fashionable life -by doubtful expedients. Very well born and well connected, endowed -moreover with taste, education, shrewdness and much dexterity, he acted -as intermediary between people of his own station, who were straitened -in their circumstances, and the dealers in curios or wealthy collectors. -Upon what terms? No one had ever dreamed of asking the question of that -individual with the face of a gambler and duellist, ruined by cards and -women, but who had retained the most impeccable manners and the most -virile courage of his race. - -In Charlus and in Bressieux their caste was drawing near its end. In the -marquis, however, caste might be unemployed, but it was intact. To his -son he seemed so perfectly the _grand seigneur_ in his bearing even at -that moment, when the picturesque amusement of the day came to an end in -the most bourgeois of occupations: a cold luncheon eaten in the open -air! He went from one to another of his guests, from carriage to -carriage, assisted in that hospitable duty by a young woman in a riding -habit, who had followed the hunt on horseback, without taking part in -it. Landri recognized one of his partners at the infrequent balls which -he had attended during the last two winters. - -"Poor Marie de Charlus!" he muttered; "she hasn't grown beautiful!" And -he added, aloud, to his chauffeur: "I am going inside, and we will go -on. I have certainly earned my luncheon." - -The limousin began to descend the slope, while the young man removed the -mask, the cap, the gloves and the cloak in which he had arrayed himself. -If the marquis had arrived at that stage of concession at which he -recognized the existence of the automobile, he was still savagely -hostile to the hideous accessories which that style of locomotion -multiplies from day to day. This childlike precaution against the -possible ill humor of his father would have made Landri himself smile -under other circumstances. But the sight of Mademoiselle de Charlus had -suddenly rearoused his preoccupation, which had been somewhat allayed, -in spite of everything, by the fatigue and distractions of the journey. -He foresaw an additional reason for sparing the marquis's least -prejudices. The monomaniacal gentleman's daughter in no wise deserved -the contemptuous apostrophe with which he had saluted her. To be sure, -Marie de Charlus had not regular features. Her mouth was too large, her -nose too short, her forehead too protuberant, but her eyes saved all the -rest by their brilliancy, and, if she was not beautiful, she possessed -that charm of the "ugly-pretty girl" which so many men prefer to beauty. -Rather small, like her father, but of a very good figure, dancing and -riding with a grace at once bold and maidenly, she too had, in her -original physiognomy, that "portrait" aspect which is so frequent in -stationary classes. Those who are most impervious to the theory of -heredity must needs resort, in spite of themselves, in the face of this -fact, to the vulgarized, indefinite and indefinable, yet accurate term, -"atavism." - -Landri was more capable than most men of grasping the interesting -character of that young girl's face, closely resembling one of those -eighteenth-century faces of which La Tour has noted the intelligent -expression,--but he was in love with another woman, he had come to -Grandchamp with the purpose of disarming his father's hostility to a -marriage which he passionately desired, and already well-meaning persons -had spoken to him of Marie de Charlus more than once in a very -significant tone. Did not her presence at this hunt, after the marquis -had insisted so earnestly that he should attend it, accord with these -hints? Certain it is that she was the first to espy the young man, even -before the motor had stopped. A faint blush rose to her cheeks. She said -a word to the marquis. He turned. He saw his son descending from the -heavy vehicle, and at the wave of his hand over the surrounding heads, -Landri felt, as usual, the warm blood rush to his heart. This was -perhaps the strangest detail of their strange relations--never had the -son approached the father without an impulse of enthusiasm and -affection; and the next instant he recoiled, withdrew within himself. He -literally bore in his breast two hearts: one which felt a thrill of -emotion upon contact with that powerful vitality, another which was, as -it were, terrified and thrown into confusion by it. This time, however, -the second impulse did not follow at once. The young man, in his -anxiety, felt a too grateful surprise when he realized that there was no -trace of reproach in that greeting, although he arrived when the hunt -was over, after a downright objurgation to be prompt. He passed through -the line of carriages, exchanging hand-shakes, and salutations with the -hat. M. de Claviers' first words to him were accompanied by one of those -hearty laughs which always rang true--the old nobleman would not have -been the admirable and knightly person that he was, if his frankness had -not been absolute, in the most trivial no less than in the most -important circumstances. - -"Well, Landri, you won't boast again of the convenience of the -automobile! Your train arrived at Paris at nine o'clock, and now it's -two. Ah! the horse! the horse! The four good post-horses that made the -trip without a stop! However, here you are. It's a pity. You have missed -a fine run. It was hotter than the result would indicate. The attack was -sharp. But Tonnerre has an admirable scent for doublings. He did not -allow the dogs to make a mistake, and the stag was in sight almost all -the time. He was in the water only a few moments. The beast was winded -by the pace. We finished with a run of a kilometre. That's what your -trouble-machine has made you miss." - -"I'll make him change his mind about the automobile, Monsieur de -Claviers," said Mademoiselle de Charlus gaily, addressing Landri, "I -pledge myself to do it. On the next _circuit_ I am going to take him -with me, and we shall go a bit fast. He'll find that it's as amusing as -a fine run to hounds. I have sworn to make him _up-to-date_." - -She looked at the new arrival with a glance most desirous to please, as -she uttered that untranslatable Americanism, which, indeed, might well -have been her motto. Marie had that characteristic common to certain -women of her class, which is traceable to a reaction against the -monotonies of their environment: an unwillingness to go slow. While -Landri was a modernist, she prided herself on being ultra modern. "Not -in the train, in the express," she would say; "in all the expresses"; -which did not prevent her thinking about the substance of things exactly -as her father and the marquis did. By an unexpected contrariety the -young man disliked her and the "Émigré" liked her. Behind her poses -the marquis divined the immutable "one does not mix with the canaille -when one has a name like ours," of the pure-blooded aristocrat; and -then, too, she loved his son, and he knew it. Landri, for his part, -blamed the young woman for that defiant air, that radicalism which was -like a caricature of his own ideas. And above all, he guessed that she -loved him, and he loved Valentine! He replied neither to her glance nor -to her words, but said to the marquis:-- - -"I had no trouble, father. I was simply detained in Paris a little -longer than I expected." - -"Did you go to Jaubourg's?" asked M. de Claviers. "Did you see him?" - -"I didn't see him," Landri answered. He too was incapable of lying well. -It was his turn to blush as he added, evasively: "He is so ill! But I -have brought you the bulletin." - -"Give it to me," said M. de Claviers eagerly. He read the ominous lines -aloud. "Pierre Chaffin!" he repeated. "I am glad Chaffin's son is there. -His father must have sent him, on my account, because he knows how fond -I am of Jaubourg. He didn't tell me anything in order not to disturb me. -Good Chaffin! And good Jaubourg! I dined with him at the club last -Wednesday--not a week ago. He complained of lassitude and headache. I -said to him: 'You've taken a little cold. Don't worry about it. It's -nothing.' It was the first symptoms of pneumonia and perhaps he will die -of it!" - -"He'll have a fine sale," said Bressieux. He had the affectation of -speaking with the ends of his teeth, as if he nibbled at his words. "I -know of two Fragonards that he has, of the very choicest. Those that -were in the poor Duc de Fleury's collection, don't you remember, -Geoffroy?" This other Merovingian name was borne by the marquis, but few -persons were privileged to call him by it; Bressieux never lost an -opportunity. "He was a good buyer," he continued; "he had a deal of -taste." - -"And for a man who was not _born_," interposed Charlus, "he was -wonderfully well brought up. I knew of but one fault that he had: he was -not religious." - -"A man so _comme il faut_!" said Marie sarcastically; "it's surprising. -Never fear, papa, he won't have a civil burial. He won't inflict that on -you." As she was really kind-hearted, she was a little ashamed of having -scratched a dying man on the petty absurdities of his life, and she -added: "No matter, even if he was a bit of a 'snob', he was an excellent -man." - -"Excellent!" echoed the marquis; and with the simple benignity which had -always touched his son so deeply, he continued, with tears in his eyes: -"I have known him more than thirty years. He has been a perfect friend -to me. A friend, that is something not to be replaced at my age, nor at -any age! We are happy, breathing freely, going our ways; I see him -suffering, and--" He paused, then continued in a deep voice: "If he must -go, I wish I had bade him adieu." He paused again, and as the wonderful -vitality of his blood naturally inspired his brain with optimistic -thoughts, he said: "But we are in a great hurry to bury him, and the -bulletin does not suggest an aggravated case. Let us hope. I couldn't go -to Paris to-day, on account of the hunt. To-morrow we shall shoot a few -partridges. I will go day after to-morrow." - -Plainly he had felt a twinge of remorse because he was not at the -bedside of the friend he loved. He had yielded, he yielded again to the -hereditary passion which decreed that Louis XVI should hunt the stag -while the Jacobins were taking away his throne. And, shaking off his sad -thoughts definitively, he said to his son:-- - -"You must be tired, my boy. You must have something to eat."--And, to a -servant: "A plate.--Some foie gras? Here." He began to serve Landri -himself.--"The liver of my own birds, mademoiselle, and I am proud of -it!--A glass of champagne? I am hungry too."--He ate again.--"But it's a -healthy hunger, of the sort that your circuit in an automobile won't -give me, mademoiselle, no. A four hours' gallop in my forest, and I -breathe in life through every pore. These woods have been ours for three -hundred years. That's a long lease!--Ah! so you propose to make me -_up-to-date_! On the contrary I will make you 'old France.' You recited -some decadent verses to me just now. I am going to recite you some of -the sixteenth century. They're by Jacques Grévin, the physician of -Marguerite de France. It's a description of this very forest of ours:-- - - - "'Dedans ces bois et forests ombrageuses - Sont les sangliers et les biches peureuses, - Les marcassins, fans de biches et daims, - Les cerfs cornus, familiers aux silvains, - Bref, le plaisir et soulas et bonheur - Que peut avoir ès forests le veneur.'"[2] - - -He repeated these verses in a sympathetic tone which proved that he felt -their archaic charm, and that the sportsman had a nice taste for -letters. He needed not to borrow a pen to write the famous work on the -"History and Genealogy of the Family of Claviers-Grandchamp," a -chef-d'œuvre in its way, one of those "livres de raison" to be placed -on the same shelf with the eloquent "History of a Vivarois Family," -published that year by another heir of a very great name. Marie de -Charlus was too refined, even in her affected bad form, not to feel the -picturesqueness and pathos of that figure of an old nobleman, whose -originality, so vigorous to begin with, had emphasized its salience by -its reaction against a too hostile age. The force of the type he -represented measured the degree of his solitude. She replied, half -mischievously:-- - -"I used to call myself the emancipated _gratin_; if all of us were like -you, I think I should very soon call myself the repentant _gratin_." - -"What a memory!" said Charlus admiringly. "But my grandfather was always -talking to me about your grandfather's memory." - -"You'll give me those verses, won't you, Geoffroy?" besought Bressieux. -"I am sometimes asked for mottoes to be painted on panels in hunting -lodges." - -"I am the repentant _gratin_," rejoined the marquis. "Yes, for having -presumed to lecture the cleverest of Maries. My grandfather's memory? -Yes, I have always been told that I resembled him. There's nothing left -of the army of Condé, but for that!--You shall have the verses, Louis. -Although as to the mottoes on panels--Humph! when one has a motto one -keeps it. When one has none, one has none. But I must excuse myself, -mademoiselle, and you, my friends. I am obliged to leave you. The -carriages will take you home. I do not propose to inflict on you a long -détour that I have to make before I go home. Landri will come with me. -We will take the automobile, mademoiselle, and I will practise at the -_circuit_. _À tout l'heure_, at the château." He had taken his son's -arm and was leading him toward the motor, saluting on all sides, and -addressing this one and that. "You won't forget, Travers? I rely on you -for dinner this evening.--You dine at Grandchamp, Hautchemin. I will -send you home.--Férussac, you dine at Grandchamp with Madame de -Férussac, that's understood, isn't it? Eight o'clock. If you're late, -we'll wait for you." - -When they were seated in the motor, after telling the chauffeur the -direction to take, he said to Landri: "We shall be more than thirty at -table. I don't know just how many; fancy that! I ordered for forty, at a -venture. I like that sort of thing! It's almost the open house of old -times. What a generous and proud expression: open house! The men of -to-day talk about the social question. But our fathers had solved it. -What was a _grand seigneur_? A living syndicate, nothing else. Consider -how many people lived on him, how many live on us! To spend freely a -handsome fortune, from father to son, on the same estate, is to support -a whole district for many generations. When people prate of the luxury -of the nobles of the olden time, they always think of them as like -Cleopatra, drinking pearls, selfishly. But that luxury was a public -service! It was the fountain which monopolizes the water in order to -distribute it. The fountain was overturned, and the water is dribbling -away, turning to mud, and disappearing--that's the whole story!--Ah! -Auguste is going wrong!" And, seizing the megaphone, he shouted: "To the -left, to the left, and then the second avenue on the right. There are -three oaks in a clump and a Calvary."--And turning once more to his son: -"I know the forest, tree by tree, leaf by leaf, I have ridden through it -so often and on such good horses. Do you remember Toby, my gray Irish -horse, and how he jumped? We are going to Père Mauchaussée's." - -"Our old gardener?" inquired Landri. "What has become of him?" - -"He is what he always was. - - - "'Qu'ils sont doux, bouteille, ma mie, - Qu'ils sont doux, tes petits glouglous!' - - -But it's his son that I want to see. I made him second gardener when his -father retired, do you remember? He crushed his foot last week, not on -our land, but at his father's, cutting down a tree. The doctor thinks he -won't be able to work any more. He is in despair. Fancy, a wife and five -children! Chaffin wanted me to help him a little, and nothing more. 'We -don't come within the law relating to accidents to workmen,' he said. 'I -don't need their laws to tell me what my duty is,' I replied. 'He shall -be paid his wages in full, as long as he lives, like his father.'--I am -a socialist, you know, in the old way. It was different from the new way -in this, that the poor received the money of the rich directly, whereas -to-day the politicians keep it all. It's very _up-to-date_, as our young -friend Marie de Charlus says. What do you think of her? She is charming, -isn't she?" - -"Charming," Landri replied; "but I am surprised that she pleases you, -with such ideas as she has." - -"As she thinks she has," the marquis corrected him. "That will pass off. -It's the impulse of youth. What will not pass off, is the old stock. She -has it to the tips of her fingers and toes. Did you look at her? Ah! -she's a genuine Charlus, and signed! Do you know what I said to myself -when I saw her on horseback to-day?--And how beautifully she -rides!--That she would make the sweetest little Comtesse de -Claviers-Grandchamp.--And do you know this too? That it depends on you -alone? But it does. Tell me if it doesn't begin like a chapter in a -novel? A year ago she was twenty years old. She was sought in -marriage--by the little Duc de Lautrec, if you please. She refused. -Parents astounded. She was so young, they left her in peace. Six months -ago, another offer, from Prince de la Tour Enguerrand, the widower. -Another refusal. A month ago, Lautrec comes forward again. She refuses -again. Then follows an explanation with the mother. Who would have -thought that the 'emancipated _gratin_,' as she calls herself, that girl -who puts on so many twentieth-century airs, is still governed by -sentiment after the old style--the only style, on my word, that is -always good and always young! 'I will marry Monsieur de Claviers,' she -said, 'or I will die an old maid.'" - -"That is impossible," interposed the young man; "we just speak to each -other at a ball two or three times in a winter." - -"You are too modest, monsieur my son," rejoined the marquis. "It seems -that two or three times have sufficed.--In a word, stupefaction of the -mother; stupefaction of the father. They tell the story to Madame de -Bec-Crespin, their cousin, who tells it to her mother, Madame de Contay, -who tells it to Jaubourg, who tells it to me; and as such a -daughter-in-law would suit me marvellously, and as I have a horror of -beating about the bush, I invited them all three, mother, father and -daughter, and I sent for you. The mother sent her excuses. She's a -little put out; she won't see you. She knows you, plant and root, I -venture to say.--Ah! everything is there: wit, spirit, charm,--I don't -say great beauty, but what a figure, and what eyes! A hundred thousand -francs a year at this moment, of her own, if you please, left her by her -uncle Prosny. Later, three hundred thousand more. And such relations! No -more mésalliances in that family than in ours. One of those superb -trees that resemble a noble action continued for seven hundred years: -all the younger sons officers, bishops or knights of Malta; all the -unmarried daughters nuns, abbesses or prioresses; twenty of the name -killed in foreign wars. I have not often annoyed you with suggestions of -marriage, my boy. Your dear mother would have known so well how to -choose a wife for you! I waited a while for you to open your heart to -me. But you are approaching thirty. I am sixty-five. Your three brothers -are dead. I have no one but you to keep up the family. I should like not -to go away before I have put in the saddle a Geoffroy IX of -Claviers-Grandchamp. You are Landri X. We must look to it that the -Geoffroys overtake the Landris. Well! what do you say?" - -"I say, father," Landri replied, "that I came to Grandchamp to-day, -myself, with the purpose of speaking to you about a project of -marriage--a different one," he added. - -"With some one whom I know?" inquired the marquis. - -"No, father, a young woman of twenty-seven, the widow of one of my -fellow officers in the regiment, who has a child, and no fortune, or -very little. It's a far cry from the marriage-portion of Mademoiselle de -Charlus. But I love her passionately, and have for more than three -years." - -"Another chapter of a novel," said M. de Claviers, still without losing -his good-humour. "This does not displease me. I will not deny that I -have been just a little disgusted with you. I was afraid that you had -some wretched liaison in your life. You have a real love. That's a -different matter. I love to have people love, you see--love long and -dearly and faithfully. No fortune?" He repeated, "No fortune? My dear -boy, how I would like to be able to say to you: 'Don't let that disturb -you!'" A cloud had passed over his face, which was as transparent as the -blue sky of that waning afternoon, stretching above his beloved forest, -all turned to gold by the autumn.--"This is not the time to discuss that -question, which I have wanted to talk to you about for a long while. We -have many charges on the estate. If it still produced what it did once, -we could extricate ourselves more easily--and, perhaps, if I had known -better how to handle our interests. Consider that there have been two -generations over which this outrageous Civil Code has passed, with its -compulsory partitions, which are grinding France to powder. Of the -income of a million which your great-grandmother saved during the -Revolution by not emigrating, and demanding her pretended divorce, how -much have I had? Three hundred thousand francs a year, and, in addition, -all the burdens of the old days! I say again, this is not the time to -talk about it.--For three years?" he added, after a pause. "Who is it? -What is her name?" - -"Madame Olier," replied the young man. - -"Ah!" exclaimed the father, "and she was born--?" - -"Mademoiselle Barral." - -"Olier?--Barral?--Why, in that case, she is not a person of your own -rank? Answer me frankly, my boy. I am your father, the head of your -family. You owe it to me. You are her lover? You have a misstep to -repair? The child is yours?" - -"No, father, I give you my word of honor. Twice in my life I have told -her that I loved her. Once when her husband was alive. She refused to -see me again except on my promise that I would never speak to her again -of my sentiments. The second time was to-day. That was the reason of my -being late." - -M. de Claviers had listened to this confession with contracted brow and -lips tightly closed. His blue eyes took on that sombre hue which his son -knew too well. It indicated the clash of profound emotions in that -violent temperament. There was between the two men a further pause -coincident with the stopping of the motor before the Mauchaussées' -house, a dainty structure which the châtelain of Grandchamp placed at -the disposal of his former retainer, without rent. The curtains at the -windows and the thread of smoke issuing from the chimney bore witness to -the physical well-being of these vassals of his charity. He had, -however, the countenance of a magistrate rather than an alms-giver as he -alighted from the automobile, without speaking to his son, who did not -follow him. - -The ten minutes which his father passed in the little house seemed -immeasurably long to Landri. To be sure he felt as if a weight had been -lifted from his heart: the first part of his confession was made, the -part that had seemed to him the most formidable to put in words. It -touched such a sensitive spot in his heart! Would he have the courage to -make the second part, and to inflict another blow upon that man, whom he -felt once more to be so impassioned, so loving and so impetuous? By what -sort of an explosion would the wrath vent itself, with which he had seen -that powerful brow suddenly overcast? Other questions arose in his mind: -why had the marquis, whose repugnance for financial affairs was so -intense, spoken with such detail of the wealth of the Charluses, and of -his own with that reserve laden with hidden meaning? Landri was too -unselfish to think of his own future and of the possible diminution of -his inheritance. He knew that his father was very wealthy, and he had -never wondered at a lavish expenditure which the marquis had seemed -always able to support. He had never even asked for his own property -after the guardianship accounts were once settled. The marquis gave him -an allowance which represented the fifteen hundred thousand francs he -had inherited from his mother. Did this enigmatic plaint mean that the -_grand seigneur_ would be compelled eventually to reduce an -establishment which was as necessary to him as breathing and moving? At -the same time that he revolved this question in his mind without putting -it to himself so plainly, the young man was thinking of the negotiator -of the Charlus marriage. - -"What an idea of Jaubourg's to meddle again in my affairs! It's just as -it was before about Saint-Cyr. He has never shown anything but antipathy -to me, and he is always putting himself between my father and me. That -is why he wanted them to send me up to him.--But the door is opening--I -must prepare to sustain the assault!--Courage! it's for Valentine." - -The charming image passed before his mind. It was exorcised instantly by -a chorus of voices saying in the accent of the countryside: "Bonjour, -Monsieur le Comte. Is everything right with you. Monsieur le Comte?"--It -was the five Mauchaussée children, their mother, grandmother and -grandfather, whom the marquis was driving before him toward his son. The -wondering, laughing eyes of the little boys and girls, the timid and -humble bearing of the two women, the jovial bloated face of the -drunkard, supplied a comic illustration of the speech with which M. de -Claviers presented them to their future patron. - -"Do you recognize them?" he said. "The little monkeys are growing. They -are pushing us aside, Mauchaussée, and you too, Madame Martine. Soon -they'll be pushing you too, Landri, but you have the time. Come, -children, shout, 'Vive Monsieur le Comte!'" - -"Vive Monsieur le Comte!" chirped the five children. - -"And vive Monsieur le Marquis!" exclaimed Mauchaussée. It was amid -acclamations as paradoxical, in the year 1906, as the existence of M. de -Claviers himself, that the automobile resumed its journey. - -"To the château," he said to Auguste. Then, taking his son's hand and -pressing it: "That is why you cannot make the marriage of which you -spoke to me just now. It is because of the Mauchaussées and their -like,--and they are legion,--who live on us, on the house of -Claviers-Grandchamp; for there is a house of Claviers-Grandchamp. Surely -you cannot wish to assist in destroying it. When one demolishes a roof, -one destroys all the nests in that roof. When one cuts the trunk of one -of these trees, all the branches die. Our family, as I told you just -now, is like that of the Charluses. Not a mésalliance since 1260. One -can count them on one's fingers, such lineages as that. You will not -demean yourself." - -"Is it demeaning myself," demanded Landri impatiently, "to bring you as -your daughter-in-law a woman of irreproachable character, whom I love -profoundly and who loves me,--pretty, refined and intelligent? One -demeans one's self by lacking a sense of honor. Does it show such a lack -to marry according to one's heart, without regard to money, without any -secret prompting of ambition? In what way would Madame Olier, having -become Comtesse de Claviers-Grandchamp, embarrass the Mauchaussées and -all this generous task of supporting traditionary dependents, which -forms one of the moral appanages of great families and a _raison -d'être_ of the nobility, I fully agree with you;--in what way?" - -"In this,--that she is Madame Olier, born Barral, simply; that her child -has Olier uncles and aunts and Olier cousins, and she has Barral -cousins, perhaps brother and sisters,--a whole social circle. That -circle, by marrying her, you make akin to us. That family you ally with -ours. You ally it! Dig into that word, so profound in its significance, -like all those in which the language simply translates instinctively the -experience of ages. That means that between the Oliers, the Barrals, and -the Claviers-Grandchamps, you establish a bond of fellowship, that all -those existences are bound together.--I will suggest but one question to -you: tell the Mauchaussées that Madame de Claviers' cousin keeps a -shop, for instance, that he is like one of their own relations. Do you -think that Madame de Claviers will retain the same prestige in their -eyes? And let us assume that there are no Oliers, no Barrals in this -case,--do you think that our kinsfolk, the Candales, the Vardes, the -Nançays, the Tillières, in France, and all the others, and the -Ardrahans in Scotland, the Gorkas in Poland, and the Stenos in Italy, -will be altogether the same to your wife as if she were a Charlus? So -that our family unity will be impaired. You will have diminished the -importance of the house of Claviers, without failing in honor--that goes -without saying. But, do you see, a name like ours is honor with -something more." - -"Or less," retorted Landri. "Why, yes," he insisted, as his father -recoiled in amazement, "less life, life, to which all men have a right, -but not I. No right to individual happiness,--you just told me so. No -right to individual action. How much it cost you to allow me even to -enter the army! What else is there for us to do? Defend tombs? You have -the strength for that, but I haven't." - -He had never said so much concerning his secret thoughts. It had been -too painful to him to hear from the marquis's lips the same objections, -in almost the same words, as from Valentine's. He had felt too strongly -their implacable and brutal truth. The pain had been all the keener. He -had no sooner uttered that cry of rebellion, than he had a passionate -reflux of emotion toward his father. He took his hand, saying: "Forgive -me!" while M. de Claviers returned the pressure, and answered in an -affectionate voice, but so firm, so virile,--the voice of a man who, -having reached the evening of his days, girds up his loins and declares -that he has not gone astray in his faith. - -"Forgive you, and for what, my poor boy? For loving, and for feeling an -impulse of rebellion of your whole heart before an obstacle in which all -boys of your age, and even of your class, would see to-day, as you do, -only a prejudice? For being young, and for having this longing to employ -your energy to some purpose, which you cheat by playing at -soldiering,--for it is only a game and you know it perfectly well? -Suppose that to-morrow the people who rule us order you to execute one -of their infamous jobs, the burglarizing of a church, what shall you -do?" - -As he uttered these words, which by their unconscious divination proved -how much he thought about his son, the marquis was looking at his idea. -He did not notice the young man's sudden start. On the latter's lips was -an exclamation which he did not utter. He listened to the words in which -his father continued, with an interest all the more intense, because M. -de Claviers was not in the habit of discussing his convictions. He -asserted them by his mere presence. Doubtless his affection for Landri -warned him that that was a fateful moment, such as most frequently -occurs unexpectedly, in the relations of a father and son, when a word -misunderstood may lead to tragic dissensions; and as if he were -determined to justify in advance the sternness of his veto by arguments -impossible of refutation even by him who was destined to be their -victim, he explained himself, he confessed himself, or, better still, he -thought aloud:-- - -"Do you think that I have not gone through such rebellions? Do you think -that I, too, when my father spoke to me as I am speaking to you, did not -ask myself if he were not a man of another century, who did not -understand his epoch and who wished to involve me in his error? Do you -think that I was not attracted by action, by actions of all sorts, by -war, diplomacy, the tribune? that I never heard the voice of the tempter -whispering: 'One does not serve the government, one serves France?' How -many of my friends listened to that voice! I do not judge them. I could -not do it, and I do not repent. This is why. Listen. What I am going to -say will seem to you a long way from the starting-point of our -conversation. But I do not lose sight of it.--No, I could not do it, -because by dint of studying her, I realized that this France, offspring -of the Revolution, had other workmen than me to employ, in its barracks, -its public offices, its assemblies, and that we were very little able to -serve her elsewhere. You have told me sometimes that I had the heart of -an 'émigré.' It is true. But who saved France from dismemberment in -1815, if not the 'émigrés,' and Louis XVIII, first of all. Had there -been no 'émigrés,' had not the King, supported by that handful of -loyal subjects, made himself felt during twenty years in the councils of -the coalition, the country would have been partitioned. What did they -preserve for it, for that country which was so cruelly hostile to -them?--_A principle_. Who will measure the strength of principles, of -social truths, maintained by a group of men, by a single man sometimes, -if he is called the King? Ah, well! the disease of France, offspring of -the Revolution, does not lie in facts, nor in men, but in lack of -principles, or in false principles, which is worse. I am not unjust to -her, to this France I speak of. She has worked hard during these hundred -years. She is working hard. And what endurance, what a sturdy will, what -impetuosity! With all these is she bankrupt in all her aspirations--yes -or no? Yes or no, does this country hold in Europe an inferior place to -that she held in the worst days of the old monarchy? She is no older -than England, however, her great rival in the Middle Ages! Has she -progressed in social tranquillity? Has she found stability, that test of -all political doctrines, as the regular beating of the pulse is the test -of health? The fact is that the Revolution tried to base society on the -individual, and that nature insists that it be based on the family. When -I understood that great law, I understood the nobility. I understood -then that our prejudices were profound social truths, elaborated by that -result of experience during long ages which is called custom, and -transformed into instinct. It is a profound social truth that there is -no increase in the strength of a country unless the efforts of -successive generations are combined, unless the living consider -themselves as enjoying the usufruct only, between their dead and their -descendants. But that is the law of primogeniture and entails! Another -profound social truth: families must be deeply rooted in order to -endure; they must have territorial interests, they must be amalgamated -with the soil. But that means patrimonial domains, which are left -undivided that they may not be sold!--Another profound social truth: -there must be diverse environments, in order that there may be morals, -and there are no environments unless there are classes, and distinct -classes. But that means the three estates! Another profound social -truth: every individual is simply the sum of those who have preceded -him, a single moment in a long lineage. By marrying him to another -individual at the same stage of development of her family, there is the -chance of obtaining a superior creature, of solidifying acquired -characteristics. But that means race!--All these truths the old France -put in practice, and they were incarnate in the great Houses! The great -Houses! On the instant that I realized their importance and that they -were a working-out of the very laws of the family, the rôle of the -noble in the presence of the Revolution was made clear to me: to -maintain his House first of all. If we had all acted on that theory, -what a reserve force France would have had for the hour of the -inevitable crisis! However, there are still enough of us who fulfilled -that duty, each as he could, especially in the provinces, and in that -sturdy rural aristocracy which you will find in existence to-day, as in -'71. But, even if I were alone of my kind, I should be no less assured -of my duty. If we are fated never to be wanted again, let us at least -make a noble end. _Decenter mori_. An aristocrat should either remain an -aristocrat or die. I have remained one. The misfortunes of the time have -not allowed me to add a page to the history of the Claviers-Grandchamps, -but I have written that history, and I have maintained our house in its -place. I have sounded the splendor of the name, as our ancestors said. -What more can I say, Landri? Your father has continued his father, who -had continued his. They all ask you by my mouth: 'Will you continue -us?'" - -"I revere you and love you," replied the young man; and it was true that -that profession of faith, pronounced by the old nobleman among the trees -of the hereditary domain, assumed an almost painful grandeur. After an -interval of a hundred years the Claviers-Grandchamp of Condé's army -expressed his thoughts by the mouth of his grandson with that -self-consciousness which is one of the characteristics of the -thoroughbred. He realized that, before they disappear, the social -species like the animal species spend their last vigor in producing most -perfect types in which all the excellences of all that have gone before -are consummated. Once more Landri had a realizing sense of the -superiority of that man who, for lack of a suitable environment, had -spent his long life in attitudinizing, and for motives so profound, so -blended with the most generous idealism! He was too intelligent not to -understand the bearing of the lofty philosophy amassed by M. de Claviers -in his solemn harangue. In spite of himself, as was so often the case, -his mind acquiesced in ideas which, none the less, he did not choose to -accept. In what utter solitude they had confined his father! His heart, -too, rebelled against it. "The profound social truths," as the marquis -had said, are but cold friends of mature years. A lover of less than -thirty will always sacrifice them to a glance from two bright blue eyes, -to a reflection of the light upon golden hair. Images of that sort were -still floating before Landri's eyes; they gave him strength to argue -with his father. - -"But in that old France, which you claim to continue, the classes -intermingled, and by marriages, too. Colbert's daughter was a duchess, -Monsieur de Mesmes' daughter a duchess, Gilles Ruellan's daughter a -duchess, and Colbert's father was a draper, Monsieur de Mesmes' father a -peasant of Mont-de-Marsan, and Gilles Ruellan had been a carter." - -"That is true," rejoined M. de Claviers. "But in those days France was -sound. She was like those strong constitutions which can safely indulge -in deviations from a regular diet. The great houses were not attacked. -The great social truths which their existence alone represents to-day -did not need to be defended in every detail. There is not enough -'irreconcilability' in our time, even among us, for me to renounce mine. -I admired nothing so much in my youth as the attitude of the Comte de -Chambord, when he carried his white banner,--and how many understood it, -even among our friends? No, Landri, one does not compromise in the -defence of a vanquished principle. One can never defend it too -vigorously." - -"Then, if I should come some day to ask your consent--" the young man -queried, with a tremor. - -"To marry Madame Olier? I shall refuse to give it." - -"And if I should do without it?" he ventured to say. - -"You will not do without it. She is the one, do you hear, she is the one -who will not allow it. I know you, my Landri," continued the father, in -an affectionate tone in striking contrast to the evident inflexibility -of his decision. "For you to love this woman so dearly, she must be very -pure and of a very delicate sense of honor. It was she who insisted that -you should speak to me before she gave you her answer, was it not? Such -a woman will never consent to marry you against your father's declared -wish. If she were not magnanimous and high-minded to that degree, you -would not love her." - -"And if it were so, you would not be touched?" - -"There is no question here of my emotions, my son, nor of yours. It is a -question of our name. Military heroism is not the only sort. There is a -family heroism. As a soldier, you would consider it a perfectly natural -thing to sacrifice your life. A man of a certain name should consider it -natural to sacrifice his happiness. But is there really so much at -stake? It is a crisis, and it will pass away. In any event," he added, -in a tone of affectionate banter, "you haven't asked for my consent. So -that I have not refused it. We have talked about plans, probabilities, -supposititious cases--nothing more. All the same, be agreeable to Marie -de Charlus this evening. Don't be too angry with her for having -distinguished you, as our grandmothers used so prettily to say. And now -let us enjoy what my grandmother left us. Here we are out of the forest -and in the park. If the fearless woman had not stayed here, during the -Terror, everything would have been cut down, devastated, burned, -pillaged. I never return to Grandchamp without giving her a thought." - -He ceased to speak, and his blue eyes were filled with pious veneration -as he looked at the château, a sedate and grandiose structure in -Mansart's very earliest manner. In the eighteenth century a -Claviers-Grandchamp, to whom a friend, in gratitude for a service -rendered him, had bequeathed a fortune made in the Compagnie des Indes, -had reconstructed it inside without touching the façade. In front lay -an immense garden _à la française_. Twelve gardeners were required to -keep up this marvel, laid out in flower-beds, ponds and tree-lined -paths, with many bronze groups about the ponds, and stone statues in the -paths. In that closing hour of a lovely day, in that atmosphere now so -delicately tinged with gray, the garden was a beautiful sight. Like -those of Versailles, and of the whole seventeenth century, it bore the -physiognomy of nature respected in its strength and at the same time -guided, regulated and harmonized in its expansions. It was in truth -visible "order," the order of the society of olden time whence the -Claviers-Grandchamps had sprung. The trees, which were still vigorous, -but pruned and trimmed, did not put forth their leaves until they had -been disciplined. - -At the close of this conversation, Landri's wounded sensibility found a -symbol of his destiny in the aspect of that garden. He, too, like those -trees, bore witness to the effects of discipline. No more than they -could he develop freely. He should never marry Valentine,--M. de -Claviers reasoned too justly. She would never enter a noble family -without the consent of its head. The allusion made by the far-sighted -and implacable marquis to the possibilities of his military career, -finished freezing his heart. What should he do, in either case? The tree -in the hedge which pushes its branches beyond the line fixed by the -gardener destroys the fine ensemble, and it will never bloom. It retains -the marks of the hatchet that pruned it. In the hedge they added to its -beauty. They are a mutilation when it stands by itself. Such is the fate -of the member of a caste who cuts loose from it and essays to live for -himself. But nobility, great houses, caste, mésalliances,--were not all -these ideas a mere phantasmagoria, a superstition, the imaginary -residuum of an abolished reality, an absurd anachronism in the France of -to-day?--Away from his father the son would have answered yes. He could -not do it at that moment, in that carriage where he could hear the -slightest movement and the very breathing of that man, so intensely -alive, who imparted to his beliefs that ardent flame of his individual -life which gave them their inspiration. The prestige of his father's -presence acted anew upon Landri, with such force that he could not even -blame the paternal determination, against which he would rebel -to-morrow, but at a distance,--and he fell into a fit of melancholy -which M. de Claviers finally observed. With his temperament the -"Émigré" was most worthy to utter the words of Don Diego, savage and -sublime in his dauntless manliness:-- - - - Il n'est qu'un seul honneur, il est tant de maîtresses.[3] - - -He had almost quoted it in characterizing his son's passion as a mere -passing crisis, and once more there was a world of compassion, a world -of affection in the tone in which he renewed the conversation, in order -to divert his mind from his thoughts:-- - -"Can you imagine the existence of that woman here, under the Terror? You -know that a denunciation against her was the cause of the proposal of -that villain Roland, in a committee of the Legislative Assembly, in -November, '92, that the decree of the 20th of September should be -suspended so far as the wives of 'émigrés' were concerned. If it had -not been for the procureur-syndic de Thury, a former gardener of ours, -her being legally divorced would have availed her nothing, they would -have taken everything from her, and her life with the rest. She never -ceased to correspond with her husband. She went twice to see him, and -she received him here three times. One shudders to think of those -interviews! But what courage! What heroism, to repeat my former word! It -was of us that she was thinking, she was determined to defend the -inheritance, the House. With her jewels she might have passed all those -years happily in Germany or in England, and she died, worn out with -grief, in 1804. From veneration for her memory, my grandfather would -never allow anything to be changed inside the château, nor my father, -nor I. Nothing, nothing, nothing. When I am no longer here, I authorize -you to have the telephone put in, as you are more _up-to-date_ than your -old father," he concluded, laughingly, "but that's all!--Ah! there's the -worthy Bressieux conspiring with Chaffin again. They are far greater -changes that he has in his head than the installation of a telephone. It -seems that certain details are not in style, and thereupon Monsieur -Chaffin comes and bores me with dissertations on door-knobs and tiles at -the back of the fireplace, and shutter-fastenings, which Bressieux has -taught him. Nothing, nothing, nothing! I will change nothing. I don't -know where I have read that line of an English poet, 'The Siren loves -the sea, and I the past.'--Come, come, Bressieux!" he cried in his -strong, resonant voice through the window of the automobile, "don't -spoil Chaffin for me altogether. He will end by refusing to live at -Grandchamp any longer, because it's not pure enough." - -Louis de Bressieux was in fact standing at an angle of the château, -intently considering--so it seemed, at all events--the detail of the -decoration of a window on the ground floor. He had not yet changed his -hunting costume, and the visor of his velvet cap concealed his eyes. -Beside him stood a man of small stature, thick-set, with hair once red, -now turning gray,--one of those men whose crabbed countenance leads one -at a glance to judge them to be very frank and downright. His gleaming -eyes, shifting and impenetrable, indicated that he concealed many -complexities behind the rough bonhomie of his manners. He was Landri's -former tutor, promoted twelve years before to the rank of general -factotum, which was not likely to be a sinecure with the very large -income of the Marquis de Claviers, and his expenditures, which, alas! -were much larger. He called him, it will be remembered, "my good -Chaffin," as he said "my good Jaubourg," and "the worthy Bressieux." A -learned connoisseur of human nature has said: "He who does not make up -his mind to be a dupe will never be magnanimous"; and the admirable -Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp was truly magnanimous. How surprised he -would have been if, at the moment when he called to Bressieux, one of -those modern machines--the objects of his half-sincere, half-simulated -aversion--had been at hand to record and transmit to him the -conversation which his sudden arrival had interrupted! - -"The affair must be settled within ten days, at the latest," Bressieux -was saying. "The two American dealers are to sail December eighth. I -know them. They won't postpone their sailing. They want to carry the -tapestries with them. If the thing drags, they'll back out. The other -dealers haven't the means to make up the whole amount. In that case it's -a public sale, with all its risks. Everybody will know that the marquis -is embarrassed. You won't find the four millions. It's in his interest -that I speak to you." - -"And it's his interest that I have in mind, no less," replied Chaffin. -"Four millions? The debts would be paid,--the largest ones,--and perhaps -he would consent to cut down his establishment. But he won't allow me to -mention the subject. I didn't dare even to show him the summonses last -week. He refuses to acknowledge, what he is well aware of, however, that -he is ruined. The idea that I, who know how attached he is to this whole -château,--he wouldn't let so much as a cup be sold,--should suggest to -him to sell everything at one stroke, tapestries, furniture, portraits!" - -"But is he absolutely driven to such a sale, or is he not?" - -"He is." - -"Has he any way whatever of escaping it?" - -"He has not, unless millions should fall from the sky." - -"Or a friend, Jaubourg, for example, should leave him his fortune?" -insinuated Bressieux. - -"He would leave it to Monsieur le Comte Landri," said Chaffin hastily, -"who would not accept it." He continued, after a pause during which the -two men avoided looking at each other, like people who know a thing, -know that they know it, and do not choose to admit it: "Oh, well! it's -through Monsieur le Comte Landri that I will act. I owe it to him, to -him as well, that his fortune shall not be swallowed up in the pit. I -will tell him the truth, and that this offer to purchase all the -treasures of the château in a lump is an unhoped-for piece of luck, the -only way of gaining time. It will be enough for him to revoke the -general power of attorney that he gave his father, and to demand his -principal. Monsieur le Marquis cannot give it to him. To avoid -undergoing that humiliation before his son, he will give way.--But I -hear his voice. This very evening I will speak to Landri. You shall have -his answer at once." - -And they went forward together to meet the motor from which M. de -Claviers and Landri were alighting. The two confederates had not uttered -a word which placed them at each other's mercy, and yet the real basis -of this interview was one of those villainous piratical "deals" of which -the international traffic in antiquities has made more than one of late -years in France and elsewhere, involving the relics of historic -fortunes. The "good Chaffin" was simply an unfaithful steward who had -wallowed at his ease for ten or twelve years in the careless prodigality -of his lord, and he was preparing to retire, pocketing a handsome -percentage of a sum offered by a syndicate of dealers in curios for the -treasures preserved intact at Grandchamp by the heroism of the -grandmother. Louis de Bressieux, for his part, had got wind of the -dealings of the wicked servitor with the second-hand trade, and had -succeeded in assuring himself a broker's commission by interesting in -the affair the two most famous American dealers in antiquities. It was -quite true that such a sale, effected at that moment, might save the -rest of the property, and that pretext was the ostensible cloak of a -transaction which the two managers of the unclean intrigue were craftily -carrying forward, unknown to the alleged beneficiary thereof. This -silence convicted them. Such is the commanding prestige of a certain -quality in man, that the felonious manager and the profit-sharing friend -felt a vague remorse that embarrassed them with respect to each other -when the marquis said to them with a cordial, loyal laugh:-- - -"It's of no use for you to try to debauch me, Chaffin and Bressieux. -While I live, nothing in the château shall be touched; when I am dead, -I hope that it will be the same," he added, laying his hand on his son's -shoulder. - - -[Footnote 1: "Being bound simply to observe here that it is folly to -think that any of our kings ever bore frogs. On the contrary, what has -been written to that effect came from the enemies of French honor, and -in derision of the fact that they are descended from the Paluds -meotides."] - -[Footnote 2: - - Within these shady woods and forests - Are wild boars and shy, timid hinds, - And shoats, and young of hinds and does, - And antlered stags, to woodsmen known; - In brief, all pleasure, solace and delight - That huntsman may in woodland fair enjoy.] - -[Footnote 3: There is but one honor, there are many mistresses.] - - - - -III - -THE TRAGIC UNDERSIDE OF A GRAND EXISTENCE - - -"Nothing in the château shall be touched!" repeated Chaffin half an -hour later. He was climbing the grand staircase on his way to the -apartment that Landri occupied when he came to Grandchamp,--the -apartment of the eldest son. It was twelve years already since the -last-born, become the only son, had been installed therein.--"Everything -shall be touched, monsieur le marquis!" And the disloyal steward's face -expressed the hatred that wicked servants feel for their betrayed -masters while he looked at the Beauvais panels on the walls, one of the -glories of the château, the complete set of tapestries representing -Chinese scenes after Fontenay, Vernensaal and Dumont. Princes, in rich -Asiatic costumes, were seated on Persian carpets. Princesses, arrayed in -white stuffs embellished with precious stones, rode in palanquins. -Servants carried parasols. Negro boys offered fruits under canopies -enwreathed with foliage. - -It was long, long ago that Chaffin had first climbed those stairs and -marvelled, with the stupefaction of a petty bourgeois suddenly -transported into a scene of fashionable life, at all that magnificence -befitting the "Thousand and One Nights!" He was then a poor professor, -unattached, married, with a family of children. He had just been -introduced into the château by the chaplain, as tutor to the youngest -son. The priest, who had educated the older sons, was too old to -undertake another task of the sort. He dreaded the presence of another -ecclesiastic. Being instructed by the marquis to find some one, he -remembered an instructor whom he had met in a religious boarding-school -in Paris. He, on being appealed to, suggested his colleague Chaffin. - -In consenting, as he had done, to entrust Landri's education to a chance -tutor, M. de Claviers had conformed once more to the classic type of the -_Grand Seigneur_. One is amazed at the extraordinary facility with -which, in all times, people who bear the greatest names abandon their -children to uncertain influences. Even princes are no more painstaking -in this respect. A youth upon whom the future of an empire depends will -sometimes have been educated by a withered fruit of the University, -comparable for refinement to the Regent's Dubois! Luckily for Landri, -Chaffin still had, at that time, the habits of a father of a family, if -not genuine virtues. Married and having children of his own, his -guaranties of honorable conduct were real. But, as he had passed his -fortieth year without succeeding in anything, he was already embittered -and very near looking upon humble toilers of his own sort as social -dupes. The atmosphere of great luxury, which he had entered thus without -preparation, spoiled him. It was agreed that he should live with his -pupil. This arrangement, separating him from his home and his former -life, had made him helpless against his new environment. Thereupon -Chaffin had undergone the secret, gradual process of corruption -inevitably forced upon the poor plebeian, when he is essentially vulgar, -by the discovery of the hidden immoralities of the nobly born and the -wealthy. It is a genuine apprenticeship in depravity, is this official -pessimism, compounded of secret envy and mean espionage. - -When the marquis--his son's education being completed--had offered him -the post of secretary-manager, Chaffin was ripe for the rôle of -intendant "after the old manner." M. de Claviers' expression is only too -appropriate here. This appointment was for the châtelain of Grandchamp -an heroic resolution: tired of the constant waste, he had determined to -administer his fortune himself. That is generally the moment at which, -with persons of his rank, the final ruin begins. After three months the -so-called secretary settled the accounts alone, and before the end of -the first year the peculations had begun. They had multiplied from -settling-day to settling-day, to reach their climax in the detestable -conspiracy already mentioned, which a group of usurious dealers in -curios was about to execute upon the treasures of Grandchamp, with his -assistance. - -By what steps had the conscience of the former professor descended to -that degree of dishonesty? The change in his features during the last -years told the story. The arrogant unrest of the thief, always on the -brink of detection, distorted his face, sharpened his eyes, imparted -uncertainty to his movements. But we cease to look at the persons whom -we see every day. The marquis had not observed those tell-tale -indications, nor had Landri. Moreover, the moment that the knave was in -their presence, he kept watch upon himself with a circumspection that -became more rigid as his villainies multiplied. So it was, that, when he -had reached the top of the staircase and stood before the door behind -which he knew that he should find the young man, he did not knock until -he had paused a moment, long enough to compose his features; and when he -entered, upon the response from within to his knock, the harsh and -sneering cynic had disappeared. There was only the humble and faithful -retainer of the family, deeply moved but self-restrained, upon whom his -devotion enjoins the most painful of measures. He hesitates no longer. -His secret chokes him. He must cry out. This rôle was all the easier to -maintain under the circumstances because Chaffin was hardly going to -lie. His plan, formidable in its very simplicity, by which he expected -to ensure himself for all time against any suspicion of complicity, -consisted in setting before the marquis's heir the true situation of the -house of Claviers-Grandchamp in the year of grace 1906. He proposed to -be silent only concerning his own peculations and his understanding with -the leaders of the final assault. - -"What is it, my good Chaffin?" inquired the young man. To receive his -visitor, he had risen from the lounging chair in which he had passed -some terrible moments, since he had left his father, in going over again -and again the details, so cruel to him, of their conversation. "What has -happened? You frighten me." - -At sight of his former tutor's discomposed countenance the thought of an -accident suddenly flashed through his mind--that the marquis had had a -stroke. - -"No, nothing has happened," replied Chaffin, "nothing as yet! But I -cannot bear to be silent any longer. If you had not come to Grandchamp -to-day, I should have gone to Saint-Mihiel. Things cannot go on so. I -should go mad. I should kill myself.--Landri, Monsieur de Claviers won't -let me speak to him. I have the title of secretary, which means that I -am the manager of the property. Well! if things go on as they are going, -Landri, I shall be manager of nothing. There will be no property, do you -hear, no property, nothing, nothing--" - -"You say that my father won't let you speak to him," Landri interrupted. -"You surprise me beyond measure. He is giving much thought himself to -the situation of affairs. He complained to me to-day of the heaviness of -his burdens. Come, calm yourself, my dear master;" and he added these -words, so absolute was his confidence in that man who represented to him -his early youth: "Your affection for us makes very trivial difficulties -seem tragic, I am sure. Tell me what they are." - -"I will give you the figures," rejoined Chaffin simply, "and you can -judge whether I exaggerate. Do you know how much Monsieur le Marquis -owes on his real estate--Grandchamp, the house on Rue du -Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, your houses in Plaine Monceau, and the villas at -Cabourg--all told? Two million five hundred and fifty thousand francs, -divided as follows: seventeen hundred and fifty thousand francs to the -Credit Foncier, and eight hundred thousand to another creditor. We have -on this account more than a hundred and fifty thousand francs of -interest a year to pay, before any other outlay." - -"If it were anybody else but you I should think that I was dreaming," -said Landri, after a pause. He repeated: "Two million five hundred and -fifty thousand francs? And my father has an income of more than four -hundred thousand! Is it possible? He doesn't gamble. His life is beyond -reproach. He has no racing stable. Where has all that money gone?" - -"You shall know in a moment," replied the implacable Chaffin. "First let -us finish with the debts. There are others. Besides the mortgages there -are the unsecured notes. Under this head he owes more than two millions -more,--I mean for sums borrowed on his signature. I say nothing of -overdue accounts with tradespeople, wages in arrears, and all the rest. -That's another million perhaps, but it's a floating debt with which I -deal as best I can. It's a daily battle. I fight it and win it! With -these negotiable notes, I can do nothing. Look you, Landri. When I have -told you everything you will share my desperation. The two millions, as -you can imagine, are not a single debt. There are ten, fifteen, twenty -different debts. There were, I should say. For to-day--But let me go -into details. You are going to learn how these debts have reached such -fantastic figures by the brutal piling-up of interest, very simply, and -why I used the past tense. There was, for instance, a Gruet debt. I -select it for it is typical, and because in connection with it the bomb -has burst. In 1903 we were absolutely in need of three hundred thousand -francs. Maître Métivier, our notary, obtained them for us through one -Monsieur Gruet, an honest broker,--for there are such; there is this -one, for instance, as you can judge,--with an office on Rue Lafayette. -The loan fell due July 15, 1905. We were not ready. Gruet himself tells -me of a money-lender, not overgrasping, one Madame Müller, who keeps a -second-hand shop on Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin. I go there on the -chance. To my great surprise she consents. She reimburses Gruet and the -notes are assigned to her before a notary. Nothing more correct, as you -see. But on July 15 last the three hundred thousand Gruet francs had -become three hundred and forty-six thousand five hundred Müller francs: -two years' interest to the date of maturity in 1905, thirty thousand, -plus sixteen thousand five hundred for 1905-1906. Let us follow it out. -On this 15th of July the like inability to pay. Appeals to Madame -Müller, entreaties,--it was I who made them. I would submit to much -worse things for Monsieur le Marquis! A little time was given me, and -one fine day this Gruet debt, which had become a Müller debt, has -become an Altona debt. The first notice is served on us. I conceal the -fact from Monsieur le Marquis, understand, and I go at once to this -Altona. I find a man installed in a magnificent mansion on Place -Vendôme, with the air of a _grand seigneur_ I should say, if I did not -know Monsieur le Marquis and you, Landri--and beautiful antiques all -about him. It was a stock in trade arranged as a collection--a museum -for sale at retail. This Altona receives me with the manners of a -prince, and composedly, calmly, he informs me that the Müller claim is -not the only one he has bought. A quantity of our other notes are in his -hands or in those of his men of straw. Not all of them, but almost all. -He has them to the amount of more than fourteen hundred thousand francs. -He has accumulated all that he could. With no less composure he declares -that he is acting for a syndicate of his brethren. There is a large -number of them who have had their eyes for years on the treasures -preserved at Grandchamp. How did they obtain their information -concerning Monsieur le Marquis's embarrassment? How did they succeed in -learning the names of the money-lenders to whom we had to apply? How did -they negotiate with them? I can not tell you. I know nothing about it. -This much is certain, that that first bailiff's notice was the shot that -opened the engagement. In short, they are in a position to proceed -against us and to have us sold up by process of law. Altona did not -conceal from me his purpose to proceed mercilessly unless--" - -"Unless what?" demanded Landri, as the other paused. "Finish your -sentence." - -"Unless we accept the offer he made me on behalf of his partners--that -is evidently the _coup_ they have prepared. 'We have calculated,' he -said, still with his perfect courtesy, 'the risks of a public sale. We -may gain by it, we may lose. Certain pieces which we can place -advantageously at once may escape us. We prefer to make you a -proposition to buy the whole in one lump. We will give you four millions -cash for the lot, that is, for all the articles enumerated in the -_pièce justificative_ No. 44, in the appendix of the book on the -"History of the House of Grandchamp." Both you and we will do a good -stroke of business. You too avoid the possible loss of an auction. You -have your debts paid and more than two millions in cash to put you on -your feet again. As for us, our profit is assured. We have with us two -Americans who will give fifteen hundred thousand francs for the -tapestries alone. You have a fortnight to decide.'--I repeat what he -said, word for word.--A fortnight! It was six days ago that I had the -interview with this Altona, and I haven't yet found the courage to -inform Monsieur le Marquis! And you expect me not to feel as if my brain -was going." - -"I am the one to tell him," cried the young man, "and instantly. You -have lost six days, Chaffin, six days out of fourteen! You have failed -seriously in your duty. Let us go to him." - -"And tell him what?" queried the secretary, placing himself before the -door toward which Landri had already taken a step. - -"Why, the facts, just as they are." - -"And with what result? With the result that he'll refuse to believe you, -against all the evidence, and say: 'Touch Grandchamp!--they'll not -dare!'--Or else he'll use the week in looking for money, enough to pay -the Altona gang. It may be that he'll find it, for, after all, the -tapestries and furniture and pictures and bronzes are here, and we know -they're worth at least four millions, as the other man offers that. -Well, then, Monsieur le Marquis finds the money. At what price? He -borrows at twenty, thirty, perhaps fifty per cent. And in a year we're -just where we are now, with this difference, that our two millions due -on those notes will have become two millions three hundred thousand, to -say nothing of getting four or five hundred thousand francs more to -continue during that year a sort of life that must at any price be -changed. You hear, Landri--it _must_! You have reproached me for -neglecting my duty. It is true that I haven't been able to say to your -father those horrible words: _you must_. Consider that all this wreck of -his vast fortune is due to the fact that he would never consent to say -to himself those two little words: _I must_. You ask me where that -fortune has gone. Why, in living at the rate of five hundred thousand -francs a year, when he and Madame la Marquise had four hundred -thousand--as you said just now--when they married. With a pencil and -paper and two columns, one of income, one of outgo, I will show you the -whole thing in a nutshell. The marquis was determined to keep up the -same establishment at Grandchamp that his father did with almost twice -his income, and his grandfather with three times as much. Madame your -aunt and madame your great-aunt carried the rest with them to the -Nançays and the Vardes. Monsieur le Marquis is always cursing the Civil -Code, and he is quite right. But it is the Civil Code, and it's stronger -than we are and than he is. He has kept up the château as if he were -your grandfather and great-grandfather. Do you know what that means? In -the first place, a hundred thousand francs for the park, gardens and -conservatories, plus sixty thousand for the hounds, forty thousand for -the shooting, thirty-five thousand for the stables. We have got to two -hundred and thirty-five thousand at once. And so with the rest. The -table? We have forty people at dinner to-night, and the marquis would -consider himself disgraced if his chef were not cited as one of the best -in Paris! The servants? You know how many there are, and you know too -that Monsieur le Marquis never dreams of parting with an old retainer -without giving him a pension. We had a discussion only yesterday about -young Mauchaussée. Twelve hundred francs to the father, and a house; -twelve hundred francs to the son. There are more than thirty others -taken care of in the same way. That makes forty thousand francs. And -there are demands all day to which Monsieur le Marquis makes but one -reply: 'Give.' And we give--for brotherhoods and sisterhoods, for -hospitals and churches, for schools, and for the elections. Without -counting the private alms, which don't pass through my hands. A hundred -thousand francs put in Monsieur de Lautrec's hand, without a receipt, -just when we are so straightened, to settle a gambling debt! I have the -proof of it. I spoke to Monsieur le Marquis about it. I had the -courage.--'If we don't help one another,' was his reply, 'who will help -us?'--That he should do such things the first or second year, in '66 and -'67, even down to the war, was natural. But when he saw the income of -the property decreasing, the mortgages growing bigger, the unpaid bills -piling up, that he did not try to stop is extraordinary. But it's the -fact. I understand it so well. Every economy was a degradation of the -house of Grandchamp, and degradation of a concrete sort, which he could -have seen with his eyes and touched with his hands. Economies, do I say? -There were the hedges trimmed every three years,--but in the interval? -the avenues not so well kept,--but after the rains?--Fewer flowers in -the beds, fewer horses in the stable, stag-hunting with fewer dogs and -fewer whippers-in! His heart was nearly broken. He went back the next -year. The debt increased. It whirled him off in its eddies. And then, he -has always hoped; yesterday, it was a fortunate investment,--Monsieur -Jaubourg had put him on the track of a good thing. He gained a hundred -and twenty thousand francs. A drop of water in the desert! Day, before -yesterday, one of your cousins. Monsieur de Nançay, died and left him a -hundred thousand francs. Another drop of water. These unexpected -windfalls misled him with a mirage which harmonized only too well with -his hereditary instinct. It would be easier for him to break off his -habits altogether, than to change--that is the conclusion at which I -have arrived. On that account, Landri, I look upon this offer of -Altona's as providential, you understand. Monsieur le Marquis must -accept it. Grandchamp once emptied of its furnishings, which are sacred -reliques to him, he will never want to come here again. No more gardens -_à la française_. At all events we will reduce the cost of keeping -them. No more stag-hunting, no more open house. With what is left he -will still have enough to live very handsomely. We will let the -shooting, the château perhaps. Then we will begin to redeem the -mortgages. The house of Claviers-Grandchamp will be shorn of its -splendor for a few years. But it will live up to its motto: _E tenebris -inclarescent_. It will not go down forever." - -Engrossed by the heat of his demonstration, Chaffin had made a false -step. He had changed his tone as he dwelt upon the figures,--a terrible -commentary on the harangue delivered by the marquis to his son in the -forest two hours earlier, on the splendor of the name! To be sure, the -heartless jubilation of the ascent of the staircase no longer gleamed -threateningly in his yellow eyes; but his despicable sentiments toward -his imprudent and magnanimous employer made themselves manifest in the -pitiless clearness with which he thought and spoke of the disaster. He -thought that he knew Landri well, knowing him to be eminently -impressionable, and having formerly contributed, by dint of -surreptitious criticism, to detach him from his _milieu_. He had seen -how he stood out against the marquis on the subject of Saint-Cyr. -Moreover, was it not now a question of the swallowing-up of his future -inheritance? He was aware neither of the extent of the young man's -unselfishness nor how deeply the genuine poesy of M. de Claviers' -character stirred the chords of that tender heart. That poesy the brutal -draftsman of the balance-sheet of ruin did not even suspect. His picture -of the marquis's life, so foolishly ill-ordered but so generous, his -indictment rather, wherein he had emphasized the _grand seigneur's_ -craze for appearances, without sufficiently setting forth his idealism -and his charity, was strangely at variance with the attitude of a -faithful and growling watch-dog which he ordinarily affected. Landri -felt the difference, by instinct only. The revelation of the impending -catastrophe impressed him much too painfully. It was enough, however, -for him to feel an unconquerable longing to identify himself with his -father, and he replied:-- - -"What? You entertain that idea, you, Chaffin? The furniture of -Grandchamp sold? The treasures that our grandmother rescued so -heroically in '93, dispersed? My father driven from his house by that -vile crew? Never! I would rather sacrifice my own fortune!" - -"Well!" insinuated Chaffin, "ask him for it." - -"Don't tell me that it is swallowed up, like--" exclaimed the young man. -He did not finish the sentence, but said emphatically: "I know that's -not true!" - -"It isn't true, in fact," rejoined the secretary. "Monsieur le Marquis -still has a capital much larger than the fifteen hundred thousand francs -that you inherited from Madame de Claviers. After he rendered his -accounts as guardian, you gave him a general power of attorney which -included the right to sell and to mortgage. You did it because he -inherited a fourth of your mother's property, say five hundred thousand -francs. That property consisted in part of houses. You insisted that it -should remain undivided. It is sufficient, therefore, for him to be all -straight with you, that he should turn over to you the fifteen hundred -thousand francs, the income of which he has always paid you in full; he -can do it, but on one condition, and that is a _sine qua non_: he must -sell the personal property at Grandchamp,--the only thing that he can -realize on. The lands and buildings are so loaded down with mortgages -and so hard to turn into cash,--we need not talk of that. How long -should you have to wait, do you suppose? And you would not be a -privileged creditor. You have come of yourself to the point to which I -was trying to bring you. That is the whole motive of my action, Landri. -You can get Monsieur de Claviers out of this cul-de-sac, you and nobody -else, and you can do it by demanding your fortune." - -"I? of him?" - -"Yes, you, and by withdrawing your power of attorney. He will not -choose, that you should for a second suspect him of having misused it. -He won't have any peace until he has restored it all to you, on the -spot. If Altona's four million is offered him at that moment, he'll -accept it. Grandchamp stripped of its treasures is horrible to think of, -I agree. But one can refurnish a dismantled château. One can not -reconstruct a squandered fortune, and with five years more of this life -yours is gone, forever. I owed you the truth. I have told it to you. -Make up your mind." - -While Chaffin was formulating these suggestions Landri looked at him in -such a way that the other had to avert his eyes. For the first time the -former pupil of the dishonest steward asked himself this question: "Is -this really the same man?" In the flare of a sudden intuition he caught -a glimpse of the dangerous plot woven about the ancient estate, one of -the artisans of which was this man who advised him--to do what? To -commit moral parricide, in view of M. de Claviers' character. But it was -only a gleam. This cruel advice might, after all, have been suggested to -the steward, at his wits' end, by the desperation born of one of those -crises in affairs in which humanity vanishes before the implacability of -figures. However that might be, Landri had been wounded too deeply in -his instinctive delicacy, and a restrained indignation trembled in his -reply. - -"I will not do that," he said. "I prefer anything to losing his heart. -My first impulse was the true one. I must tell him everything, and -instantly. The future of the family is at stake, and he is its head. It -is for him to decide, not me. Let us go." - -"I have done all that I can," said Chaffin. "You refuse. Let us go." - -He opened the door, and instantly the two men found themselves face to -face with Landri's valet. The man was waiting in the corridor, ready to -go in as soon as his master should be free. - -"Was he listening?" said Chaffin to himself. "Bah! they've known it all -for a long while." - -He slandered the man, who was the son of one of the old lamp-men of the -château. Grandchamp was lighted throughout by oil, and it required -three men specially assigned for that service!--This valet had a message -to deliver, the mysterious nature of which disturbed him. Such was the -exceedingly simple explanation of his standing sentry. - -"A person wishes to speak with Monsieur le Comte at once. It is very -urgent and very important, but it's only for a word. The person is -waiting in Monsieur le Comte's bedroom." - -"If it's only for a word," said Landri, himself astonished, even in his -trouble, by that message and the messenger's insistence, "I will go. I -will return in a moment, Chaffin, wait for me. Do you, Jean, go and find -where Monsieur le Marquis is just now." - -"Landri will tell Monsieur de Claviers nothing," repeated the former -tutor when he was left alone. That meeting of their glances, a few -moments before, had revealed to him an unsuspected energy and -perspicacity in his pupil. He had accepted without further remonstrance -the proposition to tell the marquis the truth, for fear of arousing -suspicion. He answered it in anticipation, mentally: "But then, let him -tell him all. What does it matter to me? My accounts are all straight. I -have never acted without written authority.--No. He won't tell him -anything. No one can speak to that man. Landri will think better of it. -He's going to Paris to-morrow. He'll take advice. Advice? From whom? -Jaubourg perhaps. No, he doesn't like him, and he loves, yes, adores, -the marquis! The voice of the blood is like their wonderful Race; what -an excellent joke!" Chaffin sneered. In thought he insulted his master -twice over, in his person and in his ideas. "Landri will go and see -Métivier, the notary, it's more likely. Yes, that's the better way. -Métivier will send for me. When he knows the situation of affairs, -he'll agree with me. This Altona offer means, at one per cent, forty -thousand francs for me. By the same token, for them it means salvation." - -The cunning calculator hardly suspected that if, resorting to the -degrading practice of which he had instantly accused the valet, he had -placed his ear against the door of the next room, he would have heard -arrangements made for one of the very interviews that he had imagined. -The "person"--as Jean discreetly said--who was awaiting Landri was the -maître d'hôtel of the invalid on Rue de Solferino, who had come all -the way from Paris to say to the young man:-- - -"When Monsieur Jaubourg learned that Monsieur le Comte had called to -inquire for him without going upstairs, he was very much put out--more -than put out, distressed. I must needs take the first train for -Clermont. He is absolutely determined to see Monsieur le Comte. I am to -insist that Monsieur le Comte come to-morrow if he passes through Paris -again.--Monsieur Jaubourg is so ill, Monsieur le Comte! If he lasts two -or three days, the skies will fall! He was very particular to tell me -not to show myself, so that Monsieur le Marquis should not know of my -coming. He was afraid of disturbing him too much. However, here I am." - -"Tell Monsieur Jaubourg I will come to-morrow at eleven o'clock," -replied Landri. The care taken by a dying man to spare his old friend a -pang touched him. He felt the delicacy of it all the more keenly because -his heart was frozen, as it were, by the deferential brutality of formal -respect, so cruel in reality, of his former tutor. At any other time, -the peculiarity of the proceeding, sending this servant a two hours' -journey by railway, would have puzzled him; but a too genuine and too -present anxiety suspended in him all morbid labor of the imagination, -and while he was going down the stairs with Chaffin, it mattered little -to him what Jaubourg's reasons were for desiring so earnestly to see -him, or whether it was or was not for the purpose of insisting on his -marriage to Marie de Charlus. - -Jean had returned to say that M. de Claviers-Grandchamp was in the -dining-room. And it was there that the son and the secretary found the -improvident owner of the treasures coveted by the Altona band. The -_grand seigneur_ still wore his hunting costume. He had not had a -quarter of an hour to himself since his return. He was engaged now with -his major-domo--another example of his grand manner--in arranging the -seats around the enormous table, which was all laid and ready. -Innumerable lighted candles already shone upon the silver plate engraved -by Roëttiers. The flat dishes displayed their edges of interlaced -ribbons on the brilliant whiteness of the cloth, around the central -épergne, a masterpiece signed by Germain. It represented the abduction -of Europa, on a large _rocaille pedestal_. Wainscoting rebuilt in the -eighteenth century, in the style of Gabriel, covered the walls of the -octagonal room. Eight pillars at the eight angles, fluted, and topped by -Corinthian capitals, imparted a majestic aspect, which was enlivened by -four high Gobelin tapestries, of Oudry's hunting series, alternating -with mirrors. On occasions like this these panels prolonged on the walls -the day's amusement, as did the hunting-horns surrounded by -laurel-branches, chefs-d'œuvre of Gonthière, which could be -distinguished in the decorations. The cream-white tone of the woodwork -harmonized with that of the cane-seated dining-chairs, and with the -reflection of the central chandelier, of Venetian glass,--a caprice of -one of the châtelaines of former days, the wife of the restorer of -Grandchamp, whose portrait by Parrocel was set into the wall over the -white marble chimneypiece. He was on horseback and wore the uniform of a -lieutenant-general,--which he had earned by being wounded at -Fontenoy,--the cuirass under the light blue coat, the white scarf, the -red ribbon, and held in his hand the baton of a general. - -This ensemble, with the soft and vivid hues of the flowers, blended with -the glistening of the glasses, imparted a touch of grace amid all the -magnificence, which suddenly assumed a tragic aspect in the young man's -eyes. The figures set forth by Chaffin appeared on the walls as -distinctly as the Mene-Tekel-Upharsin of the Biblical feast; and as -suddenly he was conscious of that impossibility which the other had -foreseen--the impossibility of inflicting the pain of a similar vision -upon the impoverished and superb "Émigré," whose last joy this -sumptuous entertainment might prove to be--a childish joy, but heartfelt -and earnest in its bountiful outflow. - -"Forty!" he cried as soon as he saw his son: "there will surely be forty -of us. An Academy!--I made up the number by inviting our neighbors the -Sicards, and some friends they have with them, the Saint-Larys. Two -charming couples! I will indulge my old eyes with their youthful -happiness.--Well, Chaffin, was I right in ordering dinner for forty? You -won't accuse me of wastefulness again." And he laughed his frank, hearty -laugh. "Look at our Parrocel, Landri. Hasn't he a look of the place? To -think that I shall never see you dressed like that, even if you're a -general some day and I am still in this world! Ah! the fine bright -uniforms of the old days! And the spruce young officers who went into -battle as to a fête, in those colors! Everything is sad with us, even -heroism. But you must help me. I was seating my company. First of all I -had placed Madame de Férussac opposite me, and you over here, beside--" -He showed his son a card on which was written the name of Mademoiselle -de Charlus. "I am putting them all awry. You are the one to sit opposite -me." - -"Why, no, father," said Landri hastily, "I beg you to leave me where you -had put me. I assure you that I prefer that." - -"Really? do you mean it?" said M. de Claviers. There was so much artless -gratitude in his expression, that preoccupation about a change of seats -at the table disclosed such a loving regard for the susceptibilities of -the young man's heart, that the tears came to his eyelids, and when his -father asked him,-- - -"Well, what is it? Why were you looking for me?" - -"To ask you if I shall see you to-morrow before I go," he replied. -Already he was preparing to postpone the revelation which he had -insisted should be made instantly. - -"I think not," replied the marquis. "You take the train at Clermont, -don't you? At ten o'clock? In that case, surely not."--And Landri did -not protest!--"You passed the night on the railway, and you are -travelling again to-morrow. You must have a good rest. And I have to go -and see one of my farmers, a long way off, who is asking for some -repairs. You know, Chaffin, Père Chabory. He won't get them, I promise -you. I will be immovable. There's no claim in his case. I shall take -advantage of the errand to try my new roan a bit. A splendid beast that -Régie Ardrahan sent me from Dublin--another Toby. But the English have -never learned to teach a horse to trot. I shall start at half after -seven, so as to have returned when my guests wake.--No, we shall not see -each other again. And this evening doesn't count! We will make up for it -at your next visit. I was going up to your room to urge you to call at -Jaubourg's when you go through Paris, and to see him yourself, if you -can. You can telegraph me how you found him." - -"Landri will do as he pleases," Chaffin interjected, "but I have a -despatch already--from my son--received just now, and which I came to -tell you of. Monsieur Jaubourg is better, much better." - -"Ah! that's good news!" exclaimed M. de Claviers. "You take a weight off -my heart, Chaffin. The fête will be perfect then. This morning a -ten-branched stag"; and he hummed the refrain:-- - - - "Un dix cors jeunement. - Qui débûche à l'instant. - - -"And to-night a dinner of the sort that Lardin knows how to -serve."--Lardin was his cook.--He hummed another hunting-song, La -Bourbon:-- - - - "La chasse, la vin, et les belles - C'était le refrain de Bourbon. - - -"But we must go and dress, my dear Landri, so that we may be on hand -when they arrive, these 'belles'!" - -"You see," said Chaffin to Landri in an undertone, as they left the -dining-room behind the marquis, "you didn't speak to him, you couldn't. -To-morrow you won't be able to any better. You felt it. I was sure you -would. Look the situation in the face. You will do what I have advised. -It's the only way. I shall wait forty-eight hours more before I tell -him." - -He walked away in the direction of his office before Landri had found a -word to reply. He felt humiliated by the consciousness that he had -justified, by his own attitude, the silence for which he had warmly -rebuked his former tutor. He realized fully, however, that the motive of -passionate affection to which he yielded in postponing the awakening -from that blissful dream on the brink of an abyss had nothing in common -with the obscure schemes of a decidedly double-faced personage. Landri -had received this impression anew when the other spoke of the despatch -alleged to have been sent during the day by his son. The message that he -had himself received a half hour before contradicted this improvement, -which was clearly fabricated by Chaffin. For what purpose? As a chance -shot, and to diminish the probabilities of a consultation with the -shrewd Jaubourg concerning the course to be pursued. The young man was -unable to divine this reason. But it was equally true that he could no -longer tell himself in good faith that it was "to spare my father -anxiety." The first shock of surprise was past. His new-born reflections -revealed too many riddles in the performance, and first of all this -persistent abandonment of the contest, this acceptance of an event which -should have been the outcome of nothing less than a desperate -resistance. But in that case Chaffin was not loyal? This supposition -opened horizons so dark that Landri rejected it. His memories of -childhood and youth cried out against it. "He has warned me," he said to -himself. "What forced him to do it? My God! how I wish I knew the truth, -and above all things what my duty is!" - -What was his duty? He had no sooner propounded that question than it -occupied the whole field of his thought. How gladly he would have asked -advice of some one! But of whom? As he passed through his library again, -after he had dressed, on his way down to the salons on the ground floor, -his glance fell upon a portrait of his mother, and he stopped to gaze at -it, as if the face of the dead might take on life to sustain him, to -give him a hint. Alas! to no purpose would his filial piety have -questioned for days and days the delicate and deceitful features which -had been those of the beautiful Madame de Claviers. He would have -derived nothing but doubts concerning her, had the denunciator carried -to the end his confidences concerning the secret sorrows of the family. -That portrait was of 1878. Landri was just born, and Madame de Claviers -was thirty years old. She was painted sitting down, in a red velvet -evening gown, which left bare her lovely arms, her supple shoulders, her -neck, a trifle long, about which gleamed a row of enormous pearls. She -had a very small head, with an abundance of chestnut hair, a mouth of -sinuous shape, upon which flickered a smile, but impersonal and -seemingly forced. The eyes, whose expression was at once dreamy and -observing, passionate and guarded, contradicted the artificial -banality of that smile. It was the image of a woman, very sweet -and very simple at first glance, very complex at the second, and quite -unintelligible,--a happy woman, but whose happiness was of that -deep-seated and perturbed sort that never comes to fruition, being -condemned, by sin, to remain concealed. - -Landri, without quite understanding why, had never cared overmuch for -that canvas, which he preserved as a relique. His mother had bequeathed -it to him expressly, in a will made during the last days of the terrible -illness of which she died. Obsessed by the anxiety which consumed him, -he suddenly detested that picture, and hurriedly walked away from it. -That _grande dame_, in her festival costume, who had reigned over that -life of extravagance while bearing her part in it, had no moral aid to -offer him! Nor had the grandfathers and grandmothers, whose old-time -faces covered all the walls of the salons once inhabited by them -according to the same principle of unbridled expenditure. The marquis's -guests were beginning to crowd the rooms, and the young man contemplated -those family portraits over their heads: young women and old women of -bygone centuries, lords and prelates, ambassadors and field-marshals, -commanders of the Saint-Esprit and Grand Crosses of Saint-Louis. Those -faces, by their presence alone, seemed to entreat the inheritor of their -name to labor to spare them that last great outrage--to be carried away -from the ancestral dwelling, to become simply a Rigaud or a -Largillière, a Nattier or a Tocqué, a Drouet or a Vigée-Lebrun, in -some random collection. To spare them that outrage--but how? And Landri -felt that his uncertainty increased.--Yes, what was his duty? But what -if Chaffin were sincere, if his outlook were just, if, in order to save -his father from a final crash, it were necessary, man-fashion, to -sacrifice those portraits and everything else,--the Gobelins and that -series by Boucher, the _Noble Pastorale_, and Natoire's Mark Antony, and -the Beauvais tapestries, and the gilded wainscotings of Foliot and -Cagny, and the carpets from La Savonnerie, and the bronzes, and the -hangings, and all that array of beautiful objects, whose frivolous -magnificence inevitably demanded such assemblages as that of this -evening? - -Passing from inanimate things to people, Landri studied one after -another, first in the salons, afterward in the dining-hall, the familiar -faces of M. de Claviers' guests and of M. de Claviers himself. On the -day when those Férussacs and Hautchemins and Traverses and Sicards and -Saint-Larys and all the rest, and Louis de Bressieux and Florimund de -Charlus, should learn of their host's downfall, would they pity him much -more than his secretary did? Their egoisms, their fickleness, their -indifference seemed to become visible to the son's grief-stricken -imagination. - -Meanwhile the dinner had begun. The servants in the Claviers-Grandchamp -livery were passing to and fro behind the guests. The light fabrics of -the décolleté gowns alternated with the black coats, eyes shone, lips -laughed, the dishes succeeded one another, wine filled the glasses, and -the marquis, at the centre of his table, contemplated the fête with -eyes sparkling with life. It was as if all the Claviers-Grandchamps were -entertaining in his person, superbly. Hardly more than a suspicion of -dissatisfaction veiled his eyes, when, turning in his son's direction, -he observed his evident preoccupation. "Poor Landri is thinking of his -Madame Olier!" he said to himself; and his magnanimous old heart felt a -vague remorse which he banished by raising his head and gazing at the -portrait of the lieutenant-general, wounded at Fontenoy. - -The voices rose higher and higher. The laughter became more and more -uproarious. Complexions tingling with the country air assumed a ruddier -hue in the atmosphere of the dining-hall. Landri's suffering became more -and more acute. Was it possible that this fête was really the last? But -what was he to do? What was he to do? He could scarcely force himself to -talk of indifferent subjects with his two neighbors in turn, one of -whom, at his left, was the pretty, fair-haired and insignificant Madame -de Férussac. The other, clever Marie de Charlus, carried her jovial -humor to ever greater lengths as the dinner proceeded. She realized that -she did not exist, so far as Landri was concerned, and she yielded to -the instinct that has ruined the happiness of so many love-lorn women: -to make an impression at any cost on the man they love, and to disgust -him rather than not be noticed at all by him. Ascribing her conduct to -the atmosphere, she began to run through a long list of satirical -sobriquets, such as it was the fashion in Paris, last winter, to -distribute at random. - -"And Bressieux," she said at one moment, "do you know what they call -Bressieux? Monsieur le Vicomte de la Rochebrocante. And poor Jaubourg, -on account of his swell associates among us? Jaubourg-Saint-Germain. For -my part, I call it very amusing!" - -"Jaubourg-Saint-Germain?" said Sicard, the spiteful damsel's right-hand -neighbor. "I don't know him. True, it is amusing!" - -The most amusing part of it was that the Sicard couple had their own -nick-name--unknown to the parties concerned, of course:--"The three -halves." This wretched pun signified that the very diminutive Madame de -Sicard, married to the very diminutive M. de Sicard, was supposed to -have a tender penchant for the very diminutive M. de Travers. The -historian of contemporary manners would apologize for noting, even -cursorily, such trifles, were it not that they have a slight documentary -value. This innocent fooling of a society so threatened measured the -degree of its heedlessness. - -Ordinarily these idiocies of the prevailing mode annoyed Landri de -Claviers. That refined and intelligent youth lacked, it must be -confessed, the precious gift of smiling, which the marquis had, and -which the English call by an untranslatable phrase, "the sense of -humor." He took everything alike too much _au sérieux_. However, he did -not think at that moment of taking offence at Marie's wretched taste. -The epigram concerning Bressieux had suddenly reminded him that his -father and himself had surprised the gentleman-broker in conversation -with Chaffin. He looked at him across the table and saw that the other -was looking at him. Was Bressieux mixed up in the schemes of the Altona -gang? Was that possible, too?--Oh! what to do? what to do? And, above -all, how to learn the truth? - -The second of the sobriquets mentioned by Mademoiselle de Charlus -started Landri's mind upon another scent.--Jaubourg? But he was to see -Jaubourg to-morrow. Suppose Jaubourg, who knew everybody in their -circle, as that absurd name indicated, suppose that Jaubourg, too, knew -that imminent peril menaced their house? Suppose that was what he wanted -to speak about to his friend's son, being unable to induce that friend -himself to listen? And in the event that he knew nothing, why should not -Landri tell him the truth, in order to obtain the advice for which his -longing became more and more intense? Jaubourg was really fond of M. de -Claviers-Grandchamp. The young man's mind fastened upon this idea, which -he did nothing but turn over and over all the evening. - -How long it seemed to him before the last carriage, rumbling over the -pavement of the courtyard, had borne away the last guest! And no less -long the beginning of the night, when, having gone up to his room, and -being left to himself, he tried to formulate an appeal to the experience -and affection of a man with whom he had never felt at his ease! He had -too often encountered M. Jaubourg's interference, always concealed, in -matters that concerned only M. de Claviers and himself. He had never -learned anything of it except by chance. So it was to-day with this -Charlus project. And with it all, Jaubourg had never manifested to -Landri that good-humored affection which is the privilege of old family -friends who have seen us grow up. He had kept the child, and, later, the -young man, at a distance, by an attitude of constant criticism, -courteous and scornful at the same time. There had always been an -atmosphere of constraint between them. Chaffin's prevision was accurate -on this first point. Nor had he gone astray upon the second. The more -Landri dwelt on the idea of relying upon Jaubourg, the more the wonted -antipathy revived. "Besides," he concluded, "sick as he is, incapable of -taking any active step, ignorant of the Code, of what assistance can he -be to me, if there's a conspiracy to be foiled and legal precautions to -be taken?" - -Then it was, as the thought of possible litigation came to his mind, -that he remembered Métivier, the notary. "Where were my wits?" he -thought. "Métivier's the man I must see. One can appeal from a -judgment. One can resist. A notary knows how to do it. He knows the ways -to borrow money. My fortune is still intact. Chaffin admitted as much. -Métivier will tell me if I can use it to save Grandchamp, and how to go -about it." - -He reflected that, as he was to pass only half a day in Paris, he had -not time to make an appointment with Maître Métivier, a very busy man, -who, perhaps, would not be at his office. He did not go to bed until he -had written a long and very succinct letter, which he proposed to leave -at the notary's in case of his absence. He set forth in detail the whole -story that Chaffin had told him, giving the names of Madame Müller and -Altona, the figures given to him, the advice insinuated by his former -tutor, his determination to sacrifice his personal interests absolutely -in order that the château might be kept intact. He added that, being -obliged to return to Saint-Mihiel, he would arrange to be at Paris as -soon as his presence was necessary. - -As he read the letter over he was amazed to notice how easy it seemed to -him, now, to apply to his colonel for another leave, which had seemed to -him impossible that morning, in view of the prospective inventories. -Chaffin's revelation had changed the whole course of his thought. Other -revelations, more tragical, were about to supervene, and to lead him in -still another direction. He had no more suspicion of them than he had -had of these the night before, when he deemed himself so unfortunate, -and when the whole drama of his life seemed to him to be comprised in -those two desires: not to quit his profession as a soldier, and not to -lose the woman he loved. He had not, however, forgotten her, that friend -who was so dear to him. As he fell asleep, at the close of that day so -full of events, which preceded another day of even more cruel trial, he -reverted mentally to his conversation of the morning in the little salon -on Rue Monsieur. He marvelled at the unexpected détours of life, which -keeps such surprises in store for us, and he reproached himself, like a -true lover, for having given Valentine no place in his thoughts during -the last few hours. - -"But it is for her, too, that I shall go to see Métivier to-morrow," he -said to himself. "This disaster to my father, which should part me from -her, will draw me nearer to her, if I prove to him how devoted I am to -him. Let me save Grandchamp, and he will no longer oppose my marriage. -If we are ruined, Mademoiselle de Charlus's great fortune will become an -argument.--And even if he should persist in saying no, my conscience -would be at rest, having sacrificed myself to him, as I wish, as I am -determined to do." - - - - -IV - -THE TRAGIC UNDERSIDE OF A GRAND EXISTENCE -(_Concluded_) - - -This sweet and tender image of the adorable woman upon whom Landri had -formed the pious habit of letting his thoughts rest every night, for -years past, before closing his eyes, was there again when he woke. Such -is the sorcery of a passionate love in youth. To be sure, he was much -engrossed by the step he was arranging to take with respect to Maître -Métivier; the confusion in their financial affairs disclosed by Chaffin -was most serious, and brought with it threatening consequences in the -future. Moreover, none of the obstacles against which he had bruised -himself the night before had disappeared. He was still likely to -receive, before the end of the week, an order to proceed to take one of -the two church inventories announced as about to be taken in the -neighborhood of Saint-Mihiel. He knew too well, despite the sophistical -reasoning of his desire, that his father's opposition to a mésalliance -would not readily give way. But he was to see Valentine Olier at two -o'clock, and in spite of everything, an intimate joy had possession of -him. While he was dressing and breakfasting, he constantly interrupted -himself to gaze admiringly at the depths of the blue sky, at the forest -bronzed by the autumn, at the garden _à la française_ spreading -beneath his windows, and at the statues, whose white lines stood out -against the dense dark foliage of the yews, trimmed in the shape of -balls and pyramids. - -That same blue sky enveloped the château as with an aureole when he -turned to look at it once more, in the carriage that was taking him to -the Clermont station. He had had the good fortune not to fall in with -Chaffin as he was leaving,--he had dreaded such a meeting a little,--and -he had the additional good fortune to meet his father in person at a -turn in the road, mounted, as he had said, on his new horse. - -"I was determined to introduce him to you," cried the old nobleman as -soon as his son was within earshot, "and also to bid you good-morning. -Did you rest well? Good!--My farmer has hoodwinked me--he was sure to. -He'll have his repairs. Chaffin will scold me.--As for this old fellow," -and he patted the arched neck of the powerful Irish horse which was -dancing nervously, "he tried hard to unseat his new rider.--Whoa! whoa! -I am not in favor of divorce, my boy.--I have taken him down a little -all the same, by giving him a chance to gallop. As for the trot, we -shall not say anything about that for some time. But I'll show you what -he can do." - -Riding at a ditch near-by, he raised the beast, which leaped readily to -the other side. There was a low stone wall a short distance away, at -which M. de Claviers drove the roan straight, with no less daring and -grace than if he had been five-and-twenty instead of five-and-sixty. The -horse leaped the obstacle. The marquis waved his hat triumphantly. - -"A second Toby!" he cried exultantly to his son. "And he's shrewd too, -the beast! Oh, he is!--Adieu, my son, and don't forget Jaubourg. A -despatch at once!" - -He disappeared. How often Landri was destined to see again in memory -that horseman, so proud of mien, riding away across the fields! "Adieu, -father!" he cried in response; and it was indeed an adieu that they -exchanged,--although they were to meet again,--adieu of the father to -the son, of the son to the father. And neither knew it! - -"He is too anxious about his friend," said Landri to himself as he left -the train, an hour later, on the platform of the Gare du Nord. "I will -go there first. Then to Métivier's. Place de la Madeleine--that's on my -way to luncheon at the club. My father will have his telegram all the -earlier. Mon Dieu! if only I have no terrible news to send him!" - -As so often happens, the unhappy youth dreaded the very thing that he -ought most earnestly to have desired. He had a slight sense of relief -when he noticed, on reaching Rue de Solferino, that the straw was still -spread in front of the house. M. de Claviers' friend was still alive. -But the bulletin, posted in the concierge's lodge, contained one line, -more ominous than that of the preceding day: "A very restless night. -Increasing weakness." Beside it was a register on which were inscribed -long columns of signatures "with currents of air," as the -free-mason-colonel was wont to say in his coarse and picturesque -"_fichards_'" slang. Our death-beds and our burials sum up, in a -synopsis, as it were, our whole social individuality. - -"Jaubourg-Saint-Germain" was taking his departure as if he really -deserved that biting epigram. Who, pray, in Paris is sufficiently -interested in the real motives of our actions to seek them beyond our -gestures? The son of a stock-broker, Jaubourg had frequented a circle -very different from that of his birth, for reasons which were not -vanity. All his shrewdness had exerted itself to dissemble them. -Moreover, if he had been a great lover he had been this also,--the -social status makes itself felt even in the tender passion,--a wealthy -bourgeois training among patricians. All sorts of little indications -adjusted themselves to that rôle in his case. He had chosen for his -abode the first floor of an old parliamentary house, spared when -Boulevard Saint-Germain was laid out. The immeasurably high-studded -rooms presented a seignorial aspect, in harmony with the very beautiful -furniture and the tapestries that Charles Jaubourg had collected -therein,--as at Grandchamp. But the furniture and tapestries did not -constitute a true ensemble. The aristocratic stage-setting, which was so -alive in the château de Claviers, took on here the factitious aspect of -a museum. It was the work of a man who had employed the leisure acquired -by the toil of his parents in not resembling them. He proceeded thus -from the small to the great. - -The servant who opened the door to Landri was the old maître-d'hôtel -who had carried the dying man's message the night before. Jaubourg's -relations with him were very analogous to those of M. de Claviers with -the Mauchaussées and their like. But the châtelain knew his men "plant -and root," to use again one of his favorite expressions. They were of -the soil, of the neighborhood of Grandchamp; their fathers and mothers -doffed their caps on the road to the defunct marquis, as they called -Landri's grandfather; whereas Joseph, Jaubourg's servant, had entered -his service by chance, on the recommendation of the secretary of a club. -He had become attached to his master, however, with the affection that -shrewd servants conceive for bachelors. He had made himself a home -there. His devotion was genuine, but to a master whom he could not -replace. This sentiment, composed largely of selfishness, bore no -resemblance whatever to the familiar and hereditarily feudal deference -with which the marquis's retainers enveloped him. There was something of -the confederate in Joseph, of the safe witness, who has entered into a -tacit contract of discreet silence with a rich and independent Parisian. - -Jaubourg had never said a word or made a motion which authorized any -person whomsoever, especially his servant, even to suspect the nature of -the interest that Landri aroused in him; and yet it was with a -semi-reproachful air that the wily and zealous Joseph greeted the young -man. He had anticipated the ringing of the bell, a sign that he was -watching for his arrival. - -"Ah! how much Monsieur would have liked to see Monsieur le Comte -yesterday! To-day--" He compressed his lips and touched his forehead. -"Will Monsieur le Comte allow me to ask him not to contradict Monsieur -in anything? Monsieur was so sick last night! The head! the head! I was -afraid he'd go mad! He's better since morning. But if Monsieur le Comte -would like to speak with Monsieur le Docteur Chaffin, while I go to -prepare Monsieur for his visit--" - -The son of the ex-tutor, who had been since the conversation of the -preceding evening an object of such suspicion to Landri, occupied the -room that Jaubourg, a gentleman of leisure, used for a study. A library -of some size justified that title. It exhibited on its shelves the backs -of rare volumes, which the collector had bought for the editions and for -the bindings, and seldom opened. Pierre Chaffin had seated himself in -front of a magnificent Riesener desk. The morocco top of that regal -piece had certainly never before been used for such tasks as those in -which he was engaged. He was correcting the proofs of a medical -pamphlet, in order not to waste his time in the interval between his -sittings by the bedside of the invalid, who, for his part, had written -nothing at that desk, for many years, except notes accepting or -declining invitations to dinner! - -Between the doctor and Landri de Claviers-Grandchamp the relations had -always been rather peculiar. As children they played together. Then the -difference in their ranks had separated them. Old Chaffin's surly -temperament--which he turned to account as knaves do their failings, by -exaggerating it--reappeared in Pierre, without artifice or hidden -motive. Very intelligent and energetic, taking life by its only good -side, work, the head of the clinical staff affected the rough manner of -the pure professional who is incessantly irritated by incompetence and -pretentiousness. In his eyes all the people in society--and Landri was -included in that category--were useless and incapable. Strange as such -an anomaly may seem, many physicians, albeit very shrewd observers in -respect to physiological symptoms, form such judgments of matters -relating to the life of the mind, with the simplicity of primary-school -children. Literally, they do not see it. Never had Pierre Chaffin -suspected the inward drama through which the young noble was passing, -torn asunder between his caste and his epoch. As his proud uncourtliness -kept him away from the luxury and the festivities of Grandchamp, he was -wholly ignorant of the reverse side of a society of which his father -never spoke except in phrases of the most conventional and the most -hypocritical respect. He was equally ignorant that he inspired in Landri -a deep interest blended with generous envy. Yes, ever since their youth, -the heir of the Claviers-Grandchamps had envied the student his -independence in the struggle of life, and the reality of his activity. -Unknown to his playmate, he had followed him through the successes of -his service as intern, recommending him again and again to the -illustrious Professor Louvet, his family physician. To these advances, -to that regard which goes forth to meet friendship half-way, Pierre -Chaffin never responded save by a stubborn coldness, in which there was -some embarrassment, a defence, at once brutal and alarmed, against a -sympathy of which he could not fathom the cause. There entered into it -also a little of another, less generous, sort of envy,--that of the son -of a salaried employee for the son of the employer, of the plebeian for -the aristocrat. - -He displayed no more amenity than usual on this occasion, in -acknowledging Landri's greeting and his questions concerning Jaubourg's -illness. - -"It's acute pneumonia in its classic form," he said, raising from his -proofs his broad face, surrounded by a reddish beard, to which a pair of -gold-bowed spectacles imparted the expression of a German scholar. "A -cold contracted by imprudence, fatigue for several days, lame back, -headache. Then the peculiar chill, so characteristic of the disease, -that cry of agony of the whole organism attacked, and, immediately -after, thirty-nine degrees of fever. That's the first day. The second, a -hundred and ten pulsations a minute, and forty respirations, instead of -fourteen or eighteen. Last night, delirium. This evening or to-morrow, -judgment will be pronounced on the pneumonia, and I fear it will be very -harsh, considering the patient's age." - -"Do you think that he will still know me?" asked Landri. "Joseph used -the word madness." - -"Joseph doesn't know what that word means," interposed the physician -abruptly, with a shrug of the shoulders which was not far from -signifying, "Nor you, either."--"I myself," he continued, "used almost -the same word, which one should never do. It was not delirium that -Monsieur Jaubourg had last night, it was subdelirium. The upper parts of -the brain were under the influence of toxins, and the others, the -unconscious parts, were free and wandering. It's a sort of poisoning -peculiar to pneumonia, and which sometimes indicates its coming. It is -very analogous to alcoholic poisoning. It manifests itself by a dream -which expresses itself in speech and is incoherent to us. Probably, if -we knew the past life of a person intoxicated in this way, we should -discover that his incoherence is logical and true. Most frequently, he -lives over past events. It's a phenomenon that has been carefully -observed. We have given it one of those names of which society folk make -sport, I know, I know. Since Molière's time we are used to such -sarcasms. We call it an _ecmnésique_ state, when the depths of the -memory come to the surface, as we call this delirious dream _onirique_. -Why does a certain microbe produce this effect when it attacks the -meninges? This problem would lead us on to define what the mind is, and -it is probable that you and I would not agree!--But let us drop this, -which is scarcely interesting to you. I wanted simply to explain to you -that Monsieur Jaubourg has never been mad, and that he has all his wits -this morning. You can see him. Not for very long, and don't tire him." - -Once more, in the persistently technical tone of this dry and unfeeling -speech, Landri detected that instinctive hostility, unintelligible to -him, which he had always encountered in Pierre. The physician had -lectured in order to avoid having to talk. And not a word of inquiry as -to his own father, when they had not met for more than a year! Not a -word about M. de Claviers-Grandchamp, who had always been so kind to -him! Pierre Chaffin had an excuse--the ill-humor in which his master, -Professor Louvet, had put him by asking him not to leave Rue de -Solferino. The head of the clinic obeyed his "grand pontiff,"--the -students irreverently give that title to the masters on whom their -futures depend,--and he relieved himself by being ungracious to one who, -more than all others, represented that fashionable society to the -prestige of which his chief sacrificed him. There was not the slightest -failure of professional duty. A physician must not cavil at his -science,--with the friends of a patient. That was nothing--that theory -concerning the dreams of delirium--except a slightly pedantic excursus. -It was sufficient to cause the words extorted from Jaubourg by the -intoxication of his disease, if the crisis should come on in Landri's -presence, to assume an entirely different meaning in the young man's -mind. Alas! he had no need of that scientific "key." Unaided he would -have deciphered only too easily the dying man's words! They carried -their terrifying clearness with them. Nevertheless, the hypothesis of a -death-bed insanity would have left room for a doubt which the -scientist's lucid diagnosis had made untenable. - -When Madame de Claviers' son entered his chamber, the dying man seemed -to be exhausted by the high fever of the night, and to be more calm. He -lay on a bed in the middle of the room, himself a curiosity for -exhibition, like all the articles of furniture of that room, brought -together during many years, with the painstaking zeal of a collector. -This elegance of stage-setting rendered more painful the last hours of -the old man, whose appearance shocked Landri, warned though he had been. -The cheeks were burning, the whole face hyperæmic; the eyes shone with -the unnatural brilliancy of suffering, and the hurried, almost -spasmodic, dilatation of the nostrils told of the struggle against -suffocation. - -In his lifetime--it was already permissible to speak thus of -him--Jaubourg had been the typical society man, who does not surrender; -the worldling whose courageous courtesy spares others the contact and -the spectacle of his degeneration. That degeneration was complete -to-day, ominously undeniable and irreparable. But as a matter of habit -the Parisian had mustered energy to make a last toilet. His face was -washed and shaved, his sparse gray locks brushed, his hands cared for. -He had put on a dressing-jacket of soft silk. Puerile yet pathetic -details, which indicated his desire not to leave a too perverted image -of himself in the memory of his visitor, the only one whom he had -admitted during the last half-week. He had expressly forbidden Joseph to -notify the few relations--very distant they were--that he still -possessed. He had trembled lest they should suspect a condition of -affairs which he had made it a point of honor to conceal for twenty-nine -years. Yes, every effort of his life had had but one aim: to leave his -fortune to the son he had had by another man's wife, without causing the -world or that other man to wonder. The world--he had succeeded in -hoodwinking it almost absolutely by such prodigies of diplomacy! The -stories told by two or three members of his family, such as Madame -Privat, had not gone outside a very small circle, and intimates with the -perspicacity of a Bressieux are rare. The friendship which Jaubourg had -manifested for M. de Claviers since his widowhood, and which, by a -strange but very human anomaly, was sincere, would have put that -noble-minded man's suspicions to sleep, if he had conceived any. But -that great heart did not know what it was to distrust! It was he whom -Jaubourg by his will had made his sole legatee, without informing him or -anyone else. His reflections had led him to this roundabout method of -assuring to Landri his three millions at least. He had, as we have seen, -carried his scrupulosity to the point of being persistently cold in his -treatment of the young man, who, like everybody else, must never know -the truth. - -The adulterine father had anticipated everything, everything except the -death-agony among the hallucinations of memory! On his death-bed he was -to destroy this masterpiece of his prudence, and, we must add, of a -chivalry instigated perhaps by a tacit rivalry with the magnanimous -friend whom his passion had caused him to betray. He had failed therein, -for the first time, in yielding to the unspeakable craving to see once -more, before taking his departure forever, that son who bore another's -name and who was so dear to him. - -Few men have the strength to die absolutely alone. Jaubourg had alleged -to himself the pretext of talking to the young man of the project of -marriage with Mademoiselle de Charlus, to which he attached very great -importance. He had not foreseen the loss of energy under the attacks of -his malady, or the animal cry of nature in rebellion. - -"You have come, my friend," he said in a short, jerky voice, in which -there was already a hint of the death-rattle. "You have come," he -repeated; "thanks." And he pressed the hand that the other held out, in -a passionate grasp. What a contrast to the guarded and quickly withdrawn -clasp that he had always given him, as if unwillingly and with the ends -of his fingers! This had been one of the most painful to the sensitive -Landri of all the indications of his antipathy. "I wanted to speak to -you--before I die--For I am going to die." And, as the other protested: -"What's the use of lying? I feel death coming. I haven't much strength. -Every word tears me apart." He pointed to both sides of his chest. "I -must speak quickly--I wanted to talk to you," he insisted,--"about your -marriage--" - -"To Mademoiselle de Charlus?" rejoined the young man. He had noticed -that Jaubourg, like Chaffin a moment earlier, did not mention M. de -Claviers. "He doesn't really care for him, either," he thought, -recalling the last words that the marquis had shouted after him as they -parted. "It's the disease," he reflected further. "And I had thought of -consulting him about the tricks of our creditors--and I find him in this -state!"--He added, aloud: "My father told me how deeply you had -interested yourself for me in that matter, and I thank you heartily, you -understand,--heartily." - -"Claviers mentioned it to you?" rejoined the dying man; and added, with -feverish anxiety, "and you replied?" - -"That I shall never marry a woman I do not love, and that I do not love -Mademoiselle de Charlus." - -"I was sure of it!" groaned Jaubourg, leaning forward sorrowfully. A -hoarse cough shook him, which he tried to check with his handkerchief, -upon which spots like rust appeared. "Don't call," he summoned strength -to say to Landri, who was putting out his hand to touch the button of -the electric bell. In face of the manifest terror of that appeal, he -remembered the doctor's recommendations. He obeyed. The invalid, -exhausted by the paroxysm of coughing, smoothed his hand to signify his -gratitude. He had thrown himself back, with his eyes closed. He reopened -them, to resume: "But _she_ loves _you_! And she is charming! And then, -there's the future--I don't know what you will find when Claviers is no -longer there. I have never been able to make him talk about his money -matters. He doesn't know where he stands himself. Ah! I tremble for you. -I have done what I could. But this Charlus marriage--everything would be -straightened out, everything. This Chaffin, in whom he has such blind -confidence, what is he? I have never been able to find out that, either. -Oh! my poor, poor Landri!" - -His excitement increased. The young man did not yet interpret in their -true meaning words which, however, clothed with a new aspect that -strange nature; did they not betray a preoccupation wholly intent upon -him, in a man whom he regarded as a friend of his father exclusively? On -the other hand these words of distrust in connection with Chaffin -corresponded too nearly with the feeling aroused in his own mind for him -not to follow them up. - -"Do you, too, look upon Chaffin with suspicion?" - -"For a very long time," Jaubourg replied. "You will ask me: 'In that -case, why do you place yourself in his son's care?' Louvet forced him on -me. I did not refuse. I didn't think that I was so seriously ill! And -then, the son isn't the same sort as the father. But you don't know what -it is, to feel at times that you are going off, that you are speaking, -that you have spoken. And then you don't remember what you have -said--not a word. Everything is black before the mind. How I suffered -from that impression last night! Joseph swore that I didn't say -anything. You can believe him. He is reliable, perfectly reliable.--My -God! that feeling is coming back!--My head!--it aches. Oh! how it aches! -It's as if I had a pain in my mind!"--He took his head in his hands and -pressed it. Another paroxysm of coughing bent him double; he came out of -it repeating: "No! no! no! no!" Then, as if that almost convulsive -denial had renewed his strength, he added, speaking more jerkily than -ever: "I know why you won't marry this girl, who is so rich, who would -rescue you if Claviers has squandered everything! I know why. You still -love the other." - -"What other?" queried Landri. The overmastering compassion that he felt -for the invalid's evident agony did not prevent him from starting at -that direct allusion. One fact stood out in his memory: Valentine -imploring him not to go up to Jaubourg's room, not to see him. Were they -acquainted, then? His surprise was so great that he insisted almost -harshly: "What other, I say? Whom are you referring to?" - -"To that Madame Olier," said Jaubourg. "Oh! Landri, not those eyes, not -that voice! I can't stand that!--Look you,--I say nothing against her. I -know that no one ever spoke ill of her. But at Saint-Mihiel you saw her -constantly--I know that. She is a widow. I know that too, and where she -lives. I should have found a way to know her, if it had been necessary. -I know everything that concerns you, you see. I have always found a way -to know it, day by day, ever since you were born. You mustn't think of -marrying her. If she loves you for yourself, she ought not to think of -it, either. In the first place, Claviers will never consent. And -secondly you must be rich. I want you to be rich--I want it.--You don't -understand. You must not understand.--Ah! I have always loved you so -dearly, you know, Landri, and I have never been able to show it. It was -my duty not to. It's my duty now.--My head is getting confused again, -like yesterday.--But I don't want--I don't want--No. No. No. I won't say -anything.--Go away, Joseph. Go away, Chaffin. They're looking at me. -They shall not know. They shall not know.--My Landri! my own Landri!" - -"Neither Joseph nor Chaffin is here," said the young man. "Calm -yourself, Jaubourg. Calm yourself." - -He made him lie down again, very gently. Those few sentences from the -dying man's lips had moved him to the inmost depths of his being. With -what a passionate interest the man must have followed him in order to -have obtained such detailed information concerning incidents of so -private a nature! M. de Claviers did not even suspect Madame Olier's -existence before their conversation in the forest, and Jaubourg knew -everything about her! He knew everything about him, he had said, "day by -day, ever since he was born." What did those enigmatic words mean, and -uttered, too, in such a tone? And those other words: "I have always -loved you so dearly! I have never been able to show it. _It was my duty -not to_!" - -And, already disturbed even to anguish, Landri repeated: "They are not -here. I am alone with you, all alone;" and, almost in a tone of -entreaty: "Before me you can say anything; speak, if that will calm you. -For you must calm yourself. You must." - -"I have nothing to say," Jaubourg replied, "to anyone. To anyone." He -had recovered his self-control once more. "I am quite calm. But my head -gets so confused! Kiss me, Landri. Bid me adieu. I wanted to see you for -that.--Oh! Just once, let me kiss you once as I love you. Oh! my child! -my child!" - -Tears gushed from his eyes, and rolled down amid the sweat with which -his face was bathed. He rested his moist face on the young man's hands. -He pressed him to his heart. He touched his hair and his shoulders; and -Landri, aghast at the horrible thing that was being disclosed to him, -listened as he continued:-- - -"You have gone back to your kind voice.--Your voice! That was my only -joy in you. When you were a little child, at Grandchamp, I used to go -into the library to listen to you as you played in the garden under the -windows."--He had raised himself to a sitting posture. The dream -described by the doctor was beginning.--"You don't see me, nor anyone -else. I am looking at you.--You run about, your curly hair floats in the -wind--your mother's hair.--She comes to you, along the path, against the -yews. The air has colored her cheeks. How lovely she is!--She knows I am -there. She smiles at me over our child's head.--Where has she gone?" His -eyes had changed their expression. They were fixed on other -scenes.--"How tiny she looks in that great bed! She insisted on dressing -up. Her pearls sink into the folds in the skin of her neck!--Ah! how she -suffers at the thought of death! So young, and that frightful -disease!--I am going. You know that if I could stay I would not leave -you, Geneviève--tell me that you know it.--I love you! I love -you!--They are taking her away.--Look! I do not weep. You can look at -me, I shall not betray her.--Geoffroy,--he is weeping. I do not weep. I -still have our child. He shall have everything, everything. I have found -a way--You sha'n't prevent that! You sha'n't prevent it!" - -A terrifying vision had suddenly succeeded the pictures among which -Landri had recognized--with ever-increasing horror!--the amusements of -his childhood, his sick mother, and the minute detail of the pearl -necklace about her fleshless neck; that mother's burial--and the rest! -The invalid had raised himself in his bed. He was gazing at the young -man, with a stupefied expression in his eyes, evidently mingling the -altogether confused impression aroused by his presence with the -nightmare that had possession of him. - -"You say that he's my son! You have no right to think that," he groaned, -"you don't know--Don't say it--I forbid you to say it!" - -Then, as the illusion assumed a more definite and more alarming form, he -uttered a loud shriek and jumped out of his bed. - -This outcry was heard through the partition. It reached the ears of the -servant and the doctor, both of whom rushed into the chamber at the same -moment, just in time to stop the invalid, who had darted toward the -window to escape from the voices that he heard. - -"Leave us alone," said the doctor to Landri, who was so horrorstruck by -the scene, that he had not even gone to the assistance of the victim of -hallucination. "Joseph and I can take care of him." - -He pushed the young man into the study, where he remained quarter of an -hour, half an hour, completely crushed, as if he himself were in the -clutches of a nightmare which paralyzed him with terror. At last the -doctor reappeared. His face bore the marks of extraordinary -preoccupation. - -"I have just given him an injection of morphine, to subdue him," he -said. "He will doze now, till the end. But such a paroxysm! That of last -night was a mere outline.--Above all things pay no attention to what he -may have said to you. It was absolute mental confusion,--madness." He -repeated: "madness." - -He looked his companion squarely in the face--too squarely--as he -emitted that phrase which contradicted so utterly his earlier formulas: -"He lives over past events.--The depths of his memory come to the -surface." He himself realized, no doubt, the terrible bearing of the -antithesis between this second assertion and the former one, for he -could not help blushing. What words had Jaubourg uttered, then, in his -delirium, that were even more explicit? Had he pronounced, before those -witnesses, the horrifying sentence: "I was Madame de Claviers' lover, -and Landri is my son?" At all events, that was the ghastly fact that -Chaffin had grasped amid the sick man's divagations, as Landri himself -had done; and, at this additional evidence, he felt an icy chill run -through his whole body. - - -When a man is suddenly brought face to face with a fact of supremely -tragic importance to him, which he cannot honestly doubt, and of which -he had no previous suspicion, an interval of semi-stupefaction succeeds, -of brief duration, during which he could not himself say what his -sensations are. It is not grief, for the man does not comprehend what he -has just learned. He does not realize it. Nor is it hesitation. Later he -will be able to argue, he will attempt, rather, to argue, against the -evidence. For the moment the fact has entered into him, with its -irresistible force, as a steel point enters the flesh that it passes -through, and there ensues, in the most secret depths of his being, that -total upheaval of nature to which the hymn in the liturgy refers: -_Stupebit et natura_. However, life goes on about this man who has been -stricken to death and knows it not. It even goes on within him, and he -seconds it, and he obeys its behests with an automatism resembling that -of an evil suggestion. In this state Landri descended the stairs from -Jaubourg's apartment, re-entered the cab he had left at the door, and -gave the cabman Maître Métivier's address, almost without being -conscious of it. The clock, wound before the terrible shock, performed -its functions mechanically. - -The notary was not at his office. Of what consequence now to the young -man were those financial difficulties which had seemed so formidable to -him? What were they in presence of this other horrible thing? He left -his letter, and went on, on foot, toward the club on Rue Scribe where he -had determined to lunch. A telegraph office that he passed reminded him -of his promise to send M. de Claviers a despatch. He went in; and there, -as he rested his elbow on the desk of blackened wood, before the printed -form, and dipped his pen into the ink, this species of somnambulism -suddenly ceased. His consciousness returned, acute and heart-rending. -That ghastly hour that he had just lived through was a reality. Jaubourg -was really dying. He had really said to him those words which still -filled his ears and which had rooted in his mind the most cruel, the -most ineradicable of ideas. A sudden evocation showed him M. de Claviers -entering that same room, and the dying man, in the throes of the same -delirium, uttering the same words. - -"That shall not be!" he said, and he crumpled the paper, on which he had -not even begun to write the address, with a convulsive gesture of -dismay. Feverishly he wrote on another sheet: "Marquis de -Claviers-Grandchamp. Château de Grandchamp, Oise.--Don't be alarmed. A -decided improvement;" and signed it. Then he handed the untruthful -despatch through the wicket. - -He was within two steps of the club. The sight of one of the members -going in at the door, who, fortunately, did not see him, made him stop -short and walk away, almost run, in the opposite direction. That member -of the club knew Charles Jaubourg, as all the others did. He would ask -him for news of him. The friendship between the sick man and M. de -Claviers was legendary.--Friendship!--Suddenly Landri said to himself: -"They all know. Such scandals as this the world always knows; it hawks -them about and laughs at them. The whole club knows. All Paris knows. -There were only two people who didn't know." - -He walked on and on,--how long he could not have told,--flying from -those witnesses of the family disgrace, flying from himself. He -mechanically entered a restaurant for luncheon, but had hardly begun to -eat when he rose. Another image sprang up in his mind,--that of -Valentine Olier. She too knew. That was the meaning of the exclamation -that rushed from her lips: "Monsieur Jaubourg dying? I hope he won't see -you"; of her entreaty not to see the sick man. She knew! With a bound as -brutally instinctive as the contraction of his fingers on the white -telegraphic form just before, Landri left the restaurant. He hailed -another cab, to fly to her. - -In his unreasoning excitement he had walked heedlessly, from street to -street, as far as the network that encompasses the Department of the -Interior. He was quite near Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where the -town mansion of the Claviers-Grandchamps is situated. There his mother -had died. There he had lived ever since with--By what name should he -call henceforth the man whom he loved and should always love as a son -loves his father, and who was nothing at all to him, nothing more than a -great-souled honorable man, outraged by the most terrible of affronts, -by those of the flesh of which his flesh was the offspring? The thought -of seeing that house again was abhorrent to the wretched youth. He had -given the cabman Madame Olier's address. As he was preparing to turn -into Rue des Saussaies, Landri knocked on the glass as if he would break -it. He ordered the man to go by way of Rue de Suresnes, Boulevard -Malesherbes, and Rue Royale. The mere aspect of the quarter in which he -had passed his childhood was, physically, intolerable to him. He closed -his eyes that he might recognize nothing. But in that crisis of his life -what impression could he receive that would not make him cry out in -pain? - -And now he was going to Valentine. To tell her what? To ask her -what?--The cab had crossed Place de la Concorde, passed through Rue de -Bourgogne and Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, and was rumbling over the pavement of -Rue Monsieur; and he was still asking himself that question, without -finding any reply thereto. To have conceived that ghastly suspicion, -that certainty, alas! concerning Madame de Claviers and his own birth, -was such a disgrace to begin with! To put that idea in words, even to -Valentine, especially to Valentine, would be a crime! The affection of a -son for his mother bears so sacred a character, all the loving energies -of our being combine so powerfully to make her a creature apart from all -others, purer, more irreproachable, more venerable! Was Landri to -overstep the bounds of that respect which he alone could never cease to -feel for Madame de Claviers, whatever she might have done? Should he -repeat, voluntarily, knowingly, those terrible words torn from a dying -man by the approach of the death-agony,--words by which he himself, as -soon as he had heard them, was, as it were, stunned, ay, struck dead? - -And yet it was absolutely necessary that he should find out whether -Valentine knew and what she knew. The nervous shock had been too -violent. All power of inhibition was momentarily suspended in him. His -thought was certain to become an act the instant that it bore any -relation to the overwhelming revelation that he had had to undergo. So -that it was impossible for him not to cross the courtyard, not to ring -at Madame Olier's door, not to ask if she would receive him. It had not -even occurred to him that it was barely half-past twelve, that their -appointment was for two o'clock, and that the simple fact of his -arriving unexpectedly indicated some extraordinary occurrence. Did he so -much as remember the reason that he and the young woman had made the -appointment, and the passionate and painful interview of yesterday -concerning their marriage? There is a peculiar characteristic of such -uncontrollably excited mental states into which we are cast by a too -abrupt and too violent shock: our mental equilibrium is temporarily -upset. Our most cherished sentiments are arrested as it were, and our -power of prevision as well. We seem to be looking on at the throwing out -of gear of certain all-powerful sensations which lead us where they -choose. - -The bell had no sooner rung than Landri would have been glad to flee -again as he had been fleeing. He remained. - -"Either later, or now," he said to himself, "I must see her. I prefer -now, and to know at once the whole extent of this dishonor." - - -When the servant announced that Monsieur le Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp -desired to speak with her, and at once, Valentine was at table, had just -finished taking luncheon with her little boy. During the twenty-four -hours since the young man had left her upon her promise of a final -answer to his offer of marriage, she had been constantly in the throes -of the last convulsions of the struggle that had been waged for three -years between her love and her duty first, her good sense next. That -exclamation with which their interview had ended, that "now I am all -his," had been followed by a supreme effort to resist. The serious -objections that she had urged had presented themselves anew with a force -which Landri's disclosures concerning the secret difficulties of his -relations with his father had not lessened--quite the contrary. One -thing had grown less: her authority over her friend. By consenting to -reconsider her first refusal, she had proved too plainly her weakness -before the young man's passion. She realized that, and she was alarmed -to observe how sweet the sensation of yielding to that force was to her. -Irresistible inward intoxication of the woman who begins to give -herself! To give herself! A phrase so simple, yet of such deep meaning, -which sums up in itself the whole miracle of love, because it is love! -To cease to be one's self, to transform one's self into the ideas, the -wishes of another, to become whatsoever he wills, contrary to -self-interest, to prudence, sometimes to honor--so that he may be happy! -And the man whom Valentine loved wanted nothing from her which she had -not the right to give him without remorse. - -"What answer shall I give him?" she had asked herself a score of times, -without ever arriving at a decision of which she was really, radically -sure in her own mind. "How can I persuade him to wait longer? Wait, and -for what? Assuming that I impose this further postponement upon him, and -he agrees to it, what will our relations be then? If I don't say yes, -and instantly, I shall be obliged, after the explanation we had -yesterday, to close my door to him. To receive him under such conditions -would be mere coquetry, in the worst of all forms. A woman who has let a -man tell her that he loves her should never see him again, or should -belong to him. Not see him again? Not know what he thinks, what he -feels? I should suffer too much. To say yes to him, if ill luck wills -that he shall be mixed up in one of these horrible church-burglaries, is -to dig still deeper the gulf between him and his father. If I could only -make my consent depend on the condition that he should resign rather -than obey an order of that sort! No; that would be wrong. He has a -conscience of his own which I have no right to exert pressure upon in -the name of his love! Ah! how I wish I could be sure that I am deciding -only for his real good, and not because I love him and for my own -happiness!" - -A little incident had added to her uncertainty: a long letter from -Saint-Mihiel, written by one of the friends she had retained there, the -wife of one of the late Captain Olier's fellow officers. It was all -about the uneasiness that prevailed among all the officers on account of -the imminence of the two inventories--at Hugueville and Montmartin. The -young widow's correspondent related at great length a conversation she -had had with her husband, and how she had insisted that he should resign -rather than comply with certain orders. - -"She is his wife," Valentine had said to herself. "A wife has the right -to take part in the most important resolutions of her husband's life. -Would she have the right to leave him if he should decide against her -advice? That is the sort of pressure I should try to exert if I should -demand a promise from Landri as the price of my hand. I will not do it!" - -Such were the thoughts that she was turning over in her mind when the -bell rang. "Monsieur le Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp?" she could not -help asking the servant who transmitted the young man's request; and she -made her repeat the name, her surprise was so great. What was the -meaning of this call at half after twelve instead of two? Evidently, -that Landri had spoken to his father. To make him anticipate their -appointment thus, he must have good news to tell her! Would M. de -Claviers consent to their marriage? It was mad to hope for such a thing, -and yet Valentine's heart was beating fast with that hope when she went -into the small salon where the young man was awaiting her. - -He had not uttered a word, and already she knew that she was mistaken. -And the door had hardly opened, and already he realized that he had come -to ask that woman a question which it was impossible for him even to -frame in his mind. Just as, a little while before, the trivial, -altogether material, necessity of writing a telegram, had roused him -from his stupor, so now the necessity of stating in explicit words the -ghastly thought roused him from his fit of frenzy. He saw it as clearly -as he saw Valentine coming toward him, that to seek to learn the extent -of the dishonor, as he had said, was to make himself an accomplice in -it, to aggravate it. Whatever Madame Olier might have learned, she had -learned it by hearsay only, and with doubts as to its truth. To speak to -her would change those doubts into certainty. - -Landri suddenly recovered all the energy he had had before the -revelation. The mere presence of some one to talk to had caused the -tortured youth to realize with crushing force the sacredness of the -obligation to hold his peace, to conceal his martyrdom. Such a mighty -struggle with himself, and so instantaneous in its conclusion, did not -take place without a contraction of the whole being, betrayed by the -tension of the motionless features, by the wavering of the glance, by -the "white voice"--an admirably expressive popular phrase! What a -contrast to the exalted glance, the impassioned lips of yesterday--those -glowing eyes, that ardent voice! What had happened? Still engrossed by -the anxiety revived by her friend's letter, Valentine thought at once of -the ominous tale of inventories to be made. - -"You have come at noon instead of two o'clock, Landri," she said, -speaking her thought aloud. "I understand. You have to return to -Saint-Mihiel by the next train. Have you had a telegram from the -colonel?" - -"No," he answered in amazement. He was so far away from these -professional anxieties that he did not even understand the allusion. - -"Then, if it isn't the inventories--" She did not finish the sentence. -The question that she had on the end of her lips did not pass them. The -perspicacity of a woman who loves made her divine that she must not even -ask it. To give herself countenance and to avoid the appearance of -interrupting herself, she continued: "The fact is that I have been -worried again this morning on your account. I have had a letter on the -subject from Julie Despois, the major's wife. In fact, I put it aside to -show it to you. Here it is." - -She had espied the letter on her writing-table,--it was placed there, in -fact, with that purpose. She handed it to Landri, who began to read it, -or to pretend to do so. Valentine saw that his eyes followed the lines -but that their sense did not reach him. He did not really see the words. -When he had finished the fourth page, he refolded the letter and handed -it to Madame Olier, who refused it. - -"Keep it. I want you to keep it. Read it again when you're back at -Saint-Mihiel. She says so well what I said to you so badly." - -The meaning of these words did not reach the young man, either. He -obeyed, however, and with a mechanical movement slipped the envelope -into his coat pocket. They sat for several seconds without speaking. -This sort of absence in presence terrified Valentine now. Something had -happened, something tragical it must have been to affect him so -profoundly. With that occurrence she had nothing to do,--she felt it, -she saw it. It was not a question of their marriage, nor of the answer -that M. de Claviers might have made. He looked at her no more than he -had looked at the letter just now. Something had happened! And had -happened since the day before. Since the moment that Landri left that -little salon.--Where did he go? To Grandchamp. But he had taken Rue de -Solferino on his way. Madame Olier shuddered at the remembrance of the -dread that had suddenly seized her when Landri had told her of his -purpose. Suppose that, despite the promise she had exacted from him, he -had been compelled to go upstairs? Suppose--And overwhelmed by the -possibilities of which she caught a glimpse, she asked:-- - -"Did you get to Grandchamp in good season yesterday?" - -"Why, very good," he replied; "in less than two hours." - -"And your father wasn't angry? That little détour that you had to take -didn't make you too late?" - -"No," he said, "I was there at the finish." - -As he pronounced the word "no" his voice hardened a little. His eyelids -drooped over his eyes, in which she read distress. He waited, stiffening -himself, in order not to shriek, for an allusion which she did not make. -A great surgeon probing a wound displays no more skill in holding back -the steel instrument at the moment when it would make the patient cry -out, than a loving woman has in suspending a painful interrogatory -before she has touched the sore spot. But was there need for Valentine -to question him now in order to assure herself that the wound was there? -Madame Privat was right. Jaubourg had loved Madame de Claviers. And so -what she, Valentine, dreaded had really happened. Words had escaped the -dying man which had aroused in the son's mind doubts concerning his -mother's honor! And she waited, suffocated with emotion, for Landri to -go on. - -He tried to speak, he did not wish to remain silent, to go away until he -had explained his unexpected call. But he could not. He could find only -phrases whose very insignificance emphasized their falsity. - -"They gave me a great many commissions at the château," he said, "and -they'll take the whole afternoon. They disposed of my time without -consulting me, and as I wanted to see you again, I came a little -earlier." - -"If you hadn't come," she replied, "and had sent me no word, I should -have been quite sure that it was not your fault. You well know that I -have entire faith in your affection, and that I shall never, never, take -offence at anything." Then, impelled by immeasurable pity for that too -cruelly stricken heart, if in truth a friend of his father, in the -delirium of the death-agony, had dishonored his mother's image forever, -she added: "I blame myself, Landri, for not having told you plainly -enough yesterday how dear you are to me. I didn't show it enough. For -you are dear to me, very dear," she repeated. It was as if she were -trying to tame with words that pain which she divined to be so savage, -so concentrated in itself, to caress it and soothe it. "Say that to -yourself sometimes, when I am not present, whatever may happen." And as -she saw that face, but now so gloomy, relax, and those veiled eyes look -at her once more and see her, the overflow of her affection extorted -from her the confession that she had always refused to make: "For you -see, Landri, I, too--I love you." - -"You love me!" ejaculated the young man. Obeying the instinct of true -love, whose double vision borders on the marvellous, she had pronounced -the only words capable of pouring balm upon his wound, but causing him -to realize its full extent. That confession that he had so ardently -craved and begged for, he was suffering too intensely to enjoy. That -love which she at last manifested openly, and which, two hours earlier, -would have intoxicated him with a very ecstasy of joy, he could no -longer rush upon, absorb himself in, engulf himself in--himself and the -horrible thing! That thing was there, in his thought, torturing him even -at that moment, not to be forgotten even in the radiance of that noble -heart, which was his at last! A wave of emotion swept over him, so -despairing and so passionate at once, that he was alarmed by it. He -trembled lest the hideous disclosure should burst from his too deeply -moved heart. But did he need to make it now? Had she not divined -everything? And that also touched him, as a more convincing proof of -love than the most impassioned words, and overwhelmed him utterly. - -"Thanks," he stammered. "But at this moment--surprise--emotion--Leave -me." - -And motioning to her that his voice failed him, he hid his face in his -hands. He passed ten minutes thus, not sobbing, not weeping, not -sighing, nor did Valentine attempt to question him or to comfort him. -The only assuagement that his sick heart could receive without bleeding -from it was the feeling that she existed, that she was by his side, all -his. She gazed at him, even holding her breath, to spare him any -sensation. There was, in the silent convulsive immobility of that man -who was undergoing the most violent inward tempest and who gave no sign -of it except that gesture of mute agony, a wild upspringing of energy -for which she esteemed and admired him. Never during those three years -had they been so near each other in heart as in that silence, which he -broke at last. He raised his head. He was deathly pale; but the paroxysm -was conquered. He rose, took Madame Olier's hand, and said to her, in a -deep voice:-- - -"Yes. You love me. You have just proved it more clearly than you will -ever do again. I believe it. I feel it, and I feel also that I love you, -ah! much more dearly than I knew. I am going to leave you. I must. But -not until I have asked you again what I asked you yesterday. Valentine, -will you be my wife?" - -"Yes," she replied, in the same tone. - -An inexpressible emotion flashed in Landri's eyes as he drew her to him. -Chaste and ardent kiss of betrothal, in which his lips were wet with the -tears that she was shedding, now, for his misery, who did not weep! And -as those tears disturbed him anew to his inmost depths, he tore himself -from her embrace, saying:-- - -"Don't take away my courage. I need it sorely." - -With these words they parted. She did not make a movement, she did not -say a word to detain him. She felt that he was hers, as she was his, -wholeheartedly, absolutely, and that she could do nothing else for him -than let him go, until he should have worn out, alone, that grief for -which she pitied him so profoundly. How much greater would her pity have -been if she had known the whole truth! She believed that at Jaubourg's -death-bed the young man had surprised some denunciatory words, had -perhaps found letters which had made him suspect his mother. The proofs -that he would soon have to face were far more cruel, and amid them all -he must needs find out the path of honor. - - - - -V - -IN UNIFORM - - -"I still have her," said Landri to himself, as he left Rue Monsieur. As -before, he walked straight ahead, with the automatic, hurried step which -indicates, in certain diseases, the beginning of a disturbance of the -nerve-centres. But does not a moral shock, of such violence as the one -that he had just received, act upon the organism after the fashion of a -genuine stroke? Do not people often die of such shocks? Do they not come -out from them paralyzed and mentally unhinged? The young man's reason -had been very near giving way during the terrible, nervous paroxysm with -which he had been attacked in Valentine's presence, and which resulted -in the renewed entreaty that she would bind herself to him forever. - -"I still have her," he repeated, "and only her!" - -That was the ghastly sensation that he had struggled against during -those ten minutes of dumb agony--the sudden, the indescribable crash of -everything about him.--His mother? The pious memory of her that he had -always retained, tarnished forever!--His father? He had no father from -the moment that he could no longer give that name to the only man whom -he loved with filial affection, to the noble-hearted, the magnanimous -Marquis de Claviers. For the other he had had, from childhood, only -antipathetic sentiments which his sinister disclosure had suddenly -transformed into abhorrence, mingled with remorse and pity.--His name? -He no longer had a name. The name that he bore was not his. It was a -living lie.--His home? He no longer had a home. In the mansion on Rue du -Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, as at Grandchamp, he was an intruder, a usurper. -He had no right to be there. A few words uttered by a dying man had -sufficed to make his previous existence nothing save a heap of ruins. Of -the truth of those words he had no doubt. They had come to him with the -tragic sanction of death, against which nothing can prevail. But suppose -that it was only the sudden outburst of a madness caused by the fever of -the disease? No. Was Jaubourg mad when he sent that message to him at -Grandchamp the day before, so that he might embrace him before he died? -Was he mad when he followed Landri as a child, and afterward as a young -man, with such passionately vigilant watchfulness, carefully concealing -his interest? No. Nor was he mad when he pressed him to his heart in -that embrace all a-quiver with the grief-stricken fervor of his paternal -love. He was not mad in those visions of the past, in that "spoken -dream," as the doctor had said, which fitted into their whole life with -terrifying exactitude. - -All these ideas had rushed at once into the young man's over-excited -mind during those very brief moments, as clear and distinct as memories -of the past in the mind of a drowning man. He had lost everything, -everything, except the sweet, pure woman yonder, who loved him, -understood him, pitied him, and did not tell him so--in order to spare -him! The unreasoned impulse, by virtue of which, in the throes of that -rayless distress, he had asked his only friend to unite their destinies, -was also, to follow out a too exact comparison, like the instinctive -movement with which the drowning man, whirled away by the current, -seizes in a desperate clutch the helping hand extended over the gunwale. -How happy Landri would have been to pass that long afternoon with her, -at her feet, his head on her knees; to feel descend upon him the only -charity that despairing souls welcome--sympathy without words! He had -been mortally afraid that he should himself speak if he stayed; and so -he had gone away to wrestle anew with the painful going and coming of -his thoughts, which tossed him to and fro once more in their resistless -surge. One by one the dying man's words repeated themselves in his mind, -from the sadly affectionate "You have come" of his first greeting, to -the outcries at the end, the imperative "You say that he's my son!"--a -supreme confession of the death-agony, followed by a supreme protest -which corroborated its truth. It proved the intense determination with -which the man had guarded his secret so long as his strength permitted -him to do so. - -"Jaubourg's son!" Landri exclaimed. "I am Jaubourg's son!" The pitiless -revelation regarding his birth was beginning to appear to him in its -concrete reality. The social atmosphere in which he had lived nearly -thirty years gave to that vision a unique character. He had heard the -people of his circle, from the best--a Marquis de Claviers--to the -mediocre and the worst,--a Charlus, a Bressieux,--talk so much of -"race"; and it was in his race that he found himself suddenly stricken. -The blood that flowed in his veins--and he looked tremulously at his -hands--was the blood of Jaubourg. The vital force that enabled him to -move, to breathe, as he was doing at that moment, came to him from -Jaubourg. His very flesh came from that man. In imagination he saw him -once more, no longer a pitiable, wasted creature, as he lay stricken -with pneumonia on his bed, but young and handsome, as his childish -recollections recalled him,--on horseback, following the hunt; in -morning costume, walking in the avenues of their park at Grandchamp; in -evening dress, seated at their table. These images brought the man -before him, physically. The relationship of their faces became, so to -speak, visible, palpable, to him, and it gave him a sensation of -disgust, of revolt at himself--a detestation of his own body, as it -were. - -The secret and hidden resemblances which he suddenly discovered between -himself and his mother's lover--he was dismayed to find that he dared -utter the words--confounded him. How had he failed to detect them? How -happened it that all those about him, and the marquis first of all, had -not remarked that similarity of temperament and the striking contrast -between the offspring of the Parisian bourgeois, distinguished it is -true, but in a mediocre way, and the feudal line of the Claviers? Landri -was slender, like Jaubourg, refined like him, but with a superficial, -almost stunted refinement, compared with the magnificence of those -splendidly robust noblemen. They all had light blue eyes. He had -Jaubourg's eyes, brown and dark. After so many years he could hear his -mother say: "Landri has my eyes." Why? So that no one might recognize -the eyes of the other. But he had those eyes, just as he had the -chestnut hair, and the lighter, almost tawny, mustache. - -From his mother he inherited other features: the straight nose, the -haughty mouth, the dimpled chin. These points of resemblance had -justified Madame de Claviers in asserting that he was her living -portrait--to those who were not aware! Landri was aware now, and he -shuddered at the thought that the intimate guests at Grandchamp had -certainly detected in him the unmistakable tokens of his descent. He was -humiliated in the most secret depths of his being. He had prided -himself, throughout his young manhood, upon not being the prisoner of -his caste. He had treated as delusions at least, if not as prejudices, -the uncompromising convictions of the head of the house of Grandchamp -concerning the nobility; and he had a strange sensation of degradation -in facing the alloyage of his origin, the blending of other inherited -characteristics with the purely aristocratic maternal inheritance. This -feeling was most illogical. Had he not proposed, did he not propose, to -marry a woman even less aristocratic than a Charles Jaubourg? But does -logic ever govern the spontaneous reactions of our pride? - -This indescribable impression of essential degradation was intensified -by another, more profound and more generous: the affection and -admiration that he had always entertained for M. de Claviers made it -almost unendurable to think that the sacred bond of parentage between -him and that loving, loyal, superior man was broken. Even while -struggling against his father's despotism, he had always been so proud -that he was his father! And he was not his father! What a heart-breaking -thing! It was as if, the very root of his being having suddenly been -laid bare, he were bleeding in every fibre that attaches the soul to the -body. - -And he walked on and on, aimlessly, forgetting the time, regardless of -his surroundings, until, at the end of the afternoon, he found himself a -long way from his starting-point, at the far end of the Ménilmontant -quarter, beyond the cemetery of Père La Chaise. The approaching -twilight warned him at last that the day was passing. He looked at a -street sign and saw that he was at the corner of Boulevard Mortier and -Rue Saint-Fargeau. He consulted his watch. It was almost five o'clock. -The train he was to take started at a quarter past five. His servant was -waiting for him at the Gare de l'Est. He had just enough time to make -it, in a cab. - -What mysterious and discomposing impulse of his perturbed heart did he -obey in leaving the station at his right and directing his steps towards -the Seine, and, from the river, to Rue de Solferino again? The -explanation is that, amid the tumult of his chaotic emotions, one image -had incessantly besieged his mind--that of the dying man, whose hands, -wet with sweat, he seemed still to feel wandering over his face, whose -short breath, tearing cough and spasmodic voice he could hear through -space. That man had done him a great wrong, but how large a place he -filled all of a sudden among his obsessions! That sinful paternity, so -brutally disclosed, agitated him without touching him. And yet it was -paternity none the less. His flesh quivered at the memory of those -farewell caresses. He felt a pang of remorse to think of leaving the -city where the unhappy man was breathing his last, without having -inquired for him, without having tried to see him once more. - -He crossed Pont Royal, walked the length of Quai d'Orsay, and turned -into that ill-omened street. This time, men were engaged in taking away -the straw from before the house; it was useless now and would deaden no -more the loud rumbling of the carriages. Landri's heart contracted, then -beat fast again, when, having entered the lodge to ask for details, he -was informed by the concierge, with the stilted manner of a man of the -people who announces bad news, feeling that he has a share in its -importance:-- - -"Monsieur Jaubourg died about one o'clock, almost immediately after -Monsieur le Comte went away. It seems that he did not suffer. He knew -nothing at all afterward. His head had gone. To think of that being -possible--such an intelligent gentleman! If Monsieur le Comte cares to -go up, he will find Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers there." - -"My father?" exclaimed the young man. One does not unlearn in a few -moments a habit contracted at the awakening of one's earliest -affections. He heard himself utter that exclamation, and shuddered, -while the other continued:-- - -"Monsieur le Marquis arrived half an hour ago. He knew nothing. It was I -who informed him of the unfortunate event. He was like one -thunderstruck. He could not believe it. 'If I had come this morning,' he -said, 'I should have seen him. I could have bade him adieu.'--Oh! he was -terribly grieved. It will do him good to see Monsieur le Comte." - -This perfunctory mourner's chatter might have gone on for a long while. -Landri was not listening. He was looking at the foot of the monumental -staircase, and at the broad stone stairs which he could no more avoid -ascending than a condemned man those of the scaffold. This man who -informed him of M. Jaubourg's death knew M. de Claviers and himself too -well. The half-familiarity of his speech proved it. To fail to join the -marquis at once, under such circumstances and under the watchful eyes of -that liveried witness, would be cowardly. It would have been less -cowardly to pour his distress into Valentine's ear! On the other hand, -would he have the courage to meet M. de Claviers at that moment and in -that place, especially if any suspicion had shaken his long-abused -confidence? It was a most improbable supposition, but had not Landri -himself had his eyes opened by an overwhelming and absolutely unexpected -revelation? What was the meaning of this sudden appearance of the -châtelain of Grandchamp, after the telegram announcing an improvement -in the invalid's condition? - -The young man asked himself that question, another source of anxiety -added to all the rest, as he climbed the stairs. How he wished that -there were more of them!--He was on the landing. He rang. He passed -through the reception room and the library. He entered that bedroom -where, a few hours earlier, the terrible scene was enacted. On the bed -where he had left Jaubourg writhing in pain and uttering unforgettable -words, lay a motionless form, prepared for the coffin. The dead man, in -evening dress, with white cravat, silk socks, and low shoes, had resumed -the conventional mask which the paroxysms of the death-agony had torn -from his face in his last moments--and before whom! Mademoiselle de -Charlus's epigram was justified by the presence of the crucifix between -those hands, joined even then by no prayer, no repentance. The delicate, -sad face, with its closed eyes and lips, its yellow forehead, and its -cheeks of a waxy pallor, as if smoothed of their wrinkles, no longer -told aught of the mystery so many years hidden. - -Nor did the impassive countenance of Joseph, the maître-d'hôtel, who -was walking about the room on tip-toe, betray any of the secrets that he -might have surprised. He was engaged in overlooking the final -arrangement of the sick-room, which was to be transformed into a salon -for the last visits to be paid to Jaubourg-Saint-Germain, by his "fine -friends," before he was laid in the ground. - -Pierre Chaffin, whose glance would have been so painful to Landri, was -no longer there. The son might have believed that he had dreamed it all, -that an hallucination had deceived his eyes and his ears, that he had -never seen what he had seen, never heard what he had heard, had it not -been for his trembling when he saw another human figure, kneeling at the -bedside, and alive. It was the Marquis de Claviers, a truly touching -figure in his sincere grief and his childlike faith. He was praying, -with all the strength of his old Christian heart, for his friend--for -him whom he deemed his friend! His absorption was so complete that he -knelt there several minutes without observing the presence of his -son--of him whom he deemed his son. And he, one of the two beneficiaries -of that magnanimous delusion, stood as if paralyzed by an embarrassment -bordering closely on remorse, as if, by keeping silent, he made himself -an accomplice in the insult inflicted on that proud man. - -At last the marquis raised his head. He showed his imposing face, -whereon the tears had left their trace. He rose to his feet, to his full -great height, and enveloped in a last glance the dead man, over whom his -hand drew the sign of the Cross.--What a gesture from him to that other! -When his loyal fingers touched that brow, Landri could have cried out. -M. de Claviers espied the young man, and, with another movement no less -pathetic, put his arm about his neck, as if to lean upon him in that -bitter hour. They passed thus into the study, where the betrayed friend -began to speak in an undertone, with the respect which even the most -indifferent assume in the presence of death. In his case it was not a -pose. He reproached himself for having, on the previous day and again -that morning, postponed a last visit to the dying man in favor of his -passionate fondness for hunting. - -"It was your despatch that made me come," he said. "I divined that you -didn't telegraph the truth--from what? From one little detail. It began: -'Don't be alarmed.' I thought: 'My poor Landri is disturbed. He thinks -of his old father's grief first of all. Jaubourg is worse.'--And then I -wasn't content with myself. I was angry with myself for having enjoyed -myself too much yesterday, and again this morning, riding that fine -horse and shooting partridges. It is almost criminal, at my age, to love -life so dearly!--However, Charlus and Bressieux took the train at -Clermont at three o'clock. I had taken them to the station. I jumped -into the carriage with them. It was too late.--I should have been so -happy to speak to him again!--But you saw him. Did he know you? What did -he say?" - -"He had already lost his reason," Landri replied, averting his eyes. He -had believed that afternoon that he had touched the bottom of the -deepest depths of suffering. He had not foreseen this tête-à-tête, -nor these confidences, fraught with such heart-rending significance to -him now. Each of them was destined to add a new chapter to the shocking -tale of deceit. The lover's son recognized therein everything--the -heedless, but lofty-minded security of the nobleman; the loyalty which, -having placed his honor in the hands of his wife and his friend, -had distrusted neither; the wiles of the wife, and the seductive -charm of the friend; and, too, the explanation, if not the excuse -of their sin. That life of parade and magnificence, in which the -"Émigré" had swallowed up his fortune that the glory of the name of -Claviers-Grandchamp might not fade, he had not been able to lead without -an accompaniment of idle associates. Love is the engrossing occupation -of such coteries of luxury and pomp and pleasure. Madame de Claviers was -very pretty. She was romantic, too. The stern and manly poesy of the -marquis's nature did not satisfy a sentimentalism to which a nature more -complex, more subtle, more corrupt perhaps, had appealed more strongly. -And Landri was born of that sin, inevitable and deplorable. But what a -crying shame that a man of so noble and rare a soul should have been -made a mock of at his own fireside! - -"So it is true," he continued, "that he did not know that he was dying? -Ah! Landri, may the good Lord preserve us from ending so, without being -able to make our last sacrifice! I dread but one form of death--that is, -sudden death. Jaubourg did not deserve it. But Charlus was quite -right--he was not religious. Still, if I had been here, I would have -sent for a priest; but Joseph did not dare to go beyond his orders. I -should have paid no heed to that, and who can say if God would not have -granted him the privilege of recovering consciousness for a moment! But -God is the nobleman of heaven, as somebody said, I don't know who. I -imagine that the amplitude of his indulgence surpasses our poor feeble -judgments. He pardons much to one who has always been sincere and kind; -and Jaubourg was so kind! How many times your mother has told me of -secret charitable deeds of his, and of his considerate words! And she -was rather prejudiced against him.--My dear Landri, it does me good to -have you here! I understand, you came back on my account. You wanted to -be posted, so that you could prepare me for the worst at need. I know -that you and Charles didn't always understand each other. However, I -assure you that he was very fond of you. But he was of another -generation, and he didn't enjoy himself much with the newcomers. 'It -makes me feel too old,' he used to say to me.--'It makes me younger,' I -always said.--He was never reconciled to being more than thirty years -old. You see, he had been such a pretty fellow, such a dandy, and so -fashionable! And it didn't spoil him. I can see him now, in '73, when I -made his acquaintance. It was at the Élysée, in the poor Marshal's -day. That was yesterday, and it was the time of promise. We hoped for so -many things that have never come to pass, and we hoped for them -joyously, too joyously perhaps.--Too joyously," he repeated, and added: -"And now look." - -He pointed to the bedroom door, then put his hand over his eyes. But in -a moment, manfully shaking his head as if determined not to abandon -himself to these melancholy recollections, he continued:-- - -"I return to Grandchamp by the ten o'clock train. You take the nine -o'clock. Our stations are not far apart, and I'll see you on board. We -will dine on the way.--Let us walk a little, to recover our -equilibrium,--what do you say? How many times I have called for Charles -at this time in the afternoon, when chance brought me to this quarter! -Why, only last Wednesday he spoke to me about this project of marriage -with the Charlus girl. It was in this room that he said to me: 'I am -entrusted with a message to you. It's about Landri.'--But let us go. -Joseph will let me know the precise hour of the funeral ceremony. It -will depend on the distant cousins he has left. You must ask for leave -of absence. I must have you with me." - -"I don't know whether I can get it," Landri replied. The prospect of -that fresh trial, of following that funeral procession under the eyes of -so many people who would surely know the truth, made his flesh creep. At -all events he had a pretext for avoiding it. "Our new colonel isn't very -obliging in that respect. And then, you know, he's of the Left, very -strong, and not very well disposed to us." - -"When shall you make up your mind to shut the door in the face of those -rascals?" asked M. de Claviers. They were going downstairs, he first, so -that he could not see the intensity of distress depicted on his -companion's face while he persisted: "I am not disturbed; they'll drive -you to it, and, it may be, before very long. On the train Bressieux -showed me a newspaper in which something was said about resuming the -taking of inventories in the Saint-Mihiel region.--'What will Landri do, -if he gets into that?' he asked me.--'What you would do,' I replied.--I -confess that I should be happy to see you take your leave with a fine -gesture. Besides it's high time that a gentleman should say something -that hasn't yet been said. Among the officers who have resigned as a -protest against shameful orders there have been several of noble birth. -They have all talked about their consciences, their religious -principles.--Conscience? I don't care much for that word. It has served -too often as a solemn label for anarchy.--Religious principles? That's -better. That's an appeal to a discipline that does not adapt itself to -people's whims. But for the noble there's still another duty, that of -not disregarding the call of honor. And one does disregard it when one -acts in opposition to the will of the ancestors from whom he is -descended, of those deceased ancestors who in their lifetime served a -Catholic France. We, their progeny, owe it to them to serve the same -France. France without the Church is not the France of which our houses -are a part. For a noble to serve this France is to renounce his -nobility. Such renunciations are the suicide of honor, of that honor -which a great bishop called the safeguard of justice, the glorious -supplement of the laws. That is what I would like to hear proclaimed to -the faces of those curs, by a Claviers-Grandchamp." - -They were in the street now. The marquis gazed at his supposititious son -with those piercing blue eyes which were no longer dimmed by a tear. It -was the very climax of tragedy,--of the internal tragedy which life -evolves simply by the interplay of its secret contrasts,--this -quasi-feudal profession of faith, enounced upon that threshold, before -the child born of treachery, by the bitterly outraged nobleman who knew -nothing of the outrage. - -The arrival of one of their club friends, who came to inscribe his name -at Jaubourg's, and who stopped a moment on the sidewalk to exchange a -few words of condolence with them, enabled Landri to avoid replying. -When, three hours later, he at last found himself alone in his -compartment of the Saint-Mihiel train, he was sorely exhausted, terribly -broken by that murderous day, the hardest of his whole life. Before, -during and after the dinner, which they ate tête-à-tête, M. de -Claviers had said many other things the unconscious cruelty of which had -kept the young man on the rack. But as he lay back in the carriage, -lulled by the monotonous clamor of the train, which translated itself -into distinct syllables, it was those declarations on the stairway, -those words concerning the inventories, which recurred to his mind, -endlessly. In them were combined his melancholy premonitions of the -hours preceding the terrible crisis and the drama which was already -resulting from that crisis itself. - -"But wherein has anything changed in my situation, so far as that -possibility is concerned?" he asked himself. "Didn't I know how he felt -on that point, and that he would be immovable? But yes, there is a -difference. Before I learned what I have learned, his theory of the duty -of the noble had some meaning to me. It has none now. I am not a -Claviers-Grandchamp, I am not a noble. The things that are valuable to -them have no value to the son of a Jaubourg! He talked to me about -honor! Honor! To me! But what I ought most of all to long for, is to be -mixed up in one of these affairs, to have to execute an order contrary -to all his ideas, and to act as I had made up my mind to act--before. He -will curse me? So much the better! So much the better! We shall never -meet again? So much the better! I could not stand such conversations as -that of this evening. I should betray myself. Indeed, this one went -beyond my strength. I love him too dearly! And who wouldn't love him? He -is so worthy of being loved!" - -The physical and moral personality of the marquis was reproduced before -his mind with the accuracy and distinctness which long-continued -familiar intercourse produces. Handsome, intellectual, generous, -affectionate, entertaining, so kindly-natured and so perfect a type of -the _grand seigneur_, the "Émigré" had prestige, he had charm, and he -had been subjected to the atrocious outrage! That infamous deed provoked -an outburst of revolt from the son of the culprit. - -"How could any one betray such a man? And prefer to him--whom? O mother! -mother!" - -Landri was alone now. He could give free vent to the emotion that was -suffocating him. Lying prone on the cushions of the carriage, he wept at -last, and for a long, long while. All the tears that he had not shed -during the day he shed now,--those that he had forced back in -Valentine's presence, by an heroic effort of his will; those that he had -forbade himself to display to the indifferent curiosity of the -passers-by during his mad rush across Paris, and those that he had not -let fall when he was talking with M. de Claviers, within two yards of -the death-bed and later at the restaurant. And at the same time that his -heart found relief in tears a reaction took place in his mind. For the -first time since the dying man had begun to speak to him, he tried to -doubt. - -"But she is my mother!" he sobbed. "And I believed that of her -instantly! Instantly, without inquiry, without proof!" - -Inquiry! Alas! is there need of inquiry to make one believe what is -visible, what is before one's eyes?--Proof?--But a fact is itself a -proof, and the dying man was that evidence, that proof, that fact. His -face, his movements, his voice returned to Landri's memory. As plainly -as he saw the cushions of that commonplace compartment in their gray -coverings, the lamp in the ceiling, and the nocturnal landscape flitting -past the windows, he had seen a father die, bidding his son a despairing -farewell. He had seen a woman's lover haunted, possessed, deluded by the -memory of that woman. The dying man's outcries were not evidence: they -were reality, unquestionable, undeniable,--the fact, the indestructible -fact.--Doubt? No, Landri could not doubt. One by one he reviewed the -details of that scene, which had been so short--as short as the time -required to swallow a glass of poison, which, once it has passed into -the veins, freezes the very well-spring of life. - -Among these details there was one, the threatening nature of which had -not made itself manifest to him until that moment, adding a new terror -to his agony. "The child shall have everything, everything," the sick -man had groaned; and, addressing his imaginary enemies: "You sha'n't -prevent that. I have found a way." Did these words mean that Jaubourg -had left Landri his whole fortune by his will? It was not possible that -that man, prudent as he was, and so intent upon concealing his paternity -that he had forbidden himself ever to embrace his son, should have -contradicted the whole tenor of his life, in cold blood, by such a step! -Was the way that he had found, a gift through a third person? - -"Whatever it may be," said the young man to himself, "I shall refuse it, -that's all. I, too, shall know how to find a way to avoid touching that -money. It's quite enough that I am obliged to share in their falsehood, -in spite of myself, quite enough to inflict on a man I love and admire -and revere this daily affront. I take his name, his affection, when I am -not entitled to either. It is this sort of rebound that makes certain -forms of treachery so culpable. They fall too heavily on the innocent. -For, after all, I am innocent of this sin, and now it strikes at me -after thirty years. And I must deceive as they did, renew and prolong -their perfidy, conceal the truth from their victim, even at the price of -my blood!" - -And as the names of the stations succeeded one another in the -darkness, interrupting with their unfeeling summons this inward -lamentation--Châlons--Vitry--Bar-le-Duc:--"How unfortunate I deemed -myself when I travelled over this road day before yesterday!" he -reflected. "And I should be so happy to go back to that night! One would -say that I had a presentiment of the catastrophe toward which I was -going, when I tried so hard to concentrate all my thoughts, all my -reasons for living, upon those two ideas: Valentine and the Army, the -Army and Valentine. I did not foresee, however, that I should so very -soon have nothing else, really, to live for. Now is the time when I -could honestly say to her: 'You and my profession, my profession and -you.'--To her, at least, I am bound, from this day, forever. We have -exchanged promises. We should be no more firmly bound to each other if -we were married.--The Army is my refuge. If I should leave it now, where -should I go?" - -His refuge! That word, which represented the only succor that he could -expect from life at that moment, returned to the poor fellow's lips, -when, at the end of that sorrowful night, he saw through the carriage -windows about five o'clock the dark and mist-enfolded mass of the houses -of Saint-Mihiel against a sky in which the stars shone feebly. They were -crowded about the ancient abbey church, where, in the baptismal chapel, -may be seen the two children playing with skulls, the chef-d'œuvre -wherein Ligier Richier has represented, by that simple symbolism, the -whole destiny of man. The flame of the lamps barely lighted the waters -of the Meuse, winding rapidly through the damp shadows. The platform of -the station, when the young man alighted, was deserted and gloomy. So of -the streets through which passed the rickety, jolting vehicle found at -the station. But for him there issued from those shuttered houses the -sensation which is produced in us by the return to a round of daily -habits after a violent moral shock. - -As his cab turned into Rue du Rempart he recognized the wall of the -garden where, on one of the paths, he had told Madame Olier of his love -three years before. His heart, exhausted by excess of grief, was amazed -to feel a sort of painful relaxation of its tension at sight of those -streets where he had so often fed upon his lover's dreams, had performed -for so many months his military duties. So he had guessed aright. He -could live--a hard and bitter life, it is true--by fastening himself -upon, by clinging desperately to those two last resources, hope and -activity, which fate had left to him; and it was with an impatience, not -happy surely but very manful, that, having donned his uniform, he -awaited the hour to go to headquarters and resume his daily occupations. - -Although he had hardly slept during the night, his step was brisk as he -walked toward the barracks. If he was no longer conscious of what he had -called in his conversation with Valentine the joy of the uniform,--that -word joy would have no meaning to him for a long, long time!--he felt -its manly courage. He gazed at the high gateway with a strange -excitement in his eyes, ringed by tears and sleeplessness. - -"I still have this, too," he said, using precisely the same form of -words as on the day before, when he left his dear friend on Rue -Monsieur; and as if in haste to resume the actual contact with that -stern but healthy and manly life, he quickened his pace, to enter the -courtyard the sooner. - -It was barely eight o'clock. Gusts of a cold wind, the bitter northeast -wind that constantly sweeps the high plateaus between the Meuse and the -Moselle, lashed the white caps of the men engaged in grooming horses -before the stable doors. Subaltern officers, wrapped in their cloaks, -were overlooking them. In a corner, at the door of the kitchen, other -men, sheltered under an awning, were peeling potatoes. Others were -marching off in a squad to perform some task. Everything spoke of the -energetic and organized activity which makes a well-ordered barracks a -very noble human thing. - -There, Landri was no longer, as at Grandchamp, the sole heir of a -nobleman on parade, himself a nobleman. He was Lieutenant de Claviers, -who was obeyed, but who obeyed. It will be remembered that he had called -that sensation too a joy. In what fashion he exerted his authority, the -glances of the men who saluted him according to rule, touching the vizor -with the open hand, told clearly enough. And he looked at them with the -watchful and kindly eye of the leader to whom every detail has its -importance. He noticed one whose slightly unhealthy pallor indicated -recent illness. - -"So you have come back to duty, Teilhard? Since when?" - -"Since yesterday, lieutenant." - -"You are quite sure it was not too soon? Are you entirely cured of your -bronchitis?" - -"Entirely cured, lieutenant." - -"And your father? Did you spend your furlough with him?" - -"Yes, lieutenant. In fact, I meant to come to see you, to tell you that -his business has picked up. He expects to pay a little of his debt next -month." - -"Write him that there's no hurry, my good Teilhard," replied Landri -affectionately, motioning to the dragoon to move on. He saw a captain in -undress uniform approaching--no other than Despois, the husband of -Madame Olier's friend. - -"So you were talking with your miraculous work?" said Despois laughingly -to his subordinate. "Why, yes--why, yes--it's a genuine miracle. To have -made a good soldier out of a blockhead like that animal. Don't blame any -one but yourself if I entrust the desperate cases to you. I have taken -advantage of your absence to turn over Baudoin to you. He still rides -badly. I commend him to your very particular attention." - -"I will attend to him at once," said Landri. "I'll take him alone before -my drill." And when the captain had passed on, he said to the -quartermaster, who was waiting at the door of the riding-school with -several men and horses: "Saddle Panther for me, and call Baudoin." - -Ten minutes later the mare he had asked for arrived, all saddled, with a -simple snaffle in her mouth which she was already champing nervously, -and led by the head by a youth of unkempt aspect with very black eyes -glowing like coals in a grayish face. Simply from the way in which he -wore his képi on one side, one divined in him the insolent vagabond; -and from the brusque movement with which he put his hand to it to salute -the officer, the smouldering revolt, the mere brute all ready to sing or -think the obscene quatrain which we must never weary of citing to the -smug optimists who refuse to recognize the ferocities hidden beneath the -humanitarian mirage of socialism--those forerunners of a Terror which -will be worse than the other, being better organized, and more degraded, -being the work of a more degenerate race:-- - - - S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales, - À faire de nous des héros, - Ils saurent bientôt que nos balles - Sont pour nos propres généraux.[4] - - -The beautiful beast led by that creature with the face of an Apache of -the faubourgs presented a striking contrast to him by virtue of the -dainty grace of her whole frame. She had the elevated tail, the short -and supple loins, the long shoulder, legs like a stag's, and a small -head. She had been in the regiment five days. The dealer, to improve her -appearance for purposes of sale, had clipped her. The hair on her legs -and that which showed under the flaps of the saddle was of a brown-bay -color; the rest of her body, recently clipped, seemed to be iron-gray. -As soon as she entered the riding-school she began to paw the ground -impatiently. - -"Well, mount her, Baudoin," said the officer; "let's see if she'll -behave any better than she did the first day. I kept her for a good -rider; and I know that you're one." - -Baudoin, apparently insensible to this compliment, mounted Panther, who -started off at the restrained trot of a beast who does not abdicate her -free will. It was evident that she obeyed neither the pressure of the -heel nor that of the rein. In this way she made the circuit of the ring -four times, turning her head from side to side, making little attempts -to escape when she came near the closed door--a ravishingly beautiful -object in that vast empty space where she seemed to wander almost at -will. - -"She doesn't try any tricks," said Landri. "Let's try her at a -gallop.--She won't, eh?--A touch of the whip." - -Despite Baudoin's efforts Panther did not even condescend to quicken her -trot. The quartermaster, who had the whip in his hand, begun to run, -shaking it at the mare. Instead of breaking into a gallop she, taking -fright, executed a series of violent sheep-like bounds, in rapid -succession, which unhorsed her rider. He tried to remount. The mare, -sure of her means of defence, started off again at a trot, then repeated -her leaps at a second threat of the lash. Again the man fell. He -remounted. A third fall. This time he was thrown against the wall rather -hard. Anger turned his face green. A brutal exclamation escaped him, and -he said savagely:-- - -"I don't mount again. I won't ride her any more. I've had enough of -breaking my bones so that the officers can have well-trained horses." - -He cast an evil glance at the lieutenant, with his hands in his pockets, -his clothes all covered with sawdust; and he did not brush himself, or -pick up his képi, or follow the mare, who had gone on at a walk, then -stopped. She was nibbling, with the ends of her teeth, a tall post, with -holes bored in it, intended to hold the jumping-bar. - -"Well," said Landri pleasantly, as if he had not heard that outburst of -insubordination, "I'll ride her now. You can take her again afterward." - -Time to adjust the stirrups to his height, and he was astride the beast, -whom he launched at a trot first, then at a gallop. She tried hard to -unseat him by leaps and bounds even more out of rule than those which -had succeeded so well just before. But Landri had been put in the saddle -at the age of six by M. de Claviers, and he too was of the school of -those who do not recognize divorce, as the marquis would say jocosely. -He held his seat. Panther, the well-named, tried another device. She set -off at a gallop, then turned abruptly, end for end. Landri still held -his seat. More leaps. Another abrupt turn. The rider did not fall. Weary -of the struggle, the mare trots; she gallops; she begins to obey the -leg; she obeys the hand. - -"Take her again, Baudoin," said the officer, jumping to the ground. "She -hasn't broken my bones and she won't break yours." - -The dragoon flushed. He looked at the lieutenant, who looked him -squarely in the eye, calmly and coolly. Self-esteem aiding, this hint -was efficacious with the rebel. He remounted and the session ended -without further incident. The conquered beast behaved as well with her -new rider as with the other. - -"Now," said Landri to the quartermaster, "bring in the others." - -"You were in luck," said the quartermaster to Baudoin a few moments -later. "With another man, you'd have had a curry-combing, and a good -one." - -"And the other man, too, perhaps," retorted Baudoin with a leer. "But -this one didn't put a gag in my mouth, that's true enough." - - -"I have not wasted my morning," Landri reflected, as he left the -riding-school. Awaiting the hour for the foot-drill, he entered the -small room used by the officers as a library and gathering-place. It was -very simply furnished, with a divan, a few easy-chairs, and a large -table, all covered with coarse blue stuff with a red border. On two -sides were book-shelves. On the other walls were engravings, some of -which represented the early days of the 32nd Dragoons. First, there was -a Cavalier de Lévis, with the date 1703, in three-cornered hat and -white tunic, with red lapels and trimmings. Another Cavalier de Lévis, -in a very similar uniform, bore this inscription: 1724. Then came two -troopers of the Royal-Normandie, dated 1768 and 1784. They wore blue -tunics with amaranth-colored lapels, and white cockades in their hats. A -trooper of the 19th Cavalry, in a blue coat _à la française_, with a -tri-colored plume in his shako, marked the beginning of modern times. - -It needed no more than a glance at those engravings for Landri's -comparative tranquillity of the last hour to come to an abrupt end. The -sight of those uniforms of the old régime recalled the scene of two -days before, M. de Claviers pointing to the portrait of the -lieutenant-general, and his exclamation about the uniforms and the -dandyfied heroism of bygone days. The thought of the marquis recalled -the old gentleman's other outbreak, only the night before, concerning -the inventories, just as the memory of the Parrocel portrait revived the -sensations born of the hideous falsehood of his birth. The associations -of these various ideas resulted in a new idea which, when it had once -entered his mind, could no more be expelled from it than could the -hateful fact with which it was connected. It was only the continuation, -the smoothing-off as it were in the lucid portions of the love-child's -consciousness, of a course of reasoning that he had been working out, -unknowingly, for twelve hours past. - -"But have I the right, from this time on, bearing a name that is not my -own, and knowing it, to act with that name as if it were my own?" - -On the table lay a newspaper rolled about its stick. The young man took -it up mechanically, and, from more habit, looked for the rubric, -"Military Affairs." Another wave of ideas swept over him. If the -inventories at Hugueville-en-Plaine and Montmartin should be taken, and -if he should have to direct one of them to the point of breaking into -the church, the account would certainly appear under that heading, -printed in that same type. His name would be there, at the top of a -paragraph describing his act. His name? A name is an inheritance, it is -a piece of property, personal and collective at once. It belongs to him -who bears it and to those who have borne and will bear it. All of their -interests are united in him. Against this mutual responsibility Landri -had contended throughout his youth, and no longer ago than the day -before yesterday, when he proclaimed before Madame Olier, and again to -the marquis's face, the right of the heirs of a great name to lead their -individual lives. - -It seemed--he himself had thought so at first--that the grievous -discovery of the secret of his birth had finally snapped the -chain, already so worn, of a hateful solidarity between the -Claviers-Grandchamps and himself. True, if he had laid aside their name, -if, realizing that he was not of their family, he had ceased to call -himself by their name. But such an open rupture was impossible. Even if -Landri had not loved the marquis too dearly ever to deal him such a -blow, there was his mother's memory, which forbade him to dishonor her. -But in that case, if he kept the name of Claviers, he was in their debt. -He was no longer a free agent. When people should read, in that -newspaper and in many others, that a Claviers-Grandchamp had dared to do -something so absolutely opposed to all the traditions of the family, -what would his conscience say to him? That he had done his duty? Nay, -since it was not from any thought of duty that he had resolved, if -occasion should require, to execute a task which he himself had called -revolting. His companions had discussed too often in his presence that -question of the limits of discipline, which functionaries no less insane -than criminal have gratuitously raised of late years. He had reflected -upon it too seriously himself not to understand that passive obedience -is a phrase devised by enemies of that great school of praiseworthy -energy that the army really is. He had meditated upon the wise and -judicious terms of the officer's oath, which excludes every degrading -order: "You will obey him in everything that he shall command you to do, -for the good of the service and to carry out the military regulations." -He knew that this problem of obedience to requisitions from the civil -authorities, as it had presented itself in the recent religious -disputes, is of the sort that become tragic in the most upright -consciences. Excellent soldiers have solved it in one way. Excellent -soldiers have solved it in another way. It is a crime, we repeat, on the -part of a government, to place men of spirit in such dilemmas,--a crime -against those who did not enter the army to perform certain tasks,--a -crime against the fatherland, which is by this means robbed of some of -its best leaders. - -Landri, as we have seen, had solved the problem in a manner entirely -personal to himself. He had said: "To obey is to remain in the service. -To refuse to obey is to resign. I want to remain in the service. I shall -obey." But now a new element had intervened: the evidence of a felony -committed against the lineage of the Claviers, in which his mere -existence made him an accomplice. His mother's sin had given him a place -in that lineage. What became of his personal convenience when put in the -scale with such usurpation? Did it not bind him on his honor--for he -still had such a thing whatever he may have said in the first shock of -the revelation--never to do any act for which that lineage, now -incarnate in the marquis, could reproach him from its standpoint? The -conclusion was inescapable. At an incident of his military life so -public, so certain to make a noise in the world, as obedience to an -order to proceed against a church, it was not his own opinion that he -should follow, but that of the head of that house in which he himself -occupied a stolen place. This indisputable obligation suddenly imposed -itself on Landri with irresistible force, and for the first time he -recoiled in spirit from the prospect of an occurrence which would place -before him the alternative of making up his mind against the will, so -clearly expressed, of the Marquis de Claviers, or of sacrificing the -profession to which he was at that moment more attached than ever. His -whole thought was bent upon rejecting the probability of that test. He -could not bear to face it now. - -"I am crazy. If they employ the dragoons for one of these inventories, -they'll send more than one platoon. A lieutenant won't be in command, -but a captain. I shall be second in command. If there's a door to be -broken in, and the civil authorities don't furnish any men to do it, the -captain will have to give the order, not I." - -He harangued himself thus, pacing to and fro in the main courtyard while -the instructors drilled the new recruits, under his superintendence. But -upon whom would that responsibility fall, if Landri's supposition should -be realized? In the absence of the captain commanding the squadron, to -the captain next in seniority, who happened to be that very Despois with -whom he had exchanged so hearty a greeting that morning. Landri at once -remembered the letter written by that officer's wife, which Madame Olier -had given to him. He had read the letter at the time--without reading -it. He remembered nothing about it except Valentine's remark: "She says -so well what I should say so badly." But then Captain Despois, if such -an order should be given to him, would refuse to comply with it? As had -happened before, the command would then devolve upon the officer next -below him, in this case upon Landri! Such was now the young man's -apprehension in respect to an emergency which was still only possible, -and which he had hitherto faced with such firm determination. - -He cut the drill short in order to return to his quarters the sooner and -really read Madame Despois' letter. His hands trembled a little as they -unfolded the sheet, which was badly crumpled from its sojourn in his -pocket while he was rolling about in despair on the cushions of the -railway carriage. He found there, near the end, after the narrative of a -really touching interview between the captain and his wife, these lines, -which, although they lessened one element of his anxiety, only -intensified another, alas! - -"So my husband has made up his mind," wrote Julie Despois. "He ended the -conversation by repeating poor Captain Magniez' noble declaration: 'I -prefer to be shot rather than commit sacrilege.'--If this thing happens -to us, we shall be very poor, my dear friend. The education of our three -sons will be seriously endangered. But I could do nothing but say to -him: 'You are right. We are Christian folk. We have founded a Christian -family. God help us!'--And you will recognize my dear Despois in this. -His only anxiety is for his officers. He doesn't want to see the -hecatomb at Saint-Servan repeated.--'If they call on me for sappers to -break in the church doors, I shall refuse. I sha'n't give the civil -authorities time to telegraph for further orders. I shall order all my -men to remount, and return to Saint-Mihiel. In this way I shall be sure -of being the only one to be disciplined.'--You see, Valentine, what a -sad time we are passing through, so that we can't turn our minds to any -other subject! In all the officers' families, nothing else is thought -of. We shouldn't talk about anything else if we didn't know that to-day -an orderly may be an informer listened to at headquarters. We are all -wondering when these two inventories will be taken, and to whom they -will be entrusted. Will anything happen or not? God grant that we are -imagining chimæras, and that everything will go off peacefully, as it -has in so many places! Whatever happens, I am writing down these -conversations with my husband so that my sons may have them some day, -when he and I are no more. They will see what sort of man their father -was, and that their mother understood him." - -Landri read the last sentence again and again. The captain's magnanimous -determination made it possible for him to have no fear of consequences -if Despois were in command.--But what followed? How could he fail to -make a comparison between that simple-hearted helpmate of a gallant -officer, devoted to her husband, so proud to esteem and admire him,--and -another woman? Between those children who found at their humble fireside -no reason for aught save respect,--and another child? Why had not his -own mother understood the man whose name she bore? Why had she betrayed -him? Why was a son born of that treachery? And why was not that son, who -knew nothing of that horror for so many years, left in ignorance -forever? Upon what trivial chances our destinies depend! Suppose that -the train from Clermont had reached Paris an hour late yesterday? -Doubtless Landri would have found the invalid of Rue de Solferino -unconscious. The physician would not have let him in. He would have -known nothing. He would not have had to undergo this inward agony which -everything renewed--and when would it end? Oh, never! never! - -"I am amusing myself with absurd scruples," he said to himself -twenty-four hours later. It was afternoon. He was riding along the -Meuse. He had received a despatch from the marquis to the effect that -Jaubourg's funeral would take place on the following Friday at nine -o'clock, and he had answered, by telegraph, that he could not be there. -He had understood what the selection of that early hour in the morning -meant, as well as a note in the newspapers stating that the deceased had -desired a very simple ceremony, without invitations, and without flowers -or wreaths. This insistence upon effacement after death avoided comments -upon M. de Claviers-Grandchamp's presence behind the bier of his wife's -lover. Therein Landri saw a new proof of the ominous secret. He would -have been no less irritated by a showy funeral. His irritation -manifested itself in a recurrence of the blind and almost savage revolt -of the first moments. This feeling imparted its sombre hue to his -renewed reflections on the possibility of his responsible participation -in one of the inventories--the sole object, as Madame Despois had said, -of the silent meditations of all the officers of the garrison. Three of -his comrades, who were as sure of him as he was of them, had spoken to -him about it in confidence that morning. He had evaded a reply, and he -reproached himself bitterly for it. - -"Yes, absurd! With respect to _him_"--he was still unable to name M. de -Claviers in his heart, as he was to name the other elsewhere,--"with -respect to him, I cannot have any duty. The mere fact that I am -breathing is an insult so dishonoring to him that I can never add -anything to it. All that I can do is to avoid contact between us. He -will follow the body to-morrow. I shall not be there. Nobody shall see -us walking side by side. Hereafter it must be so in life. My impulse -yesterday was the best, the wisest one. Yes, if I am ordered to take -part in the expedition to Hugueville or Montmartin, so much the better! -If I have to break into one of those two churches, so much the better! -That will be irreparable. The name of Claviers-Grandchamp will be -dishonored because a soldier has made every other sentiment yield to -discipline. That theory can be supported, too. A proof of it is that -Despois hesitated, and he's a professed Christian. Even Valentine, who -is very religious, but who knows what our profession is, accepts the -idea!--He will condemn me. But he won't be able to despise me, in his -heart. And it will be all over, all over, all over! He will suffer, -suffer terribly. And shall I not suffer when I no longer have him to -call 'father,' when I can no longer live with him in that heart-to-heart -intimacy which was complete,--I realize it now!--despite the differences -in our ideas! I understand them now, those differences which used to -surprise me--they were Race. He is right. There is such a thing as Race. -I hadn't the instincts of a true noble. Nor have I those of a true -bourgeois, either. What a terrible word that is, to which I never gave a -thought--adultery! And how just it is! It is the stranger at the hearth. -It is a forged Race. It is the creation of a hybrid personality like -mine. That is the secret of the vacillations of my nature, of the -contradictions that I never could explain: why I have never loved in my -inmost heart any of the women of my caste, and why, even to-day, I -cannot bring myself to a simple and definite decision. I shall come to -it. My relations with him are impossible. That is the one fact to which -I must cling, firmly, irrevocably. Let the occasion come to dig the -abyss, and I will dig it!" - -This second line of reasoning corresponded too nearly with the actual -situation not to prevail in the young man's mind. He retained, none the -less, deep down in his heart, a hope, almost a certainty, that he would -not be required to adapt his conduct to it. One need not have in his -veins blood imbued with contradictory inherited characteristics, to be -subject to such incoherences. It is enough to be passionately attached -to some one from whom one deems it necessary to part forever. So that he -felt a shock that was most painful to him, as he was returning from his -ride, upon meeting, in one of the streets of the town, the colonel of -his regiment, on foot,--the one who did not like "names with currents of -air." He was the son of a petty government official who had reached his -present rank by a combination of energy and shrewdness,--a good officer -with fundamentally false ideas, in whose heart were fermenting those -extraordinary anticlerical and anti-noble passions of which sincere -Jacobinism is made. - -The expression of his superior, by whom he knew that he was detested, -froze Landri's blood, it betrayed such ironical and fiendish delight. He -did not mistake its meaning. The supposition hitherto treated as -imaginary was coming true. It began to take shape. The hostile colonel's -face expressed the satisfied hatred of one who knows with certainty that -misfortune is about to befall his enemy. The affair of the inventories -was about to be solved, and he, Landri, was involved in it in some way -or other. - -Five minutes later this presentiment became an established fact. As he -dismounted, his orderly handed him a note from Captain Despois, begging -him to come to his quarters about an important matter connected with the -service. - -"That's what it is," said Landri to himself. "We are to go." - -He found the devout officer, whose most secret thoughts he knew, so -intimate was their confidence, busily writing, in the exceedingly modest -salon that he used as an office. Despois was a man of forty-five, very -tall, with a bony, tanned face, his temples worn smooth by the rubbing -of the helmet, hair already almost white, reddish mustache, and light -greenish-gray eyes. The eyes were clouded with so sad an expression that -Landri was deceived. - -"It is he who is ordered to command us," he thought. He remembered the -letter he had read the day before. His heart swelled with pity for that -father who was evidently making ready to sacrifice his military future -to his faith. But from his first words Landri understood that he himself -aroused a like pity on the part of that excellent man, who said as he -handed him two sheets of paper the official size of which betrayed their -source:-- - -"Will you run your eye over this, my dear Claviers?" - -The first of the two documents had at its head:--"General orders -relating to the assistance to be furnished by the troops in making -inventories of church property"; and the second: "Supplementary -instructions for the lieutenant commanding the 1st and 2nd platoons of -the third squadron of the 32nd Cavalry, who is to sustain the action of -the police and gendarmerie during the operation of taking the inventory -of the church property at Hugueville-en-Plaine." The "general orders" -stated that both inventories would be taken on Friday, November 16, at -nine o'clock in the morning. The "supplementary instructions" added that -the duty of the officer despatched to Hugueville would consist in these -three points: "to form barriers across the different streets leading to -the church, according to the general scheme of the annexed sketch"; "to -support the action of the police and gendarmerie, in maintaining order, -dispersing the crowds, and looking to the evacuation of the church if -necessary"; and thirdly, "to enable the official recorder to perform his -duties." - -Prepared as Landri should have been, by his reflections of the past week -and of that very afternoon, for the possibility of this event, he turned -pale as he read the words. He did not hesitate a second, however, but -replied:-- - -"Very good, captain; I will obey orders." - -"Did you read it carefully?" said Despois, pointing to one sentence in -the first paper: "Six sappers supplied with the necessary tools to -perform, in the absence of civilian workmen, such work of demolition as -there may be occasion to do."--"In the absence of civilian workmen," he -repeated. "You will take the greatest pains, therefore, to assure -yourself that civilian workmen cannot be found; _cannot be found_," he -insisted. - -Evidently he was anticipating the case of the lieutenant refusing to -execute the commissioner's orders, and was preparing to shield him, if -necessary, before the court-martial. - -"I will make sure of it, captain." And, in a firm voice, "I hope that we -shall not come to that point, but if we do my sappers will do the work." - -Not a muscle moved in the Catholic Despois' impassive face. If Landri -had not been acquainted with his real thought, he might have believed -that the peculiarly painful character of this expedition was a matter of -indifference to the old trooper, who began at once to give him detailed -orders concerning the equipment of the men. It was not until they rose, -after half an hour of professional conversation, that he let certain -words escape him which proved how his heart was beating under his -undecorated tunic. It was unhoped-for good fortune, that he was not -given the command of the detachment on this occasion. But as he was -incapable of selfish exultation, so he gave no thought to his own -interests. His expression had grown even more gloomy since the other had -made that declaration which left no room for doubt. As he accompanied -his visitor to the door, he detained him in front of a mediocre -engraving, the Last Cartridge. He was neither a collector with the taste -of an Altona, nor a connoisseur of art like a Bressieux, was poor -Captain Despois. He was something higher in the scale of human -culture,--a good soldier. All the martyrdom of the army, of the army -forced by shameless politicians into such tragedies of the conscience, -quivered in the tone in which, calling his lieutenant's attention to -that wretched lithograph of a scene of disaster, but of an heroic -disaster and face to face with the enemy, he repeated simply the famous -line:-- - - - "Heureux ceux-là qui mouraient dans ces fêtes!" - - -[Footnote 4: If they persist, these cannibals, -In making heroes of us, -They'll soon learn that our bullets -Are for our own generals.] - - - - -VI - -THE WILL - - -It was not quite eight o'clock the next morning when Landri and his -dragoons came in sight of Hugueville-en-Plaine, so named to distinguish -it from Hugueville-en-Montagne. It is a large village, three leagues -from Saint-Mihiel on the map and as the crow flies. The network of roads -in those ramparts of the Forest of Argonne stretches the twelve -kilometres to seventeen. An extensive wood bounds the village on the -east, so that the sixty men of the little detachment were able to -approach unseen. - -It was another typical day of early autumn, with a pale blue sky, veiled -by transparent clouds, like the preceding Monday, when Valentine Olier's -lover stopped his automobile at the door of Saint-François-Xavier, to -pay a surreptitious visit to his friend. In his black overcoat, with his -helmet on his head, the officer, who had led his two platoons for the -last two hours through clumps of elms and aspens at first, and then, as -the ground rose higher and higher, through thickets of oak and beech, -recalled with poignant sadness that other day, so near--only four times -twenty-four hours--which seemed to him so far away! He had lived more in -those four days than in his twenty-nine years of childhood, adolescence -and youth. - -The march was accomplished in a silence which demonstrated the troopers' -lack of enthusiasm for the expedition in which they were taking part. -Even the anarchistic Baudoin, still sheepish over the lesson of the day -before, had not tried to proselytize his comrades. They rode in fours, -closely wrapped, because of the nipping air of that rugged country, in -their ample blue cloaks, against which gleamed the barrels of their -carbines. The sappers were distinguishable by the axes hanging from the -saddle-bows. Another lieutenant brought up the rear. There was no sound -save that of the horses' shoes on the frozen ground and the clinking of -the sabres against the stirrups. - -Those sounds would not have sufficed to announce their approach. The -people of Hugueville-en-Plaine and the neighboring villages had been -warned, no doubt, by the swift and inexplicable circulation of news in -the country districts, the most amazing example of which was the -contagious terror of the summer of 1789, which spread in a few days from -one end of France to the other. In the patois of the Centre it is still -spoken of as "the great _pourasse_." - -"Aha!" said Landri, between his teeth, "we are expected." - -In truth, some three hundred people were on the lookout at the entrance -to the main street, and they ran off at once toward the centre of the -village, shouting: "The dragoons! The dragoons!" They were only the -rearguard of a crowd assembled around the church on the square, a sketch -of which was annexed to the "supplementary instructions." There were -more than twelve hundred peasants there, men and women, who opposed a -living barrier to the horses. It took the troopers nearly fifteen -minutes to reach the square, forcing back the enthusiasts with the -cautious consideration which was expressly enjoined upon them. Their -greatest difficulty was to control their horses, excited as they were by -that great crowd singing with its thousand voices the well-known chant: -"Nous voulons Dieu!" Another quarter of an hour was required to execute -the same operation in front of the church and to establish the lines as -ordered. - -About half-past eight the little square had the aspect of a veritable -halt in war-time. The horses were collected in the centre, held by the -troopers, each of whom had charge of two. The rest of the men formed -barriers at the ends of the streets. Behind them one could see the heads -of the peasants, close together and constantly moving. The steps leading -to the church, which stood on a sort of platform of earth, were still -filled with kneeling women, who had begun to recite, at the tops of -their voices, the litanies of the Blessed Virgin. There was something at -once heart-rending and grotesque, brutally ugly and no less idiotic, in -that display of military force to subdue the possible resistance of -those humble creatures who cast upon the peaceful air of the lovely -morning such pious appeals as "Refuge of sinners! Consoler of the -afflicted! Salvation of the infirm!" And the crowd replied, from the -lanes barred by dragoons: "Pray for us!" - -"Upon my word they've given us a dirty job to do," said Vigouroux, the -other lieutenant, in an undertone to Landri, having joined him on the -square. After stationing their men, they were walking back and forth in -the space left clear. "It's a hard mouthful to swallow." - -"All the same, it must be done," rejoined Landri. - -"Is it you who say that, Claviers?" exclaimed Vigouroux in evident -amazement. - -"A soldier knows only his orders," replied the other sharply. - -"Oh, well! I'm not the one to blame you!" said Vigouroux. "It suits me, -as you know, to have you think that way." - -They continued to walk side by side without further speech. In declaring -to his comrade, as he had done to his captain the evening before, his -determination to go on to the end, Landri was perfectly sincere. He was -keeping himself up to the mark by declarations which did not, however, -make it any the less true that he had had but a single thought that day -and that not of his orders! By virtue of a contradiction only too -natural in a heart so deeply wounded, the nearer he approached to the -moment when he might be called upon to take the decisive step after -which he would have broken either with the army or with M. de Claviers, -the image haunted him, ever more distinct and more touching, of that man -who had not ceased to love him as his son, and whom he loved so dearly! -That image was there, between Vigouroux and himself, gazing at him, and -saying with those limpid blue eyes the words of the victim to his -murderer: "And thou, too, my child!" - -Landri did not yield to that entreaty, he was determined not to yield. -It was to banish it from his mind that he had spoken so to Vigouroux. -Moreover, it seemed that affairs were not likely to assume a very tragic -aspect, judging from the disposition of the crowd, evidently due to -orders from the curé. Those peasants were protestants, they were not -rebels. - -But the affair assumed a very different aspect on the arrival of a -landau, preceded by gendarmes, from which three persons alighted: one in -a uniform embroidered with silver, another with a scarf across his -breast, the third in a frock coat. They were the sub-prefect, the -special commissioner, and the recording clerk. - -No sooner had they set foot to the ground, than the responses of the -litany were succeeded by threatening cries of "Down with the robbers!" -which attracted from the house adjoining the church a fourth personage, -the curé of Hugueville himself. He was a handsome old man, bare-headed -despite the cold. Two other priests accompanied him. He came forward as -far as the porch of his church, the keys of which he could not, upon his -soul and his conscience, surrender. He was very pale. He, too, was -assuming a terrible responsibility. Blood might be shed. He raised his -aged arms which had so many times exhibited the monstrance to his flock, -and which at that moment implored rather than commanded respect for his -wishes. The gesture was instantly understood, so unbounded was his -authority, readily explained by the aspect alone of that ascetic -apostle. The insulting outcries were not repeated, and a vast silence -overspread the multitude, while the newcomers ascended the steps, among -the women who made way for them with visible terror. - -Abbé Valentin--that was the curé's name--stepped forward, and there -ensued between the priest, whose face had lost its pallor, and the -officials, a conversation the words of which did not reach any of the -others. They noted its expressive pantomime: the curé shaking his -venerable head so that his white hair fluttered in the wind, as one who -meets urgent insistence with a categorical refusal, the sub-prefect -almost imploring, the commissioner threatening, the recording clerk -exhibiting papers. At last Abbé Valentin withdrew and the three civil -functionaries, having taken counsel together, descended the steps, while -the crowd, interpreting this retreat as a victory for the priest, -shouted his name and began the chant:-- - - - "Je suis chrétien, voilà ma gloire!" - - -"I fancy that's settled," said Vigouroux, "and that we have no further -business here." - -"On the contrary, it's just beginning," said Landri. "They have gone to -fetch the workmen." - -A half-hour passed, during which the crowd ceased its singing to engage -in excited conversation. The constant repetition of the words, "a -locksmith," proved that the officer had guessed aright. At last the -three functionaries reappeared, followed by a man visibly livid with -fright; he was the public drummer of Hugueville, with his drum hanging -from his neck. A prolonged howl greeted him, then abruptly ceased, to be -succeeded by breathless curiosity. The commissioner, instead of -ascending the steps as before, passed through the cordon of soldiers and -went up to Landri. - -"I have not found any workmen in Hugueville, lieutenant," he said, "to -break in the door. They have all left their workshops, to avoid doing -it. Their curé has made fanatics of them. I am going to ask you to give -me your assistance. Here is my requisition." - -And he handed the lieutenant a paper which he ran through with his eyes. -The spectators of this tragic episode--one more incident in the -lamentable tale of the most criminal of religious wars--saw only the -helmet bending over the document, which the constantly increasing wind -seemed to try to tear from the hand that held it. - -"I have brought the drummer to make the announcement," added the -commissioner. - -"Very good," said Landri, in a voice choked with emotion, "let him do -so." - -In the same hollow voice he ordered the six sappers to take their axes -and follow him. He began to mount the steps, while the three rolls of -the drum announced the imminence of the catastrophe. They were followed -by several minutes of painful anticipation. Landri, standing now on the -platform, had halted, and he said no word. As he ascended the steps, he -had looked up at the great clock over the portal of the church. It -marked almost nine o'clock. At that moment the Marquis de Claviers was -on Rue de Solferino. They were about to remove the bier of the man for -whom he wept as a friend, as a brother. Tears were streaming down his -noble face. His great heart was torn with grief. - -That vision had arisen before the lieutenant with a distinctness which -brought him abruptly to a standstill. He, the son of the Judas, was on -the point of making that heart bleed from another wound! - -"Well, lieutenant!" said the commissioner. "I believe the time has -come." - -"No," replied Landri, rousing himself forcibly from his abstraction and -speaking now in a firm voice, "no, I refuse." - -"You refuse?" said the sub-prefect, coming forward. "But have you duly -considered the consequences, monsieur--Article 234 of the Penal Code?" - -"I refuse," reiterated the young man; and with a military salute to the -three officials, who were motionless with amazement, he ran rapidly down -the steps which he had climbed so slowly, followed by the sappers. - -"To horse!" he cried, when he reached the foot; and in the next breath, -"By fours, march!" Five minutes later there was not a single dragoon on -the square, but an enthusiastic crowd followed on the heels of the -officials as they returned to their landau, with shouts of "Vive -l'armée! Vive le lieutenant!" - -"I can't understand it at all," said the commissioner, as the carriage -moved away; "I'd have sworn that that officer would obey. As you saw, he -didn't argue, as they usually do, about the text of the requisition." - -"I thought as you did," replied the recording clerk; "I said to myself: -'We sha'n't have to come to this port again,' and I was mighty glad. If -it hadn't been for the curé those beasts would have done us a bad -turn." - -"Do you know what his name is?" queried the sub-prefect. - -"Wait," said the commissioner, looking through his papers. "Lieutenant -de Claviers-Grandchamp." - -"A noble!" cried the sub-prefect; "that explains everything. He was -evidently very desirous to obey orders, and then, at the last moment, he -balked. Why? I'll tell you; but first listen to a little story."--He was -an old _boulevardier_ and fond of telling stories.-- - -"Under the Empire there was a journalist of the opposition who wrote -very violent articles in a 'red' newspaper. One fine day some one -discovers that he writes, under a false name, others just as violent but -on the other side, in a government sheet. 'There's nothing left for me -but to disappear,' he groaned, and he talked about blowing out his -brains.--'Bah!' said one of his friends, 'you'll get clear of it by -changing your café.'--He was not wrong. Everything can be arranged in -life, so long as one can change his café. But the nobles, they can't do -it. There's the whole story of your lieutenant. He thought he wouldn't -be well received at the Jockey Club. That's what comes of having too -swell a café." - -While the jovial-minded servants of a régime in which people have, in -truth, changed their cafés a good deal, were laughing carelessly at the -philosophic sub-prefect's outbreak, that short-lived tragedy, which -lacked not even the requisite irony, came to an end with the dispersion -of the actors. The protesting peasants rushed into the church, which was -opened at last, and the hoof-beats of the horses, mingled with the -jangling of the scabbards, died away in the yellowing woods that lie -between Hugueville and Saint-Mihiel. - -The detachment rode more rapidly. The sun, shining clear at last, warmed -the air. It shone on the metal of the helmets and the gleaming flanks of -the horses, which tossed their heads impatiently, scenting the road to -the stables. Having given his orders, Landri had taken his place at the -head of the column, with so savage an expression that his men, -indifferent as they were to the moral crisis through which their leader -had passed, were impressed by it. Vigouroux in fact had more definite -reason than the commissioner for surprise at a volte-face which -absolutely gave the lie to the words they had exchanged a few moments -earlier. But upon him, too, his comrade's face made too deep an -impression for him to try to speak to him. He rode along in the rear, -secretly well pleased, in spite of himself, at the thought that -paragraph 9 of Article 2 of the fifth part of the Military Annual was -about to undergo a slight modification. He would advance one step on the -seniority list of lieutenants of cavalry. But the artless wish to have a -third _galon_ on one's cap a little sooner does not debar excellence of -heart, and he was quite sincere when he pressed Landri's hand in the -courtyard of the barracks, at the end of the march. - -"I thank you, Claviers," he said. "If you hadn't remounted us, the -sub-prefect would have telegraphed. The command would have been turned -over to me, and I don't know whether I should have had your courage, on -which I congratulate you." - -"One doesn't congratulate an officer on having broken his sword," -retorted the other with a brusqueness which disconcerted Vigouroux. - -"If that's how he feels," he thought, as he watched Landri walk away -from the barracks at the rapid pace of one who would be alone, "why did -he do what he did? He rarely goes to mass. He adores the profession. He -has no political opinions.--It's inconceivable! There must be a -petticoat underneath it all.--Aha! I have it. He seemed to be very much -in love down here with poor Olier's little wife, who's a finished bigot. -She wants to get married, parbleu! She's in Paris. She must have heard -of the thing from her friend Julie Despois, and have made a bargain with -my poor Claviers.--Decidedly, Lieutenant Vigouroux, the best thing for -us is not to care too much for pretty women." - -With this aphorism of practical sagacity, this other, more inoffensive, -philosopher, bent his steps, no less hurriedly, toward the mess. He had -eight hours of horseback in his limbs, and he was of those fortunate -folk whom excitement makes hollow. - -This judgment of an exceedingly honest but exceedingly commonplace youth -supplemented that of the jovial prefect. Thus it is that the painful -dramas of our lives are enacted before the unintelligent eyes of -half-informed witnesses. There are cases in which the sufferer prefers -that sort. They assure him of secrecy at least, and it was secrecy that -Landri craved, it was lack of comprehension. But who could have divined -the real explanation of a sudden change of purpose at which he was -himself confounded--that irresistible and passionate movement of the -heart toward the most generous of men. - -And now, seated, crouching rather, on one of the easy chairs in his -apartment, he waited. As if he had already resigned, instead of making -the report to his captain, called for by the regulations, he had written -a note to the colonel in person to inform him of the manner in which his -mission had ended. In what shape would he be dealt with? Withdrawn from -active service, dismissed on half-pay, cashiered--so many synonyms to -his mind of a single phrase, with which he had replied so bitterly to -Vigouroux's warm and inopportune grasp of the hand: he had broken his -sword. He no longer belonged to the army except for the purpose of -undergoing the last rigors of a discipline which he had knowingly -violated. - -They were announced to him in a letter which arrived almost immediately, -in reply to his, and which ordered him to consider himself strictly -under arrest, "until a decision should be reached on the subject of the -provisions of law concerning his case." Below this threatening line the -colonel had written his name, "Charbonnier." The ferocious curl of the -C, and the vigor of the concluding flourish proved that the plebeian -officer, entrusted by the hierarchy with the right to punish the -aristocratic officer, was hardly putting in practice the sage -recommendation of the regulation concerning internal government: -"Calmness on the part of the superior officer shows that in inflicting -punishment he is animated only by the good of the service and by a -realization of his duty." - -What did Landri care for such a trifle? Having read this laconic and -imperious message, he looked at the clock on the mantel-piece, as he had -looked at the clock on the front of the church at Hugueville. The hands -pointed to one o'clock. His mind reverted to the melancholy ceremony, -the vision of which, suddenly evoked, had effected that abrupt change in -his resolution. It was all over long ago. Doubtless M. de Claviers had -returned to Grandchamp. The dead man was laid to rest in the grave which -the workmen would have filled by evening. - -"This is my 'Here lies,' this paper," thought the young man, pushing -away the colonel's letter, "the 'Here lies' of the soldier." This -coincidence between the burial of his real father and the event that put -an end to his career as an officer, tore his heart. "At all events," he -added, "before I go before the court-martial, I shall have a little -solitude." - -He looked about him, to allay his soreness of heart in the security of -his prison. How many hours he had passed in that salon-library in the -last three years, reading and writing--and dreaming of Valentine! He -took from his table drawer a case containing a portrait, the only one -that he had of her. It was a head only, which he had cut from a group -taken by an amateur in the country. To separate it from the others he -had had to cut off the wings of the broad garden hat she wore. But the -pure, intelligent glance, the half-smile, the pose, slightly inclined, -of the lovely head,--ah! it was all Valentine! He gazed long at those -features which he had seen alight with love, upon which his lips had -drunk burning kisses, and he said aloud:-- - -"I have sacrificed the other thing; I will not sacrifice her!" - -As if to renew the solemn pledge that united them thenceforth, he -pressed his lips to the poor card whereon there shone a reflection of -that charm, unique in his eyes, and, seating himself at his desk, he -began a letter to Madame Olier which should describe the decisive -episode of the morning, or, rather, which should try to describe it. He -was constantly obliged to pause in order to choose among his thoughts. -How painful that careful surveillance of his words was to him! Complete -confidence is so natural, so necessary, with the person one loves! It is -the very breath of the heart. - -That letter finished, he took another sheet to write another. It must -not be that the marquis should learn from the newspapers of the episode -of the Hugueville inventory. Landri owed it to himself as well as to him -to conduct himself in his relations with him exactly as if the terrible -revelation had never been made. But by what name should he call him? -Thrice the young man dipped his pen in the ink and thrice he laid it -down. His hand refused to trace the two affectionate syllables. At last, -with a sort of devout horror, he wrote, "Dear father."--Rapidly, without -choosing his words,--he was simply narrating facts now,--he filled four -pages with his long, nervous handwriting, and signed, as usual, "Your -respectful and affectionate son." - -"I am entitled to it," he said, as he closed the envelope, which he -sealed with the Claviers arms; "I have paid dearly enough for it." - -These letters written and mailed, Landri was surprised to feel a sort of -peace, depressed and gloomy to be sure, but peace none the less. How he -had dreaded that turning-point of his destiny, that hour when he must -cease to serve, when he would become once more, to use his own words, -"an idler and useless,--a rich man with the most authentic coat-of-arms -on his carriage,--an _émigré_ within the country!" That hour had -struck, and he was almost calm. The misfortune that has happened has -this merit at least: the tumult of ideas aroused by uncertainty subsides -before the accomplished fact, and there ensues within us a sudden -silence, as it were, which gives to the heart a simulacrum of repose. -Assuredly Landri was very sad at the thought that he had taken part for -the last time in the life of the regiment. But at all events he _knew_ -that it was for the last time. The discomfort of indecision was at an -end. During those long days of enforced retirement he would be able to -apply the powers of his mind to his plans of a new future, without -wondering whether or no that future was possible. It was possible--less -simple, less in conformity with the aspirations of his youth than if he -had remained a soldier while marrying Valentine; but as he still had -Valentine, nothing was lost. - -On that first afternoon of his compulsory seclusion, in order not to -abandon himself to discouragement, he tried to concentrate his thoughts -upon the plan of that existence _à deux_, wherein he would find, if not -happiness, at least a balm for the smarting wound open forever in his -heart. He looked on his shelves for books relating to the different -French provinces, in order to study the conditions of an establishment -in the country. That was what he looked forward to--a life of retirement -on a large estate, at a distance from Paris, with all that an extensive -rural undertaking represents in the way of profitable activity. - -But ere nightfall the inward silence was broken and the tempest of ideas -swept down upon him anew. He had been for years too zealous an officer -not to feel a certain remorse, which was sure to increase upon -reflection, for having been governed, throughout the incident of that -morning, by motives so entirely unconnected with the military service. -He had transformed an act in the line of his duty into an episode of his -personal, sentimental life. That was a much more serious offence, from -the professional point of view, than the breach of discipline. He would -not have felt remorse if he had had, for refusing to act, the motives of -a Despois, the subordination of military law to religious law, which -latter such men regard as primordial and imprescriptible. He, Landri, -had acted upon impulse. He had not even been governed by the argument he -had used upon himself from the first day--that of a debt that he owed -the Claviers-Grandchamps. Had he, in truth, acted at all? He had been -acted upon, in the literal meaning of the words. The marquis's powerful -personality had, as it were, prevailed with him from afar. - -To this remorse for having consulted, under such circumstances, not his -conscience, but only his affection and compassion for that man, was -added the fear that the same influence would find him weak once more in -the second assault that he would have to repel. He did not suspect that, -with his inheritance as a love-child, he would display far greater -energy in defending his passion. In him the source of strength was not -in the reasoning power, it was in the heart. He was not to learn that -until he was put to the test. What he did know was that, with the most -imperative motives for making an irreparable breach between M. de -Claviers and himself, the opportunity had been offered him and he had -not grasped it. He could not do it. Those motives were still as strong -as ever. The affection by which he had allowed himself to be mastered -when he was on the point of doing what would set him free, was a wounded -and poisoned affection. It had made him incapable of inflicting great -suffering on that man. It would make him incapable of living with him, -as he would be called upon to do, every day, now that he was free. How -could he fail to say to himself again and again that, even outside the -binding engagement that he had entered into with Madame Olier, to throw -away this second opportunity to break with the marquis was to condemn -himself in the future to an endless succession of painful scenes in one -of which his secret would be discovered. M. de Claviers could not fail -to see that he had changed. He would be anxious about it. He would -investigate. - -All this Landri told himself. His conclusion was that at any cost, and -at the earliest possible moment, the marquis must be informed of his -betrothal. And then he doubted his courage to make that declaration, -reminding himself how he had weakened, how he had suddenly lost heart on -the platform of the church at Hugueville, to which he had gone up with -such firm determination! Thereupon he wondered if it would not be the -safer way to take advantage of his arrest to write. Colonel Charbonnier -certainly would not depart from his customary severity so far as to -authorize him to receive a single visit, even from his father. -Consequently, if M. de Claviers were informed by letter of the marriage -engagement between Landri and Valentine, he would be unable to express -his dissatisfaction otherwise than by letter. - -The lieutenant was too manly, despite the reflex action of a -sensitiveness that was very near being morbid, and he had too much -respect for his affection for Valentine, not to shrink from so cowardly -a proceeding. The explanation must be, should be, by word of mouth, from -man to man. It should take place the first time that he was alone with -the marquis; and to cut short a state of vacillation that humiliated -him, he said to himself aloud:-- - -"Yes, the very first time. I pledge my word of honor." - -It was on Friday evening that he made this pledge, which was so definite -that it procured him another interval of comparative tranquillity. -Saturday passed with his mind still in a state of feverish confusion, -but with his resolution unshaken. - -Sunday brought three new facts in the shape of three letters, one from -the marquis, one from Valentine, one from Métivier the notary. The old -nobleman was not a letter-writer. He congratulated Landri, "in the name -of all the Claviers-Grandchamps, past, present and future;" and then -concluded: "You will exalt your old father's joy and pride to their -highest point by talking to the judges as he suggested." - -How like blows from a dagger were such words from him! And again, how -like such blows were the words in which the gentle recluse of Rue -Monsieur poured forth all her sympathy! She spoke to him whom she -regarded as her fiancé of the happiness that the Hugueville incident -must have afforded his father! Had she not then guessed the whole truth? -The young man foresaw a new source of torture in the efforts that the -dear woman would make, when they were united, to reconcile him to the -marquis, and his own efforts to resist that pressure without betraying -himself. Ah! he had not come to the end of his suffering! - -The notary's letter was, also, very short, but it contained one line so -enigmatical that Landri, under existing circumstances, could not help -being disturbed by it. Maître Métivier apologized for answering -somewhat tardily on the ground that he had desired first to institute a -little investigation. He added that Landri's presence in Paris was not -at all necessary, and that, thanks to "the unexpected incident of which -he was aware," the deplorable affair was on the road to speedy and final -adjustment. What incident? Was Chaffin really dishonest, as his former -pupil had intuitively suspected, and as Jaubourg had declared on his -death-bed? Had they detected him and discovered a way to put an end to -his manœuvres? Had he confessed? Or--Already, it will be remembered, -Landri had trembled at the thought that Jaubourg might have made his -will in his favor.--But no; he would have been officially advised ere -this. In such perplexity, the best way was to request from Métivier, at -once, an explanation of that obscure passage in his letter. That was the -simplest and wisest solution. But so great is the emotional strain, the -anxious anticipation of misfortune, caused by a too violent shock, that -Landri had not the courage to adopt it. If it did not refer to a legacy -from Jaubourg, the "unexpected incident" was really a matter of -indifference to him. If the contrary were true, he should know it soon -enough. - -In fact the Monday was not to pass before he was fully informed and -found himself face to face with another problem of conscience, more -painful perhaps than those of the preceding days. Tragedy engenders -tragedy, by virtue of a law in which consists the hidden moral of this -too truthful narrative of private life. It rarely happens that this is -not the consequence of one of those deep-rooted sins whose expiation -survives the person who committed it. It is one of the forms of that -transmission of sin, whereof it has been said with much truth that -nothing is more distasteful to us, and that "notwithstanding, but for -this, the most incomprehensible of all mysteries, we should be -incomprehensible to ourselves." - -During the afternoon of Monday, then, Landri was alone in his salon, -apparently occupied in reading, but in reality absorbed in one of those -fits of melancholy meditation of which he had undergone so many during -the past week, and would, he felt, undergo so many more in the months -and years to come! The sound of the bell announcing a visitor roused him -from his abstraction. - -"They're coming to notify me of the inquiry," he thought; "so much the -better!" - -He heard his servant go to open the door, and in a moment a loud voice -reached his ears and made him jump to his feet. That imperious accent, -that tone of command--it was M. de Claviers fighting against the order -of seclusion. - -"But I am his father!" he said. "I tell you, I'm his father! A father -has a right to see his son, it seems to me, and I will see -him.--However, here he is." - -Landri had, in fact, come out of the salon, completely upset by his -father's arrival. He was too familiar with the marquis's indomitable -will not to know that he would throw the orderly aside, with his still -powerful hands, rather than go away. - -"Ah! I see you at last, my dear, my son!" He took the young man in his -arms and pressed him to his heart, repeating passionately: "My son! my -son! At last I can say to you what I wrote so badly and briefly! The pen -and I are not on the best of terms since my eyes began to fail. I feel -my age. But not in my heart; and that old heart leaped with joy and -pride when I read your letter. Yes, I am happy. Yes, I am proud. I -should have come Saturday, but I had to see Métivier about some -tiresome business matters,--I'll tell you about it,--and again -yesterday, although it was Sunday. This morning I read in a newspaper -that there is talk of putting you under arrest in a fortress. 'Not -before I have embraced him,' I said to myself, and I did as I did the -other day, when I went to see poor Charles,--I jumped into the train. I -shall return to-night, and I shall be in Paris in good time for my -appointment with Métivier. For that business isn't finished yet. Just -fancy--But later, later. Let's talk about you. Are you well? Let me look -at you. A little thin and pale." - -"That's because I don't go out," the young man replied. "I am in strict -confinement." - -"I shall not be the cause of your being punished more severely, shall I? -If necessary I will go and ask the colonel for a permit. Although, -according to what you have told me--" - -"It's not at all necessary," replied Landri hastily; and he added: -"There's nothing more they can do to me." - -In his mouth these words were only too true. The shock that the -marquis's sudden appearance had given him had changed instantly into -inexpressible grief--the same grief that he had felt with such intensity -on their meeting in Jaubourg's death-chamber. M. de Claviers' gestures, -his glance, his voice, his breath, moved him to the lowest depths of his -being; and the other, seeing his perturbation, but attributing it to -disappointment because of his shattered career, said to him:-- - -"You are sad when I hoped to find you happy to take your leave of the -army with that fine gesture, which I partly suggested to you! Do you -remember? And you must remember, too, how often I have told you, and -again only the other day, in the forest, that you could not stay with -these people. One by one they'll drive all men of heart out of the -service. What they want, these wretched successors of the Dantons and -Carnots, who at least had some patriotism, is a national guard -surrounded by spies!--Stand straight, Landri. Have the pride of the blow -you have dealt them. We will prepare your defence together. It shall be -a manifesto. We'll show these Blues, who think they have exterminated -us, that there are still Whites in the land. We will argue once more a -cause that has been pending more than a hundred years, from the decision -of which we must appeal untiringly,--the cause of Condé's army. We will -proclaim that the country is not one more than half of living Frenchmen, -as their idiotic theory of majorities would have it; that the law is not -one more than half of the representatives of that one more than half. In -the word country [_patrie_] there is the word father [_père_]--_patria, -pater_--The country is France as our fathers made it, or it is nothing. -The law is tradition, as they handed it down to us to maintain, or it is -nothing. We will say that, even in 1906, we nobles do not recognize -1789, that we have never recognized the night of the 4th of August, that -we are gentlemen, and that a gentleman does not perform tasks of a -certain sort. You must let me select your advocate and instruct him. A -manifesto, Landri,--I propose to have a manifesto, which will stir up -others!--Come, tell me the whole story. The newspapers are full of lies. -They claim that you hesitated, that you went up the church steps with -the sappers.--How did it happen?" - -"Why, just as they say," replied the young man. - -"You hesitated?" rejoined the marquis; and, gazing at Landri, with -infinite affection in his clear blue eyes, he continued: "I understand -your pallor now. The sacrifice was very painful. For it is a sacrifice -that you have made to us, that you have made to me," he added, not -realizing how true his words were. - -The "Émigré" had been speaking with all the passion of a partisan, -who, being unable to fight the government except in thought, indulges in -that pastime with all his heart. Now he made way for the father. - -"Thanks," he said, and pressed his son's hand. "But, do not deceive -yourself," he continued; "it is for France as well that you have made -this sacrifice. You remember that I told you also the other day that I -understood you only too well, that I too had heard, in my youth, the -voice of the tempter: 'One does not serve the government, one serves -France.' One of our princes said it at the trial of the traitor Bazaine: -'France was involved!'--That is why I allowed you to enter Saint-Cyr. -Besides, to wear the sword is no degradation. Only follow the logic of -your own idea, and you will meet mine, for the truth is one.--Once more, -what was your object in putting on the uniform? To serve your -country.--What service could you render her that would be more complete, -more serviceable than this--to maintain intact, before the eyes of all -men, the type of the soldier-chevalier? The chevalier, you see, is the -ideal code of regulations, always permanent under new forms, and summed -up in the words: the flag, military honor, the good of the service. It -is the Chevalier whom the Revolution pursues with its hatred to-day, -under the cape or the cloak, as of yore under the coat of the bodyguard -or the light-horse. It was against him that it invented the abominable -phrase, 'a national army,' which means, 'no army at all, but the common -people armed with muskets, pikes and cannon!'--Well! by refusing to -march against a church you have asserted once more the permanence of the -Chevalier type. In the old days, on their reception they were presented -with a sword in the shape of a cross. Admirable symbol of our -ancestors--force ruled by faith, that is to say, by justice and mercy! -That is what the Cross is, justice tempered by mercy. You have -proclaimed aloud that the Soldier and the Chevalier are but one. You -have made yourself the example. Therein is the whole of military duty. -You and those men who have previously done as you have done have -postponed the hour when France will cease to have an army, by steadfast -adherence to principle. You know the value that I attach to such -adherence. You understand now that one must sometimes lay down life in -order to keep intact the germ of the future--principle, always -principle! That is what the ancients did when they left their cities but -took their gods with them. I have always loved that symbolism. It is -Christian even in its paganism! I have an idea that in the future you -will agree better with your old father. And then, too, you will help him -grow old. You are my witness that I have never complained. I have never -attempted to impose upon you the exactions of my selfishness. But why -should I not confess it? Grandchamp has sometimes seemed very empty to -me, and the house on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré--very empty. My -friends are going, one after another, witness my poor Charles. At my age -one is weary of burying, weary of surviving. You will help me to drive -away these black devils. We will not part any more.--But what's the -matter?" - -"The matter is," the young man replied, "that I cannot bear to hear you -talk like this." - -He had made a gesture to stop the marquis, and he let a cry of pain -escape him, of which he had at least an explanation to give, although it -was not the true one. Whatever the cost, he felt that he must interrupt -an effusion which caused him too much suffering, and a declaration of -principles which were so unwittingly but so fiendishly ironical when -addressed to him, the child of sin, the nobleman by imposture. It was -necessary to have done with it. - -"No," he insisted, "I cannot. This life together that you speak of, you -will not care to live with me when I have told you what I am bound to -tell you. The other day, during our conversation in the forest, to which -you just referred, I spoke to you about a marriage. It is going to take -place. Since last Tuesday I have been engaged--" - -"Engaged?" cried the marquis. "Don't tell me, Landri, that it's to that -Madame Olier." - -"It is to Madame Olier. I have asked her for her hand. She has promised -it to me. We have exchanged our troths. She will be my wife." - -"You asked her for her hand?" M. de Claviers exclaimed. "Then you -knew--" - -"That you would refuse your consent? Yes," said the young man. - -"And does Madame Olier know that I refused it?" - -"I did not tell her that I had spoken to you of her." - -"And she agreed to become engaged to you, without troubling herself -about what I would do, your father?" - -"She had faith in me," replied Landri. - -Could he explain under what conditions of supreme grief, almost of -agony, he and Valentine had united their destinies? And yet that M. de -Claviers should judge her wrongfully, should take her for an -adventuress, was terribly painful to him! He knew his way of thinking. -He had still in his ears the words: "She must be very pure, very -sensitive. She will never consent to marry you against your father's -wish. If her ideas were not exalted to that point, you would not love -her."--And he implored:-- - -"I ask you not to speak of her. As she is mine now, I cannot permit -anybody to utter in my presence a word derogatory to her--not even you." - -"Begin yourself by not telling me of actions on her part which are not -those of the woman that I took her for after your confidences. I say -nothing of her. I don't know her. I speak of your conduct toward our -family. Will she or will she not be of our family if you marry her? Am I -or am I not the head of that family? Have I the right to defend the name -of Claviers-Grandchamp?"--He had risen and he bore down upon his son, -with folded arms and a rush of blood to his aged face, of that blood -whose claims he was asserting--and to whom! "And it is just when I have -lost my dearest friend that you have done this to me, when you knew that -I should be so stricken with grief!--In Heaven's name, who is this -woman, who has so perverted your heart?--But what can she be if not a -seeker of titles and wealth, having planned what she has planned in -order to force herself upon us, upon me first of all, whether I will or -no, by virtue of the accomplished fact?--But no! the fact shall not be -accomplished. This marriage shall not take place. I, your father, do not -wish it to take place--do you hear, Landri,--I do not wish it." - -The young man submitted to this formidable attack without replying. He -shuddered when he heard that judgment of Valentine. But M. de Claviers -was the only being on earth against whom he could not defend the woman -he loved. Whence did he derive the right to raise his voice against him, -even if he had the strength? And yet in the attempt to arrest that -torrent of indignation, as to which he could not foresee how far it -would carry the marquis, in view of his natural violence, he said -simply, or, rather, groaned:-- - -"I shall not defend her against you. Not a word shall come from my mouth -that lacks the respect that I owe you. Because of that, remember that -she is a woman and that I love her." - -"She has forgotten that I am your father," retorted the irascible -marquis. But he had not lied when, a few moments earlier, he had uttered -with a sympathetic accent the word "chevalier." The legendary meaning of -that venerable word, profaned by the most unwarranted usage, was still -to him a living truth. That the young man should make that appeal to him -was sufficient to induce him to interrupt his indictment of one who was -absent. He reseated himself, and with his elbows on the table, and his -head in his hands, he continued after a pause, in a tone in which wrath -had given place to sadness:-- - -"Then you will send me a respectful summons,[5] I suppose?" - -"I shall have to," replied Landri, "if you do not give your consent." - -He realized that he was lost if he yielded to the emotion with which -that plaint, so affectionate in its manly simplicity, had filled his -heart anew. This constant laying bare to the quick of his sensitive -nature by that man's mere presence proved to him once more how necessary -it was that he should muster energy to complete the rupture. He loved -him, he revered him too deeply to be able to live in falsehood with him. - -"My consent?" echoed the marquis, and his anger flared up once more. -"Never! No, never! This is no mere caprice, as you must know. It -concerns the thing that has been the mainspring of my whole existence. -As for the authority in the name of which I forbid--you understand, I -forbid--this marriage, you can defy it and violate it. The shocking laws -of the present day allow you to do so; but if you dare, you will do a -worse thing than if you had broken in the door of Hugueville church the -other day. You will insult your father.--I prefer to believe," he -continued, after another silence, during which he had visibly striven to -control himself, "I prefer to believe that you will reflect. You -hesitated at Hugueville, and then the Claviers blood won the day over -the poison of modern ideas with which I cannot see how you have become -infected. This marriage out of your class is another case of revolt -against prejudices. If our ancestors had not had them, these prejudices, -for well-nigh eight hundred years, you and I would not be -Claviers-Grandchamps. If you choose, from weakness, from aberration of -mind, to cease to behave like one of them, an infamous code forbids me -to prevent you, but know this, that I shall die of despair!--Nothing! he -cares nothing for that!" he continued, rising and pacing the floor. "He -does not answer!--When I see you thus, speechless, obstinate, insensible -to my suffering, I do not believe my eyes. But answer me, pray! Speak to -me! Ask me for further time, at least, so that I may not go away upon -those horrible words, that threat against your father. For you did -threaten me. You said: 'I shall have to! I shall have to!'--Come, -Landri, say that you will regret those words, say that I have moved -you." - -"You tear my heart," the young man replied. "But I have given my word. I -shall keep it. I shall marry Madame Olier." - -"And I," exclaimed M. de Claviers, exasperated to the highest pitch by -this renewed resistance, "I give you my word that if you do, I will -never see you again.--Enough of this!" he continued in an imperious -tone. "For an hour past I have shown you all the affection, all the love -that I have in my heart for you, and all my grief as well, and you defy -me. God knows that I did not come here with the idea of speaking to you -as I am going to do. But you shall not defy the paternal majesty with -impunity!" And it was true that at that moment majesty did emanate from -him,--the majesty of the fathers of an earlier time who, as private -dispensers of justice, condemned their sons to imprisonment, and -sometimes to the galleys.[6] "You will ask my pardon, you understand, -for what you have presumed to say to me, or I will never see you again. -And to prove that this sentence of separation between us, if you do not -obey, is final on my part, I shall begin as soon as I reach Paris, -to-morrow morning, to segregate our property. We have been engaged of -late, Métivier and I, in adjusting my affairs which Chaffin's -improvidence had allowed to fall into an unfortunate condition. I shall -take advantage of the opportunity to surrender to you your power of -attorney and all your property. I will spare you the necessity of -demanding them." - -"I?" cried Landri. "You cannot believe--" - -The names of Chaffin and Métivier had suddenly reminded him of the -financial catastrophe the imminence of which had so alarmed him. He had -asked the notary to say nothing, and he was quite sure that his -correspondence with him was unknown to the marquis. So that he could not -have interpreted it as a step suggested by Valentine to obtain -possession of his fortune. But what if Métivier had been lacking in -professional discretion? What if that last little sentence signified -such a suspicion? - -"I believe nothing," rejoined M. de Claviers, "except that on certain -roads one does not stop."--Then, to prove that he proposed to be just, -even in the execution of his sentence upon his rebellious son: "But as -you haven't yet reached that point, and as you may still have some -scruples, considering that I spoke to you about my burdens,--let me tell -you that my difficulties are all at an end, thanks to the devotion of a -friend. Charles Jaubourg had none but distant relations, of whom he had -reason to complain. He has left me his whole fortune by his will. I came -to tell you this news also," he added with a sigh, "and to read you the -provisions of the will. Nothing could be more lofty in sentiment, more -delicately expressed. I have accepted the legacy, in the first place, -because it's absolutely honest money: Charles's father was probity -itself; secondly, because I do not injure any one--his cousins are all -rich and he never saw them; and finally because I loved him as much as -he loved me. One can count the attachments in life that do not deceive -one.--However I need not tell you that, without this legacy, your -fortune was intact. I will order Métivier to communicate with you about -the settlement. As for me, when the day comes that you desire to recover -a father, you know the conditions.--Adieu." - -Landri had listened with, an indescribable mixture of fear and -disgust--fear of betraying his excessive emotion, disgust at the infamy -of which he was the helpless witness. This then was the ghastly means -devised by Jaubourg to leave his whole fortune to his son! And should -he, the son, permit that money to be accepted thus, with such touching -and confiding gratitude, by that nobleman, so proud and of such -magnificent moral integrity? If, by his silence concerning what he knew, -he should make himself an accomplice in that final act of treachery, -would he not cap the climax of the outrage by his false generosity? The -cry of protest was on his lips, and he did not utter it. There was -something more atrocious than the failure to warn that honorable and -terribly abused man, and that was for his wife's child to tell him what -that wife had been. - -M. de Claviers had walked to the door. He seemed to await a word, a -gesture, a glance; and Landri stood silent, with downcast eyes. The -marquis himself started to turn back. Then, in face of the young man's -obstinate immobility, his dense eyebrows contracted, his eyes became -stern. He repeated:-- - -"Adieu. Do you understand that I am bidding you adieu?" - -"Adieu," said Landri, without raising his eyes, while the dispenser of -justice, with a shrug of his powerful shoulders, left the room to avoid -giving way to the fresh wave of indignation that swept over his great -heart. - - -[Footnote 5: In French law, a _sommation respectueuse_ is an -extrajudicial document, which a young man of twenty-five or a young -woman of twenty-one, proposing to marry without parental consent, is -required to serve upon his or her parents, requesting advice concerning -the marriage.] - -[Footnote 6: Merlin, _Répertoire de Jurisprudence_, "Puissance -Paternelle," Sect. III, § 1:--"Basset mentions a sentence pronounced by -a father in person, by the advice of his family, against his son. He -declared him to be unworthy to succeed, and sentenced him to the galleys -for twenty years. The procureur-général of the Parliament of Grenoble -appealed from this sentence as too light, and by decree of September 19, -1663, the son was sentenced to the galleys for life."] - - - - -VII - -ALL SAVE HONOR - - -Four weeks had passed since the young man had listened to the Marquis de -Claviers-Grandchamp's wrathful stride through the reception-room of his -apartment, without calling him back to cry out the truth, to prevent -that deplorable injustice: the debts incurred by his imprudent but -generous and chivalrous prodigality paid with the money of his wife's -lover! After those twenty-nine days Landri found himself once more, in -the same place and at the same hour, surrounded by the same familiar -objects amid which his period of arrest had passed. - -He was free now. On the preceding day he had been sentenced by the -court-martial at Châlons, by five votes against two, to a fortnight's -imprisonment, to date back to his original arrest. On his return from -Châlons to Saint-Mihiel, he had found in his room an official -communication, stating that "by presidential order, under date of this -day, Lieutenant de Claviers-Grandchamp is retired from active service on -half-pay." That sheet of paper was the veritable "Here lies" of the -soldier, rather than the letter that he had received from the colonel on -his return from the Hugueville expedition. Landri had crumpled it up and -thrown it aside, paying no further heed to it. All his attention was -given to a telegram which he read again and again, an indefinite number -of times, seated, with his head in his hands, at the same table and in -the same attitude as the marquis the other day, while his valet and the -orderly went in and out, packing his trunks. - -Landri was to return to Paris by the night train. The telegram in which -he was so absorbed was from M. de Claviers' maître d'hôtel. It was a -reply to the only letter that he had written the marquis since their -interview. He had sent it on the adjournment of the court-martial, to -inform him of the verdict. It contained a careful but very distinct -allusion to his proposed marriage, and stated that he proposed to go to -Paris unless his "father"--he continued to call him by that name--should -see any objection to his doing so. He read and reread the despatch -acknowledging the receipt of that letter. - - -"Monsieur le Marquis, being obliged to leave for Grandchamp, instructs -me to say to Monsieur le Comte, in reply to his letter, that he will -expect him at Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré to-morrow. - - GARNIER." - - -That M. de Claviers had not put aside his severity, this missive, so -deliberately impersonal and at such a time, was a sufficient proof. - -"However, he is willing to see me!" said Landri to himself. "This -interview will be another very painful one, but I must not shirk it." - -Upon receipt of the despatch he had devoted all the energy of his mind -to looking at the impending meeting from the point of view that he had -constantly maintained during that month of almost absolute solitude. He -had passed the whole of it in trying to define his duty, and he had -always come at last to the twofold necessity: silence and separation, -separation and silence. During those interminable hours of reflection he -had not had one moment's doubt. Not for a moment, either, had he ceased -to suffer at the thought of Jaubourg's will, of the shocking abuse of -confidence committed for his benefit by his real father, and in which he -could not avoid being an accomplice, rather than commit a still more -shocking crime by breaking the heart of the most loyal of men, by -dishonoring his own mother. His grief finally took the shape of remorse -for his compulsory participation in this vilest of falsehoods. Every -time that he had remembered, during those four weeks, the petrifying -revelation, he had thought instantly of the method resorted to by the -dead man to leave him his fortune, and had shuddered with impotent -abhorrence. - -Nothing that had happened had diverted his mind from that obsession: -neither the questions asked during the official inquiry, nor the -consultations with his counsel, nor his appearance before the judges, -nor the manifestations called forth by his act. Expressions of sympathy -had come to him by hundreds from every part of France, from superior -officers and comrades, even from privates. He had received also a great -number of letters and postal cards filled with low-lived insults. This -was a proof that the Marquis de Claviers was right, and that the fine -gesture of refusal before the door of the church to be burglarized, -since it exasperated the enemies of the army, evidently answered a -deep-rooted craving of the military conscience. But alas! it was only a -gesture, only a pretence. The officer had obeyed a sentiment which none -of his admirers or his insulters could even suspect. Praise and -criticism affected him no more than other impressions of the external -world. Madame Olier's letters alone had discovered the secret of -communicating to him a little of their tenderness. He had received one -each day. Evidently the dear woman realized that she had hurt him the -first day by speaking of M. de Claviers. Never after that, in the course -of those chats with pen in hand, did she so much as hint at the -marquis's existence. "Somebody has told her about the legacy," was -Landri's conclusion, "and she understands." - -He had guessed aright. Madame Privat, who had come to Paris for -Jaubourg's funeral, had paid Valentine a visit. She had told her, with -the acerbity of a disinherited relation, about her cousin's will. - -"You remember what I told you about his passion for Madame de -Claviers-Grandchamp? Now he leaves Monsieur de Claviers all his -property! Privat insists that he can't see anything wrong. He claims -that it's the surest proof that nothing ever happened.--You must -confess, my dear friend, that it has an evil look." - -Madame Olier had made no reply. But her heart had overflowed with pity. -She had seen Landri as he was at their last meeting, in turn paralyzed -and convulsed by grief, and she had divined the terrible truth. Her -affection had assumed a gentler, more caressing phase, across the -distance, and on that afternoon preceding his return to Paris, as he -bent over that enigmatical despatch, the certain precursor of fresh -struggles, the convicted officer, to exorcise his troubles, evoked the -image of his only friend, his betrothed and his comforter. - -"I shall see her to-morrow," he said to himself. "I shall be able to -keep the secret that honor commands me to keep, and she will read my -heart and pity me. She loves me! _He_ is going to ask me to give her up. -I had the strength to resist the first attack. I am sure of having still -more against the second.--But is that really what he wants to talk to me -about?--What else can it be?" - -In this question which Landri asked himself, or rather, which asked -itself in his mind, in his own despite, another supposition was -comprised. If it were true that Madame Olier had heard of Jaubourg's -attentions to Madame de Claviers,--and of that he had no doubt,--others -must have heard of them, too, others would be talking of them. In the -first shock of the revelation that had been the son's first thought. The -reader will remember that, after he had started for his club on Rue -Scribe, after the scene on Rue de Solferino, he had fled wildly, like a -madman, with the terror of a culprit flying from a witness of his shame, -simply because he saw a member of the club cross the threshold. Charles -Jaubourg's will must have revived all the gossip, aroused anew the -slumbering malevolence. Who could say that the marquis had not received -anonymous letters, that his suspicions had not been awakened? - -One fact had surprised Landri more than all the other incidents of those -four weeks. As he dwelt upon the hidden meaning of the despatch, his -mind reverted to that fact which suddenly assumed very great importance. -How was it that M. de Claviers had done nothing in respect to one of the -matters discussed in their interview--the choice of an advocate? The -motives that made him irreconcilable on the subject of the marriage to -Valentine were respect, worship, idolatry of his name. Would not those -same motives naturally have led him to persevere in his original -purpose? The heir to that name was summoned before a court-martial. That -was a public fact which had no connection with their private -disagreement. How was it that the "Émigré" had not insisted that the -accused should be defended--that was his own word--on the ground of the -principle to which he devoted his life: the honor of the noble? It was -not necessary to communicate with his son for that. It would have been -enough to send the young man a defender duly "instructed," according to -another expression of his. He had not done so. Why? Landri had had to -apply to Métivier the notary, who had sent down a kinsman of his, a -distinguished practitioner, but purely professional. The marquis and the -counsel had never met. Why? Did it mean that some new event had -intervened? What was it? The awakening of suspicion? Or was the wrath of -outraged paternal authority sufficient to explain his abstention? - -Landri was so desirous to believe the latter that he went to the trunk -in which his books were already packed, and took out the work wherein -the marquis's ideas were collected and marshalled: "The History and -Genealogy of the House of Claviers-Grandchamp." The mere title made -Landri tremble, but he remembered having read a note, which he must find -at any price. When he had found it, he spelled out all the syllables, -word by word, in a low voice. He longed to read therein an explanation -of the attitude of the Feudalist, thwarted in one of his most firmly -rooted convictions. It was a fragment of a discourse delivered by the -eloquent Duveyrier before the Parliament of Paris, in 1783. M. de -Claviers had cited the passage apropos of the severity of one of his -ancestors toward a younger son, with enthusiastic approval and -emphasizing the last lines as if to make them his own. - -In this argument Duveyrier was supporting a father's denunciation of his -own daughter to the authorities. - -"Can we," he said, "can we, without distress, reflect upon the immense -interval that separates us from those who handed our laws down to us? By -what steps of progressive enfeeblement we have substituted for that -mental energy, for the power of genuine virtue, a factitious sensibility -which takes fright at the slightest effort; not the healthy sensibility, -inseparable from kindness of heart, which has compassion for the -criminal while punishing the crime, but that flexibility of character, -that flabbiness of heart which leads us to purchase the indulgence of -others by our own indulgence, and which we call sensibility in order to -legitimize our weakness, to ennoble it, indeed, if that were possible! -In the last days of the Republic, when discord was ushering in -depravity, Aulus Fulvius deserted Rome to follow Catiline. His father -called him back. That citizen, a rebel against his country, was still a -dutiful son. He obeyed. He submitted to the sentence of death pronounced -by his father. Our ancestors admired this example of sublime virtue. We -deem it harsh. Our grandsons will call it barbarous. _We are beginning -to be surprised that a father should exercise the right that the law -gives him, to avenge his betrayed honor, his contemned authority. We -shall end by depriving him of that right. From the impossibility of -punishing the children will result contempt for the father, -insubordination rebellion, and universal anarchy_." - -"That's his way of thinking, and he's profoundly in earnest about it," -thought Landri, as he closed the bulky volume. "That's enough to make my -opposition exasperate him, so that he won't have anything more to do -with me until I have given way.--Where were my wits? He wants to see me -to-morrow about those same matters that he had Métivier write me about. -Must I imagine, too, that he has mysterious reasons for dividing our -property? He told me in this very room of his purpose to do that. That -alone proves how much weight he attaches to my offence against him. In -his eyes it's a crime. I ought to congratulate myself that he is so -rigid in his convictions." - -This explanation was very plausible. But it did not allay the vague -anxiety that the telegram had caused Landri. For this reason: Maître -Métivier had sent him numerous papers to sign, about a fortnight -before, accompanying them with a long letter, of a more personal sort. -He said in it that he strongly approved of this segregation of the -property of the father and son, and that he saw therein good augury for -the future. He added that M. de Claviers had, upon his advice, entrusted -the liquidation of his indebtedness to a former clerk of his, -Métivier's, one M. Cauvet, an advocate who made a specialty of notarial -practice. This Cauvet had discovered a serious irregularity almost -immediately. Chaffin had been dismissed. "Perhaps Monsieur le Marquis -was a little severe," observed the cautious Métivier. "Although the -fraud was highly probable, it was not absolutely certain." - -"So I was right," was Landri's instant thought, "Chaffin too was a -traitor." And he had gone no farther. In his present reflections matters -assumed a different aspect. Such violence under excitement was certainly -a pronounced feature of M. de Claviers' temperament. No other reason was -necessary to explain it than the discovery of a breach of trust. But the -consequences? Landri remembered that the son of the steward thus -summarily dismissed was Pierre Chaffin, the physician who had watched at -the bedside of the dying Jaubourg. Suppose that that fellow had repeated -to his father what he had unquestionably overheard? And suppose that the -father, to revenge himself, had in his turn repeated that secret? -Suppose that he had written to the person most interested? - -"No," Landri answered his own questions, "Chaffin may have been tempted -by the money that passed through his hands, and have become a thief. But -he is not a monster. And Pierre is a physician. There are still some of -them, yes, a great many, who keep professional secrets. No; nothing can -have happened in that direction, nor in any other. Our conversation of -the other day is quite enough." - -Despite these arguments, the return to Paris, under such conditions and -in obedience to that telegram, inspired the young man with an -apprehension that he could not overcome. - -"It's being shut up in this apartment, where I have too many sorrowful -thoughts to disturb me," he said to himself; and he went out, to try to -conquer his weakness by walking. - -He employed the last hours of the afternoon in paying farewell visits. -But they did not give him, after such a succession of violent shocks, -the peace of mind which he was very near requiring physically. He might -have measured the extent of the change wrought in him during those few -weeks, by this trivial fact: during that last walk from one end to the -other of the town where he had done his last garrison duty, he did not -feel a moment's nostalgia for the profession to which he had been so -attached. One anxiety overtopped everything else, of the same nature as -that which he had undergone before the telegram came, and had tried to -shake off: to ascertain whether the news of the infamous will had -reached the ears of his comrades, and what they thought of it. - -Landri had heard vaguely long ago that Major Privat was a distant cousin -of Jaubourg. He had no sooner set foot on the sidewalk than he -remembered it. That officer had retired the previous winter. He had -certainly continued to correspond with some of his comrades in arms. Had -he written them the news, and if so, with what comments? In that case -what interpretation would those straightforward, simple hearts, whose -uncompromising loyalty he knew, place upon M. de Claviers' acceptance? - -Such an idea was not of the sort that permits the intrusion of others. -In vain did the pictures of military activity on the streets of -Saint-Mihiel multiply themselves about the cashiered lieutenant, as if -to remind him of his youthful dreams and their destruction. He paid no -heed to them. Thus he was able to pass, without being suffocated with -despair, the headquarters gate, which he had entered only the other day -with the firm determination to retain his uniform. He met, without a -tearing at his heart-strings, several troopers of his former command, -led by his successor, who was mounted on Panther herself, become in -those few weeks a docile and spirited cavalry mare. He recognized -Baudoin's insolent and sneering profile, and Teilhard's face, already -less frank and open, evidently recaptured by anarchistic influences. -That is one of the bitterest pangs that a real leader of men can -feel,--to see the living tool that he has hoped, and has begun, to -shape, go astray in other hands. Landri was hardly moved by it. On the -other hand, he was intensely relieved to find that neither Despois nor -Vigouroux, the first two officers whom he called upon, had the slightest -suspicion of the legacy left to the Claviers by Privat's cousin. He had -the courage to mention the former major's name to both of them. Plainly, -they had not thought of him for months. They had many other cares in -their heads, which they both poured into his ears, each after his -manner. - -"So you are lost to the army," said Despois. "Such an excellent -officer--what a pity! I blame most the wretches who are governing us, -for not understanding that, especially among us, a man cannot be -replaced. A man! When they have one who wants to serve, they ought to do -everything to keep him. In a campaign, one man is worth ten, twenty, -thirty, a hundred, yes, a thousand others! One would think that our -tyrants were afflicted with a vertigo that impels them to eliminate from -the army the men of heart, that is to say, the loyalists, the men from -whom their Republic has least to fear. The officer who refuses, as you -did, to break down a chapel door, is the officer who doesn't conspire, -because he has scruples, and those fools don't comprehend it!--I, too," -he added, "I shall leave, and very soon. I don't think that I can stand -it. Yesterday they made us march against the churches, to-morrow we -shall be called upon for a campaign against the strikers. That is no -more a soldier's work than the other. The army may be employed, in -exceptional cases, to see that the laws are executed. But it must be one -of the exceptional cases. The reason for the existence of the army is -war, not police duty. Our politicians have a horror of war, of that -manly and sanctified school of heroism. They have the degraded taste for -armed demonstrations in the streets. Look you, they are talking of -sending us next week to adjust matters at the forges of Apremont.--For -heaven's sake, gentlemen, give us a policy of internal peace and of -proud dignity externally!--Adieu, Claviers. I wish that we may meet -again, you can guess where; foot to foot, charging the enemy. But will -there still be any cavalry to follow us?--I am wrong. We have no right -to despair, so near Vaucouleurs. What can you expect? It breaks your old -captain's heart to see you go away." - -"Well! so they've slit your ears, my dear Claviers!" Such was -Vigouroux's first exclamation. "Ah! the--" And the lieutenant of -dragoons, who adhered to the great traditions of the Klébers and -Cambronnes, hurled a mess-room epithet at his comrade's persecutors. "Do -you know that the same thing came near happening to me? And why? Because -I exchanged two or three words with you when we dismounted on our return -from Hugueville. Gad! they didn't waste any time. That same afternoon -the colonel sent for me.--'Is it true that you congratulated Monsieur de -Claviers in public?' he asked me.--'I did talk with Claviers,' I -replied, 'but privately, when we were off duty; and if anybody claims to -have been present at our interview, he lies.'--Charbonnier hesitated a -moment. For all that he has the ideas that you know of, he's a good -fellow. And then, Vigouroux, Charbonnier--those names have a similar -sound, whereas Claviers-Grandchamp--However, 'I'll let it pass this -time,' he said. 'But be less talkative, young man. You may fall in with -another colonel than me.'--That's all there was to it. You see, two -minutes' conversation, and we were spied upon. It poisons life. -Claviers, to be surrounded by blackguards. It spoils the cooking at the -mess, which really hasn't been so bad this year. I can't eat without -talking, and no one dares to speak at the table now. If all the good men -like you, the staunch ones, should disappear, what would become of us? -But no matter, Charbonnier and his curs may say what they please, I -congratulate you again, and I authorize you to say everywhere that -Vigouroux cried 'bravo' twice over." - -So Privat had not written! That was the whole significance, to their -former comrade, of the words of the two officers, one so distinguished -by nature, the other so simple-hearted, both equally attached to the -service and wounded to the quick in their military honor by abominable -orders. Later Landri was destined to see very often in his thoughts the -sad and honest glance of Despois in its deeply lined mask, and the -jovially disgusted lip--if one may say so--of the ruddy-visaged -Vigouroux. At the moment there was no place in his heart for sensations -of that sort. - -His other visits passed off with the same alternations of painful -curiosity and comparative--but only momentary--relief. - -The anticipation of the interview with M. de Claviers--the third since -he had known what he knew--consumed him with too fierce a fever. It -increased constantly as the minutes passed that brought him nearer to -the time when he would find himself face to face with him. Again, as in -the ride at the head of his dragoons to Hugueville-en-Plaine, he seemed -to see him and only him--only him on the railway platform, where very -few of his friends had the courage to come to bid him adieu; only him in -the carriage, where, lulled by the monotonous rumbling of the train, he -tried to imagine the words he was about to hear and those that he would -say in reply, endlessly and anxiously; only him, finally, in Paris, -where, as he stood in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, before the door of -their house, his suffering acquired fresh intensity. He had not crossed -the threshold since the day when, coming from Saint-Mihiel by train, he -had gone there to dress, before going to Valentine's to ask for her -hand. That was the day before Charles Jaubourg's death! - -Everything indicated that the manner of life in that seignorial mansion -was still as he had always known it. The old concierge saluted him from -his doorway with the same deferential and familiar expression. The same -stablemen, with the same gestures, were splashing pails of water on the -wheels of the same carriages. Garnier, the maître-d'hôtel, whose white -hair gave him a powdered aspect, received him with the same ceremony at -the top of the steps, when his arrival had been announced by the same -bell. - -"Is Monsieur le Marquis well?" Landri inquired; and his heart gave a -great throb of relief, as on the day before with Despois and Vigouroux, -when the servant replied:-- - -"Why, yes, Monsieur le Comte, very well. Monsieur le Marquis went to -Grandchamp yesterday to hunt, with several friends." - -"He hunts!" thought the young man. "Then nothing extraordinary is -happening! Evidently I was right. He wishes to talk with me about money -matters only." And he said, aloud: "Ask him if he can see me about ten -o'clock." - -This touch of ceremoniousness was no novelty in the relations between -the father and son. Although the conventional courtesy which is -traditionary in old-fashioned families creates something like -embarrassment at certain times, at other times it reveals itself as -singularly beneficent in its operation. It ensures anonymity, if -necessary, when one is suffering. No one of the household suspected that -there was impending between the marquis and Landri one of those scenes -which mark a solemn epoch in two lives. - -But did Landri himself suspect to what sort of an interview he was -proceeding when, at the appointed hour, he went down from his apartment -to the library, where M. de Claviers had sent word that he was awaiting -him? That large, high-studded room was on the same level with the -garden, which was fresh and bright-colored in summer, but so severely -bare and leafless on that dark December morning. The gloomy setting was -only too appropriate to the words that were to be exchanged there. - -The marquis was standing in front of the vast fireplace, with his back -to the fire, whose bright flame twined about a veritable tree-trunk. It -was another of the old nobleman's manias, that huge fire of the olden -time. Standing before that monumental chimneypiece, he was himself at -that moment, despite his modern costume, more of an "ancient portrait" -than ever. But it was the portrait of one who was living through hours -of frightful martyrdom. The master of the hunt of the forest of Hez, -whose tall erect figure Landri had so admired in the group of sportsmen -watching the kill, was scarcely fifty years of age, despite the -sixty-five years that the genealogical tree of the Claviers-Grandchamps -gave him. The head of the family, who was at that moment awaiting the -heir to his name in the immense room lined with wainscotings and books, -was an old man. His ruddy complexion mottled with white spots, his heavy -eyelids, the wrinkles on his brow, told the story of the long sleepless -nights of those four weeks. The jovial gleam of his deep blue eyes was -replaced by an expression of feverish ardor, wherein one could divine -his secret agony--at that moment! For the undiminished pride of the -whole physiognomy said plainly enough that the nobleman had not -surrendered, and that before any other witness he would have found a way -to conceal his wound. - -What was the wound? To know, Landri had no need to question him. What he -had foreseen had happened. M. de Claviers suspected the truth. To what -extent? How had he been warned? The young man instinctively collected -all his strength, in order to undergo without faltering an interview in -which his own secret might escape him. He was about to realize once more -the superiority of Race, and what a powerful and resolute character it -bestows upon its authentic representatives. - -M. de Claviers was infinitely affectionate and sensitive, but he was -above all else a man. In him, character was in very truth nourished upon -and permeated by those principles upon which he declaimed with a fervor -which was sometimes so discordant, even--especially, perhaps--in his own -circle. At supremely critical moments he was certain to manifest the -energy born of an unchangeable resolution, which scorns equivocation, -and which has the unswerving decision of the surgeon's knife. He, too, -was unaware exactly how much his son--in name--knew of a situation of -which he had never dreamed before he had had overwhelming and -indisputable proof of it. He was justified in thinking that the young -man was altogether ignorant. That was enough to justify, in a weaker -nature, the temptation to hold his peace, which Landri assuredly would -not have escaped. In the marquis's eyes one duty overshadowed everything -else,--the duty of saving, in this shipwreck of all his confidence and -all his affections, so much as he could save of the honor of the -Claviers-Grandchamps. He was the depositary of the name, and he proposed -to impose his will on the intruder,--justifiably, indeed,--without -concern for aught save that honor. And so when the young man, -immediately on entering the room, began to speak, alluding to their last -interview, he cut him short with a word. - -"I did not send for you," he said; and the failure to address him by the -familiar _tu_ seemed strangely harsh in his mouth, for never before, -since his childhood, had Landri known him to address him thus, even in -his sternest moments;--"I did not send for you to resume a discussion -which, henceforth, has no interest or even any pretext. Something has -happened during the month since we last met. It is destined to change -our relations forever, and in every respect. It has seemed to me that I -owed it to myself and to you to make it known to you. Prepare to receive -a very painful blow, as I received it, bravely." - -"I am prepared, father, to receive anything from you," Landri replied, -"for I am sure that you will never do anything except for what you -believe to be my good." - -This ambiguous sentence was a final effort to conceal--to what avail -now?--what he on his side had learned. At the word "father" the marquis, -firm as he was, could not help closing his eyes for a second. But his -voice, full and deep, did not falter as he continued:-- - -"Look over those two letters first; then we will talk." - -With outstretched finger he pointed to an envelope lying on the desk, -unsealed. On opening it the young man saw that it did in fact contain -two letters. One, type-written, was thus conceived:-- - -"Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp doubtless is unaware of the -reasons that led one of his friends (?) very recently deceased, to make -him his residuary legatee. The accompanying document will enlighten him. -If Monsieur le Marquis is not satisfied, we have other documents to -furnish him." And this denunciation was signed: "An admirer of the house -of Claviers-Grandchamp"! - -The other letter--Ah! his recognition of the handwriting stopped the -beating of Landri's heart. The paper, slightly yellowed by time, still -gave forth a vague, musty sweetness, the faint, evaporated odor of -Geneviève de Claviers' favorite perfume,--the perfume that hovered -about the kisses of which the child was born who unfolded the sheet with -hands that trembled so that he tore it across the middle. It was a love -letter, written without precaution, in the perilous sense of security -which a long-continued liaison finally imparts even to those who are -most closely watched. The first three words,--"My beloved Charles,"--the -"tu" that came next--news of "our dear little Landri,"--and other -phrases, no less explicit, would have made it impossible for the most -obstinate to doubt. - -From whom had the letter been stolen? From the lover after he received -it? Or had villainous hands intercepted it, hands which the careless -mistress deemed faithful? Why had they waited for years before using -this formidable weapon, and why was it produced to-day, when the two -culprits were protected forever by the tomb against the vengeance of the -outraged husband? That the will which made M. de Claviers sole legatee -had induced this revolting denunciation, the other letter needed not to -assert with such insulting cynicism. It was sufficient evidence in -itself. The motive was of little importance. The effect had been -produced, as complete as the most implacable animosity could wish. - -Landri stood as one stricken dumb before the man whose name he bore, by -virtue of the sin of the dead woman who had insanely written those lines -with her impassioned fingers. When he ventured at last to raise his -eyes, he saw that the marquis pointed to the fire on the hearth. He -threw the two papers, laden with deadly meaning, into the flames. A -minute later a few charred fragments, whirling about in the smoke, alone -testified that those letters had ever existed. Doubtless the young man's -face had exhibited an extraordinary poignancy of suffering during that -silent scene, for, even at that moment, M. de Claviers could not help -pitying him. - -"I could not perform the task incumbent upon me," he said, "except with -your aid and with you aware of the facts." - -"Do not reproach yourself, monsieur," said Landri. "Those letters have -told me nothing. I knew it all before." - -The blood rushed suddenly to the old man's face, attesting the burst of -passion that this unexpected reply aroused in him. His blue eyes flashed -fire, and as his former habit of speech returned to his lips in that -explosion, he cried:-- - -"You (_tu_) knew it all! And you did not speak to me! You knew all, and -your conscience didn't say to you: 'That man who brought me up, who has -always loved me like the most affectionate of fathers, was betrayed in -his conjugal honor! He is betrayed to-day in his probity! He accepts -that abominable legacy in good faith! He is grateful for it! He is going -to use it to pay his debts, to release his patrimony! His patrimony,'" -he repeated. "'At any price I must prevent that!'--You knew all, and you -allowed me to go away the other day without uttering the cry that you -owed me! Yes, you owed it to me, for what I have given you with all my -heart for so many years, for what I was still giving you a few moments -ago.--I was just about to apologize to you for not being able to conceal -the shameful truth from you! And you betrayed me, you, too! You made -yourself an accomplice in the supreme outrage!--Ah! villain, you are -indeed of their blood, the child of--" - -He checked himself. Even in that outburst of his rage his great heart -recoiled from the barbarity of insulting a mother, however unworthy, in -the presence of a son. But the paroxysm was too violent to pass off -thus. His clenched fists opened and closed. He seized the first thing -that offered itself, a silver paper-knife lying on the table beside an -uncut review. He broke in two the blade, which snapped like glass. Then, -brought to himself by the very frenzy of the act, he addressed Landri -again in a tone in which the tempest still rumbled:-- - -"But explain yourself, unhappy boy! Explain your silence! Why did you -keep silent?" - -"Because I loved you," said Landri, "and because my mother was -concerned." - -A heart-rending cry, so simple and poignant in its humanness, of the -sort that the heart emits when it is touched to its lowest depths! M. de -Claviers had loved the young man too long and too deeply, that affection -was still too largely mingled in the horror which his existence inspired -in him, for him not to be moved to the very entrails. He made a gesture -which he instantly checked; and, as if he were angry with himself for -that weakness, his face clouded anew as he inquired:-- - -"And from whom did you learn of this thing?" - -"On Rue de Solferino--on that Tuesday. Oh! don't compel me to live -through that frightful scene again!" - -"He spoke to you!" roared M. de Claviers. "To you! to you! He dared!" - -"He is dead," replied, nay, rather, implored the young man. - -Again his innate generosity carried the day in the nobleman's heart; he -placed his hand over his eyes, the same hand with which he had traced -over the remains of his false friend the great sign of pardon. These -sudden outbursts of his speech and his passion frightened him, no doubt. -This interview which he had sought affected him too profoundly. He -collected himself thus for a few seconds, and when he began again to -speak his tone had changed. He uttered his words now with a sort of -haughty coldness, hurried and harsh, which made his interlocutor feel -even more keenly perhaps the utter hopelessness of their situation. - -"It is useless to prolong an interview that must be as painful to you as -to me. Listen to me, I beg, without interrupting me. In my capacity of -head of the Claviers family, so long as you bear its name, I consider -myself as having with respect to you both duties and rights. My duty is -to treat you ostensibly as if you were my son!" His eyelids drooped once -more over his eyes, as he said this. "I shall not fail in that duty.--My -right is to demand that you abide by my decision in everything that -concerns the defence of my family's honor. That honor is threatened. -Such villainies as this are a sign." He pointed to the place on the desk -where the envelope had been. He still saw it there! "They prove that -people have talked about it, and that they are talking. We know enough -of the world, you and I, to know that its fickleness exceeds its -ferocity. We know, too, that it has, in spite of everything, a sort of -justice of its own. There is nobody, I say nobody, who can honestly -believe that Geoffroy de Claviers-Grandchamp accepted a legacy knowing -it to be infamous. If, therefore, he retains it, it must be because he -does not believe that it is infamous; because he is convinced that his -wife has been slandered. I propose,--understand me,--I propose that -people shall say, I propose that people shall think, that Madame de -Claviers has been slandered. Consequently I shall not renounce this -legacy after I have publicly agreed to accept it. Need I tell you that -that money fills me with horror, and that I shall keep none of it? It is -your money. I propose that you shall have it all. But this restitution -must be made between you and me. Unfortunately I have already given -orders that I cannot cancel without causing comment, to Métivier's man, -Cauvet, that miserable Chaffin's successor. So that restitution cannot -be made for some little time. In fact, I must have time to carry out my -plans.--There's one point settled between us, is it not?" - -"It is for you to command," said Landri, "and for me to obey." - -"I come to the second point. We can no longer, I do not say live -together, but see each other. We must part, and forever, while adhering -faithfully to the programme I have outlined. The avowed reason must be -one of those that our set will accept without looking beyond it. That -reason is all ready--it is the mésalliance which you proposed to make -and which you must make. A month ago the mere thought of it was -intolerable to me. I showed you that plainly enough. To-day--" he shook -his head with a bitter smile. "It is a horrible thing to me that the -family you will found will bear the name of mine. But then I can do -nothing. The Code would not allow me even to compel recognition of the -circumstances. Besides, I have no right to demand that you should not -make the most of your life. I cannot prevent that. I cannot prevent you -from existing. No. You will marry therefore, ostensibly against my will. -You will give me your word not to live in the same city with me, not to -present your wife in our circle. I do not wish to meet you or to meet -her.--Wait," he exclaimed imperiously, as Landri was about to reply. "If -I were not certain, I say again, that people are talking, things would -take care of themselves. You would leave this house this morning, never -to return. But people are talking, and as neither you nor I have taken -anybody into our confidence concerning our two discussions,--at Hez and -at Saint-Mihiel,--the abrupt announcement of your marriage at this -moment might be taken for a pretext. No matter how well everybody knows -that I am not a man of these times, this theory of mésalliances is so -weakened of late years, that people might say and would say: 'He has -seized this opportunity; there's something else.'--Now, I propose that -the reply shall be, as with one voice: 'No, there was nothing -else.'--You have left the army under circumstances that have aroused the -sympathy of everybody about you--about us, I should say, since no human -power can prevent our interests being mutual. It is natural that I -should take this time to receive, to bring people about you. I will -receive--we will receive, together. I shall find the strength to -maintain this attitude, and so will you. It will last as long as we make -it, but we must arrange it so that, on the day when the news of your -marriage and our rupture becomes known, everybody who is intimate with -us shall say: 'Poor Claviers! he was so fond of his son!'--I doubt not -that there will be those who will add: 'What a fool!'--One's vanity is -not to be wounded when one thinks of honor, and the only way for me to -defend Madame de Claviers' honor is to seem to believe in it. In that -our interests are really mutual, with a mutuality which is not a -falsehood. She was, she still is my wife, and she is your mother." - -"I repeat that I will obey you in everything," said the young man. - -"It remains for me to touch upon two other points," continued the -marquis. "I have reflected much, during these last days, upon the -character of the person you are going to marry. You love her. Yes, you -must love her dearly to have spoken to me as you did when we were -together at Saint-Mihiel. You see, I do not underrate your affection for -me. You will be tempted to open your heart to her. If she doesn't -deserve to be loved as you love her, do not do it; and if she does -deserve it, do not do it. I ask you to give me your word that she shall -never learn this ghastly secret from you." - -"I give it to you, instantly," Landri replied. He added, in a low voice, -so much in dread was he of another outburst of that rage which, he felt, -was still smouldering: "But if I should allow myself to tell her the -whole truth, I think--that I should tell her nothing new." - -"You have spoken to her already!" ejaculated M. de Claviers in a -threatening tone. "Confess it. Ah! if you have done that--" - -"I have not done it," Landri protested; and with tears in his eyes, he -added: "I entreat you, never believe that I could have acted otherwise -than you have taught me to act all your life and are still teaching me -at this moment. I will tell you everything. Then you can pass judgment -on me." - -And he began by describing the first indication--her sudden entreaty to -him not to go up to the invalid's apartment on Rue de Solferino, on his -way from Paris to Grandchamp; and how, after the visit to Jaubourg and -the revelation, he had said to himself: "Madame Olier knows all,"--and -in what a state of feverish excitement he had arrived at her house, and -the horror he had had of speaking, and his silence in the face of her -grief, and that grief itself, and their betrothal in that moment of -supreme emotion. Then he told of the letter he had received from her -immediately after the Hugueville affair, and of the others, in which she -had not made a single allusion to M. de Claviers. - -That gentleman listened to the confession with an impassive face, which -did, however, betray something like wonder. Never had Landri opened his -heart to him in this wise when he believed himself to be his son. Never -had he ventured to show to his father that charming, quivering -sensibility, so passionate and so delicate, so easily wounded and so -loving. He disclosed himself in all the loyalty of his refined and -affectionate nature, at the moment that the marquis and he were -exchanging the words of their final conversation. What more could they -say to each other? M. de Claviers felt that impossibility more than all -the rest. His old love for his son stirred him anew, and the more it -assailed him the more obstinately he stiffened himself against it. -Furthermore, throughout that narrative he caught glimpses of Valentine's -charming character, and it was intolerably bitter to him to recall -another betrothal--his own--forty years before, so superb and splendid, -to end in--what? In this heart-rending inquisition about a deadly shame! - -"You are right," he said at last, "it is only too evident. She knows -all. But how?" His features assumed an expression of deeper chagrin as -he added: "For a month I have been constantly confronted by this -question, without reaching even a suggestion of a reply: Who can have -stolen those letters?--'We have other documents to furnish!'" He -repeated the informer's words, in such a grief-stricken tone. "'Other -documents!'--Is it the heirs? But I saw them at the funeral. There was -an ex-major there, one Monsieur Privat, who spoke to me about you. I can -never believe in such hypocrisy! They knew about the will, and they -behaved admirably. No, the blow does not come from them. From a servant? -With what object? Blackmail. Oh! let him unmask then! I will pay him -whatever he wants for those other letters!--But no. A servant would -never have devised the devilish irony of the signature: 'an admirer of -the house of Claviers-Grandchamp'! That smells of the club, does that -dastardly insult, of low-lived envy of those who do not palter with the -cowardly customs of these days."--He uttered another roar. "Ah! If I -could only find out who it was! If I could!" And, shaking his head: -"This is not a question of myself at all. Once more I say, the honor of -Madame de Claviers is at stake, and this is the last promise I propose -to demand from you, that you would seek what I cannot seek--the hand -that dealt the blow. You may find it and you may not. But you must try, -so that they may not repeat it." - -"Have you no suspicion of anybody?" inquired Landri, "Chaffin, whom you -dismissed--" - -"Chaffin? Why, I had had the letter ten days when I settled with him. -No. Chaffin's a thief. He has never wanted anything but money. He'd have -tried to sell the papers. Let us not go astray in suppositions as -useless as my lamentations. Perhaps by questioning Madame Olier you may -learn something. Too much, perhaps."--A pause.--"No. That is not -possible, either." - -What was the shocking idea to which that "No" was an answer, and the -"But if it were?" that he added? - -"You are aware of my desires now," he concluded. - -"I will comply with them," said the young man. He had understood the -wicked and atrocious suspicion that had suddenly suggested itself to the -cruelly betrayed husband, and he pitied him the more for it. "I promise -you." - -"That is well," rejoined M. de Claviers. "I accept your promise. Each -day I will write you my instructions concerning what I wish you to do. -It is unnecessary for us to be alone together again unless you have some -information to give me as to the inquiry you are to undertake. I do not -hope very much from it.--I forgot. I asked the Charluses and Bressieux -to luncheon. Be here at quarter past twelve. Now, go." - - -"Shall I have the strength to keep that promise of mine?" Landri asked -himself as he went down at the appointed hour to the small salon where -the marquis received his guests when he gave a luncheon. To reach it he -had to pass through a succession of magnificent apartments, and at a -distance he could hear the ringing tones of the loud voice that was -associated with all the memories of his childhood and youth. Was the man -who, but a short time before, by turns stoical and desperate, cold as -ice and aflame with passion, accused, commanded, groaned, suspected, in -such a frenzy of grief and indignation, really the same as he who -greeted him with these words, in a jovial tone, as he waved his hand -toward the friends whose coming he had announced:-- - -"Well, well! So you keep us waiting, master hero! You have no right to, -being new at the game! But you have credit for some time to come, after -what you have done. Hasn't he, Mademoiselle Marie?" - -"Oh! a big bunch of it," said Marie de Charlus, laughing with her -beautiful white teeth. "Ah! you tease me. Monsieur de Claviers, and I'll -revenge myself by talking slang. But that won't prevent my going back to -the French of your old France to say to your son that we are all, men -and women alike, very, very proud of him." - -"Very proud," echoed Charlus. "To see a fine thing finely done always -gives pleasure. But when the one who does it belongs to the _comme il -faut_, class, the pleasure is doubled." - -"It is indeed," said Bressieux, shaking Landri's hand in his turn. "We -are not spoiled in that way." - -"It's because _comme il faut_ folk think too much of their cakes and -ale," retorted Marie, glancing at the Seigneur de la Rochebrocante with -the laughing insolence that was peculiar to her. - -"It is principally because the _comme il faut_ folk are not what they -should be [_comme il faudrait_]," said the marquis. "It's so easy to be -of one's own party, nothing more, whereas nowadays no one is of his own -opinion even; and I see none but people who, on the pretext of broad and -liberal ideas, admit that their enemies are in the right. Landri was of -his own party, that's the whole story, without talk and without parade. -You must tell them about it, my boy, and how those excellent peasants -applauded you and your dragoons when you turned on your heel in the -teeth of the disgusted prefect.--But luncheon is served. Will you allow -me to offer you my arm, mademoiselle? Lardin has promised to surpass -himself, and we shall have, to drink this tall fellow's health, a -certain Musigny of a royal year. For we still drink, and drink Burgundy -too, we old fellows, just as we still eat, and with a good appetite, in -that old France that you make sport of. A sweet thing your new France -is! All mineral waters and diet!" - -Liveried servants held the chairs for the guests around the table, the -dark wood of which had no cloth, according to the old ceremonial of -_déjeuners à la française_. The great garden imparted an almost rural -atmosphere of peace to that room, which the host enlivened with his -cordiality. To one who observed him closely the contagious warmth of his -joviality was in too striking contrast with the feverish gleam of his -eyes, and the traces of suffering on his face. But the pride of -defending his name sustained him; and, forestalling himself any possible -observation of that sort, he, who had never lied, said:-- - -"I was very anxious for Landri to return. 'That's the true remedy for -me.' I told Louvet, when he talked about diet, apropos of those two or -three attacks of vertigo I told you of, Charlus. But it seems to me that -this young man doesn't seem glad enough to see us. You'll see that he'll -regret the army." - -And, not to fall behind the tragic heroism of that comedy, Landri, who -was being served at that moment with eggs à la Grandchamp, one of the -accomplished Lardin's thousand and one creations, remarked, laughing in -his turn:-- - -"I certainly sha'n't regret the cuisine of the mess. It is true that -your chef has outdone himself to celebrate my fall from grace." - -He put his fork to his lips with the respectful manner of a gourmand to -whom eating is a solemn affair, which drew from Bressieux the -exclamation:-- - -"You are coming to it! The table is the least deceitful of all things, -and when one of Lardin's chefs-d'œuvre is put before one, in Chantilly -of such delicacy as this," he added, pointing to his plate,--and one -could not tell from the twinkling of his eye whether he was giving vent -to his enthusiasm for antiques or was indulging in secret sarcasm,--"one -may well say, despite the famous _mot_, that one knows the joy of -living!" - - - - -VIII - -ON A SCENT - - -Landri had not been mistaken--those phrases that had escaped M. de -Claviers, to be instantly interrupted:--the "too much, perhaps," and the -"but if it were!"--signified that for an instant at least that man, -formerly so entirely a stranger to all the meannesses of suspicion, had -harbored the unfortunate suspicion that Madame Olier was the denouncer -of Madame de Claviers. An utterly insane idea even from a physical -standpoint! How could Valentine ever have obtained the letter?--And even -more insane morally. It attributed to a young woman, gratuitously, -without the slightest evidence, the most shameless of schemes: to -separate Landri forever from the man who had hitherto believed him to be -his son! And with what object? To marry him with less difficulty?--That -theory would not stand a single instant. The wound must in truth have -been very deep, that the great-souled _grand seigneur_ should have come -so quickly to such a transformation of character. - -On leaving the house on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, at the end of -that luncheon which had left him with the impression of a nightmare, -Landri recalled those words among all the rest, and that insinuation so -insulting to his Valentine. He found therein an additional reason for -desiring to know who had committed that two-fold private crime, -unpunishable by law, yet truly ferocious: that theft of a -correspondence, aggravated by an anonymous denunciation. In that -interview, the strain of which was almost beyond human endurance, he had -seen distinctly that only that knowledge could relieve in any degree the -agony with which the marquis was suffocating. He himself realized the -necessity of the destruction of those "other documents," as the -anonymous writer had said, in heartless official phraseology. Such -letters, if retained, constituted a too formidable menace against the -dead wife's honor, which the betrayed husband was generously determined -to save. How could the son have failed to feel that his self-esteem -required him to take part in that work of salvation? And how could -Valentine's lover not have it at heart that not even the shadow of the -shade of that most unreasonable suspicion should be let hover above the -woman whom he was to marry and whom M. de Claviers would never know? - -That he could have thought so of her, even in a moment of suffering and -frenzy, was enough to intensify the young man's longing to see the light -in that abhorrent darkness. But what scent was he to follow, and upon -what indications? He asked himself this question, set free at last from -that constraint against his natural instincts to which he whom he had so -long called the "Émigré" had condemned him--while condemning himself -thereto through a sense of honor worthy of another age. - -He bent his steps to Valentine's house, to seek in her soft eyes, in her -dear smile, in her loved presence, strength to endure this test, the end -of which it was not for him to fix. Would he question her, as M. de -Claviers had not hesitated to advise him to do? To learn what? That the -disinherited relations had told her of Jaubourg's will, and that she had -drawn therefrom a conclusion only too evident to one already informed? -That she was informed, Landri knew only too well. In the long solitary -meditations of his weeks of arrest at Saint-Mihiel, he had succeeded in -piecing together the whole story, and in understanding why the Privats -had always treated him with a coolness which he had noticed only at a -distance.--Yes, what was the use of trying to learn anything more? If it -were the Privats from whom the anonymous letter came, Valentine did not -know it, and what purpose would it serve to introduce her to such -villainy? True lovers have a passionate and rapturous respect for that -fine flower of delicacy and of illusion which constitutes the spotless -charm of the feminine heart, when it has not been prematurely brutalized -by the blighting realities of life. This sentiment alone would have -deterred Landri from questioning his sweetheart, even if he had not felt -a sort of spasm of horror at the thought of accusing his mother to her. -Silence is the pious charity of the son to whom reverence is forbidden. -And then, too, even if he had essayed to speak, the young woman would -have arrested the blasphemous words on his lips. - -He had no sooner crossed the threshold of the little salon on Rue -Monsieur, where she awaited him, than from the glance with which she -greeted him he became aware that she too dreaded a painful explanation. -And how could he mar the delight of their meeting by such a hideous -disclosure, finding her as he found her, so youthful and lovely, still -in black--although the approaching end of her mourning could already be -detected! - -Valentine wore a gown of crêpe de Chine and lace, the soft fabrics -admirably in harmony with the slender grace of her whole person. On her -neck a string of pearls glistened softly, a bunch of violets bloomed at -her waist, and on the light curls of her ash-colored hair was a -_torsade_ of black tulle. It was, as it were, the rebirth of the -woman,--those jewels and flowers, and that evident yet artless desire to -please which imparted a flush as of a rose-petal to her thin cheeks, a -gleam to her blue eyes, a quiver to her smile. - -She had her son with her, and was feverishly smoothing his hair, of a -golden shade like the pale gold of her own. She pushed him gently toward -Landri as he entered the room, as if he were a symbol of the union of -which she dreamed--a union in which nothing of the child's happiness -should be sacrificed, in which he should always remain with her and his -second father. - -"Give Monsieur de Claviers a kiss, Ludovic," she said, "and tell him -that you and your mother prayed for him while he was in prison, so -unjustly." - -"It's true," said the child, "and I am glad you've come out! They won't -put you in again, will they, monsieur?" he added apprehensively. - -"No," replied Landri; and he, too, caressed the golden curls, while the -mother said:-- - -"I kept you here only because you wanted to see Monsieur de Claviers. -You have seen him, so go to your lessons.--He is fond of you," she -continued, when the door had closed behind the little fellow, "and that -is so sweet to me!" And, taking the young man's hand in her own, she -added: "Yes, I prayed so earnestly for you,--but before your -arrest,--that you would do what you did do, and I am so proud, so proud! -When I read in the newspapers what happened at Hugueville, I felt so -proud of you!" - -"And I," he said, "it is so sweet to be with you once more!" - -And it was true that the affectionate welcome of that passionately loved -woman, after the heart-rending scenes of the morning, which had -themselves followed upon a succession of racking and corroding emotions, -was like the divine coolness of the oasis between two wearisome journeys -over the scorching sand of the desert--a feast of the heart almost too -intoxicating, so that it seemed as if the contrast could not be true, -that that rapture was a lie and on the point of vanishing. - -"Yes," he continued, "so sweet. For, you see, I have no one but you in -all the world." - -"Have you spoken to Monsieur de Claviers of your plans?" she asked. "You -have never written me about it." - -She interpreted Landri's words only in part in their real meaning, not -wishing to seem to have divined the other part. Keen as was her -intuition, she had not discerned the whole of the drama in which her -dearly loved friend was involved. She had guessed that he was Jaubourg's -son and that he knew it. She had no idea that the marquis also knew it. - -"I have spoken to him." - -"And he has refused his consent?" - -"He has refused it." - -"Landri," she resumed after a pause, "you know now that I love you, and -how dearly! When I answered yes to your question five weeks ago, I did -so without any illusions. I was certain that Monsieur de Claviers would -never agree to our marriage. I disregarded that, because I saw, I -thought I saw, that you really could not live without me, and because I -loved you. Do not seek in what I say something that is not there. I love -you still. I am, I shall always be, ready to give you my life. -But if you must face difficulties that are too great, engage in a -contest that is too painful, I want you to know that you are free. I -will wait for you one year, two years, ten years, twenty years, if -necessary--forever." She repeated: "Forever." - -"After what Monsieur de Claviers and I have said to each other," Landri -replied, "everything is at an end between us, whether I marry you or -not." - -She looked at him while he uttered these words in so melancholy a tone -that she shuddered at it. He turned a little pale, realizing that she -understood; and in an outrush of pity like that of the other day she -drew him to her, pressing his hand against her heart. - -"I will try to wipe that out, too," she said, quivering with emotion. - -It was his part to seem not to comprehend all that that protestation -signified, and he rejoined:-- - -"He was not content with refusing. He insists that, when I am married, I -shall not live in Paris." - -"I will answer you like Ruth," she said. "'Whither thou goest, I will -go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge.'" - -"Even if I do not simply leave Paris--even away from France?" - -"Even away from France." - -A little sign disclosed the intensity of the emotion with which she was -overflowing. The pupils of her eyes dilated so that her blue eyes seemed -to be black; and enveloping, caressing, embracing Landri in that sombre -glance, she said:-- - -"You have no idea of the affection that I have been heaping up for you -in my heart during these three years when I have hidden from you so much -of what I felt, in order not to ruin you. That love has burrowed into me -to such a depth that it would make me tremble if you were not you, if I -were not sure that you will never expect of me anything except my duty, -that you will never ask me to live under such conditions that my son -would not be brought up, as he must be, so as to remain, even away from -his country, a child of France!" She repeated: "Even away from his -country;" then asked, timidly: "Does Monsieur de Claviers really demand -it?" - -"He demands nothing," Landri replied. - -"But you think that that's the only way to reconcile him in some degree -to the idea of our marriage, eh?" she asked; and, as he bowed: "Then we -must not hesitate," she added. "You do not know either how much you have -taught me to love him, even without knowing him; how grateful I am to -him for the influence he has had on you, for the traces of his wonderful -sense of delicacy which I find in yours. When I said yes to you the -other day, I had a feeling of remorse for taking you from your duty and -from his affection. You tell me that there is no occasion for it, that -all is at an end between you. That takes away my remorse but makes me so -sorry for you. Remember at all events that to part is not to forget each -other. You may retain an image of each other against which you have no -reproach to make. I hope that it may be so between Monsieur de Claviers -and you, and that when he thinks of you he will realize that you loved -him, that you still love him, as he deserves, and that there is only -this life between you." - -The trees in the little garden beyond the door-window were as desolate -as those which spread their leafless branches outside the high windows -of the dining-room on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. The leaden sky of -that winter's day was as depressing. The young woman's words, albeit not -especially significant, and so considerately vague, affirmed none the -less, by their very reticences, the same ghastly and incontrovertible -fact which had weighed so heavily upon Landri's heart during the -agonizing formal luncheon an hour earlier. But once more Valentine had -the miraculous double sight of love. She had appealed to the only -sentiment in that suffering heart which could assist him to live through -the far too trying period that was to precede the ostensible rupture -with the marquis. He could find the requisite strength only in his -passionate craving to prove to him the depth of an affection which had -never been more intensely alive. - -At those words of his compassionate friend and loving monitress, -Landri's heart, always so susceptible to affection, was once more -inspired with a genuine purpose, and when he left Rue Monsieur, he was -conscious, even in his distress, of that species of inward satisfaction -which one derives from a determined plan of action, when it is based -upon a courageous acceptance of circumstances, even the most hostile, -and upon the most deep-rooted attachments of our being. Yes, although -the rôle of dissimulation imposed upon him by M. de Claviers was most -painful, he would summon strength to go on with it as long as it should -be necessary. Difficult as was the task of discovering the anonymous -informer, he would devote himself to it. He was able to offer that -reparation to the great and noble-hearted victim of the falsehood of -which he himself was born. He would offer it to him before leaving -Paris--and, perhaps, other reparation too. When he had spoken to -Valentine of the project of making their home far away from France, he -had given voice to one of the ideas that had been most constantly in his -mind during those last weeks. In a voluntary exile to the western part -of the United States,--or perhaps of Canada; there he would still be at -home!--he saw a possibility of laying aside, without exciting comment, -that name of Claviers-Grandchamp, which was not his own. With what -emotion he had heard the dear woman's reply: "Even away from -France!"--And that assurance added to his courage. - -He needed that reinforcement of courage to endure the dinner which he -was obliged to eat that evening at the club on Rue Scribe, sitting -opposite M. de Claviers. The latter had transmitted to him his commands -to that effect, as had been agreed, in a note which contained this line -only: "Dinner at the club, at eight o'clock."--He needed it again, and -more, the next day, to consent to take his seat beside the marquis, at -ten o'clock, in the box at the Opéra which had been Madame de -Claviers'. Charles Jaubourg had passed so many evenings there gazing at -his mistress enthroned in all the splendor of her social royalty. -Something of that liaison floated still about the hangings of the box, -which the châtelain of Grandchamp had retained in pious regard for her -memory. - -And what courage again, on the days that followed, to appear at banquet -after banquet, at reception after reception, always beside that -companion, who, in the presence of witnesses, continued to treat him -with the old-time warmth and cordiality! And as soon as they were alone, -in the automobile which took them from or to the house, not a word, not -a glance; and upon that face, more haggard and more aged from day to -day, was the stamp of the haughty grief that will never complain or -forgive. - -How many times, as they drove home thus, Landri was tempted to ask: "Are -you satisfied with me?" - -Satisfied! What a word to be uttered between them! Would the time ever -come when he could utter a different word? when he could say to him: "I -know the name of the anonymous villain who wrote that infamous letter. -Here are the other documents that he threatened you with?" - -Between the moments that he passed in this way, in this heart-rending -attitude of dissimulation before the world, and the hours which he had -at once adopted the delicious habit of devoting, every afternoon, to the -comforter of Rue Monsieur, his only preoccupation was this: to find a -scent and follow it. But what scent? But how? - -"I must proceed upon the definite facts," he said to himself the first -day. Now, what were these "definite facts?" That the sending of Madame -de Claviers' letter to her husband was coincident with the publication -of Jaubourg's will. What could the sender have hoped? That M. de -Claviers would refuse to accept the property. Who would have profited by -his refusal? The heirs-at-law. It was advisable therefore to investigate -in that direction, leaving Privat out of the question. Landri knew that -officer too well to suppose for an instant that he, who was rich in his -own right and through his wife, would have been guilty of so base an -action. For whose benefit, indeed? The Privats had no children. - -Certain inquiries, cautiously instituted, convinced him that the other -three heirs were no more open to suspicion. One was a wholesale -tradesman on Rue du Sentier, Paris; another, the owner of extensive -vineyards near Lectoure, where the Jaubourgs originally came -from; the third, a magistrate of distinction, held the office of -procureur-général in one of the courts of appeal in the Nord. - -There was a whole course of social philosophy in this list of Charles -Jaubourg's cousinships. He himself had been the fashionable bourgeois -who becomes an aristocrat. He had, unconsciously, in a liaison with a -great lady, gratified the craving for being ennobled which is the -natural instinct, and if well directed, perfectly legitimate and -praiseworthy, of the best representatives of the middle classes. To -Landri's mind the stations occupied by the dead man's relations were -simply a guaranty that no one of them was the denouncer he sought. These -first "definite facts" suggested no tenable hypothesis. - -Another "definite fact" was the theft of Madame de Claviers' letter. A -letter may be stolen only from the person who sends it or the person to -whom it is sent. The Marquise de Claviers-Grandchamp had been dead -fifteen years. It was possible that the letter had been stolen fifteen -years before, and that the thief had let all that time pass without -using it, but it was most improbable. Now, when one is pursuing an -investigation of this sort, the rule is not to turn to the improbable -until one has followed all the probable clues. The wisest course -therefore was to assume that it had been stolen at Jaubourg's apartment. -What a contradiction it was that a man so prudent, so on his guard, who -had worked so hard to conceal his fatherhood should preserve such -terribly condemnatory pages! It might be explained by the ardor of a -passion that must have been very great. Did he not sacrifice his whole -life to it? Precisely because he knew the danger of not destroying such -a correspondence, Madame de Claviers' lover must have multiplied his -precautions. That letter and the others referred to by the anonymous -writer could have been stolen therefore only by a person familiar with -all his habits, and at a time when he was incapable of keeping watch on -them. The theft must have been committed either during his sickness or -immediately after his death. What was the meaning of those words, "other -documents?" Evidently, the rest of the correspondence. But why was that -single letter sent, unaccompanied by any demand for money, and followed -by several weeks of silence? That was an enigma. But it did not explain -away the "definite fact." - -That fact seemed to require that a wisely conducted inquiry should begin -with an interview with Joseph, the confidential servant of whom Jaubourg -had said on his death-bed: "You can believe him. He is reliable, -perfectly reliable." Landri had not seen him since the time in the -chamber of death when the marquis was kneeling at the bedside, praying. -In imagination he saw that figure, in black coat and white cravat, -making the final arrangements--that impassive face of a close-mouthed -witness or confederate. Joseph had been in his master's service thirty -years. He must inevitably have discovered Jaubourg's liaison with Madame -de Claviers. He knew the secret of Landri's birth. The young man -recalled his singular expression when he brought him a message, at -Grandchamp, on the day before his master's death. Moreover, was not -Joseph there, assisting Dr. Pierre Chaffin, when the invalid, in his -delirium, said so many terribly incriminating things? That thought made -the prospect of a conversation with the man so painful that Landri -recoiled at first. - -"This is cowardly," he said to himself the next moment. "If I can't face -suffering of that sort for _him_, of what am I capable?" - -Having determined upon this interview, the most elementary shrewdness -bade him bring it about without warning. The young man was not aware of -one fact which was likely to facilitate his task: M. de Claviers, as may -be imagined, had shrunk in horror from the thought of putting his foot -in Jaubourg's apartment again. Having resolved to return the detestable -legacy, and not choosing to order a sale, which would have attracted -notice, he had placed the apartment, until further orders, in charge of -the old maître d'hôtel. When Landri went to Rue de Solferino to ask -his address, the concierge replied with evident surprise, "Why, he's -upstairs, Monsieur le Comte!" which proved to the investigator what a -delicate affair he had undertaken. The slightest imprudence was likely -to arouse a very dangerous curiosity. And so all the efforts of his will -were combined to make his face impenetrable while he awaited the maître -d'hôtel in the library, into which an old woman who answered his ring -had ushered him. She was the "spouse" of "Monsieur Joseph," who acted as -laundress to the establishment during Jaubourg's lifetime. The couple -had a daughter. Mademoiselle Amélie, whom their indulgent employer had -allowed them to keep with them. How was it possible to associate the -idea of a criminal conspiracy with the head of a bourgeois family, -hungry for respectability? - -Madame Joseph had a certain matronly dignity, which she displayed as she -opened the windows and explained the music of a piano, which was -Mademoiselle Amélie's. - -"We had it brought into the apartment," she said, "because we never -leave it now, on account of the bric-à-brac." - -The pianiste's father appeared, sad and deferential, respectful and -curious. The change in the Marquis de Claviers since his master's death -had not escaped that sagacious observer. He had guessed its secret -cause, but had not been able to divine how his long-abused credulity had -been so suddenly enlightened. When he found himself in Landri's -presence, his desire to find out gave to his ordinarily expressionless -eyes, in spite of himself, a sharpness which was hateful to Landri--less -so, however, than another circumstance both ghastly and comical. Joseph -was in deep mourning. He was dressed in garments which had belonged to -the dead man. The folds of the coat and trousers, which were of English -cut, as befitted a man of Jaubourg's pretensions to style, had retained -the outlines of their former owner's body, the features, so to speak, of -his movements. This evocation of the dead was made to assume a -caricaturish aspect by the servant's involuntary mimicry of his master, -who had evidently had a hypnotic influence upon him. He regretted him -sincerely, and there was genuine grief in his voice when he said to -Landri:-- - -"Ah! Monsieur le Comte, I told Monsieur le Comte at Grandchamp that -monsieur would not last two days longer. Such a kind master! Monsieur le -Comte knows that he left my wife and me an annuity of thirty-six hundred -francs and ten thousand francs for Amélie's marriage portion. I am -going to be able to retire to a little place in my province that I had -bought already with my savings. People tell me: 'You're going to be -happy, Monsieur Joseph.' But that isn't true, Monsieur le Comte. To have -watched him go, as I did, spoils everything for me." - -"Since you were so devoted to him," rejoined Landri, studying the effect -of his words on that face, which was gradually overspread by amazement, -"you will certainly assist me in an investigation, which indeed -interests you yourself. Some papers have disappeared--letters, to which -Monsieur Jaubourg attached the greatest importance. Observe, Joseph, -that I do not accuse you. I came here to ask you simply, is it possible -that anybody entered the apartment while Monsieur Jaubourg was ill, and -took these papers?" - -"No, Monsieur le Comte," replied the servant eagerly, "it isn't -possible." - -The gleam that flashed from his eyes betrayed an alarm that was not -feigned. It was not for himself that he was afraid. He had nothing to do -with the horrible deed. But, in that case, who was it? as M. de Claviers -had said with a groan--who? - -"Monsieur kept no papers, on principle," Joseph continued. "I have heard -him say many a time: 'When I am gone, there'll be no need to schedule -anything. I destroy everything.'--But he had preserved one package of -letters. This is how I know. The morning of the day he sent me to -Grandchamp--that was Monday--he felt very sick. He insisted on my -helping him to get up, in spite of the doctor's orders. He opened a -strong-box that he kept in his room. He took out two bundles of papers -with his own hands and put them in the fire. He wouldn't go back to bed -till he saw that there was nothing left of them but ashes. And as the -key of the strong-box never left him--" - -"But during the days just before that Monday, he was in bed. Where was -the key then?" - -"Hanging on his watch-chain, in the drawer of his night-table." - -"Couldn't some one have come in, while he was asleep, for instance, and -you were not there?" - -"One of the other servants, perhaps. I'll answer for them as for myself. -I was the one who selected them." - -"But the doctor?" queried Landri. - -"Monsieur le Docteur Chaffin?" said the maître-d'hôtel. "Of course. -But I can't believe it of him," he added, after a few seconds' -reflection. "Now, if it was his father--" - -"His father?" Landri repeated. "Come, tell me your whole thought." - -"I haven't any thought," replied Joseph, "except that I know that -monsieur was very suspicious of him." - -"And he didn't come here during his illness?" - -"Yes, I remember now--on Saturday. But he didn't see monsieur, for I was -with him. He sent for me to get late news to carry to Monsieur le -Marquis." - -Thus Chaffin's image was associated once more in Landri's mind with the -mysterious scenes that must have been enacted about that bed of death. -Chaffin had wandered around that death-chamber during the last hours. -Chaffin had been in the apartment. Once, the servant said. What did he -know about it? Notwithstanding that he had lavished the most assiduous -attentions on the sick man, he must have been absent at times. It might -be that Chaffin, advised of his absence, had seized the opportunity, had -entered the sick-room with the doctor's connivance. If at that moment -the invalid was asleep, morphine assisting, the theft of the letters was -explained. - -The young man had not left Joseph ten minutes before this explanation -had taken shape in his mind. It rested upon a series of almost fantastic -hypotheses: that Chaffin knew of the existence of Madame de Claviers' -letters; that he knew where Jaubourg kept them locked up; that Pierre -Chaffin was in connivance with his father; that the strong-box had not a -combination lock. But nothing appeared fantastic to Landri since the -terrible scene during which he had learned the secret of his birth. When -everything of which we were certain, which was, as it were, a part of -us,--loving regard for a mother's memory, respectful affection for a -father, family pride, assurance of social rank,--has crumbled at one -stroke, nothing surprises us. The most extraordinary events seem simple -to us. - -Not one of these difficulties deterred Landri. The one thing that he did -not understand was Chaffin's interest in the theft and in the -denunciation that followed it. From the moment that he knew that his -former tutor was capable of malversation in managing the property of -such a man as the marquis, he adjudged him a scoundrel and capable of -the worst crimes. He remembered the step he had undertaken at the time -of his last visit to Grandchamp, and he interpreted it as being in -pursuance of one of his detestable schemes: to precipitate a disaster -under cover of which his peculations would pass unnoticed. All this was -true, but it came in collision with the further "definite fact," that -the denunciatory letter, according to M. de Claviers' own testimony, was -sent some time before the dishonest manager was dismissed. So that -Chaffin could not have been guided, in sending it, by a desire for -revenge. But a man does not act without a motive, especially when the -inevitable consequence of his action is the ruin of two lives. At that -time Chaffin had no motive for committing that useless and barbarous -villainy. No. He must seek elsewhere. - -"No motive?" the young man asked himself a few days later. He had -exhausted himself in hypotheses and efforts, each more unavailing than -the last, even to the point of taking the trouble to interview -personally all the people who had been in Jaubourg's service under -Joseph, and he returned to the hypothesis to which, in spite of all the -objections to it, an unconquerable instinct guided him. "But I know -absolutely nothing about that man, whom I thought I knew so well, and in -whom I was so deceived. I don't even know why he was dismissed. From -whom can I find out? Why, from Métivier, of course. Besides, I shall -need him in connection with my marriage." - -They had been discussing the date, Valentine and he, during the day. -True to their compact of silence, neither of them had mentioned M. de -Claviers. Landri continued to avoid explaining why he delayed in making -the _sommation_, which would hasten the longed-for moment of their -union, and she continued to avoid questioning him. He foresaw, however, -from various indications,--glances, tones of voice, gestures,--that the -heroic marquis himself would not endure much longer their too painful -relations, and he was beginning to discuss with the dear companion of -his life to come the details of their plans. In these discussions she -showed herself as he had always known her, delicately judicious, and -strong of heart. - -The project of living on a large estate in the country gave place more -and more definitely to the dream of carrying on a "ranch" in Western -Canada--Ontario or Manitoba. A large amount of ready money would be -necessary. So that a pretext was at hand for the visit to Métivier. - -The apprehension of an overstrained perspicacity is so distressing at -critical moments that Landri went several times as far as Place de la -Madeleine before he could make up his mind to go up to the notary's -office. He succeeded at last, as generally happens with over-sensitive -imaginations, in overcoming that apprehension, and realized that it had -been entirely subjective. - -Métivier greeted him with the simple courtesy of a notary employed to -do a certain thing, with whom to think of his client is to think of -documents and figures. Of the family tragedy in which the -Claviers-Grandchamps were nearing shipwreck he had no suspicion. On the -other hand, he had shrewdly unravelled all the threads of the conspiracy -entered into by Chaffin and his confederates, and when Landri, after -speaking of certain formalities that were indispensable for the final -settlement of his mother's estate, in order to account for his visit, -touched upon the subject of his former tutor, Métivier exclaimed:-- - -"What did he do? Why, it's the simplest thing in the world. He came to -an understanding with certain people from whom your father had borrowed -money, in such wise as to secure a percentage of their profits. I am -expecting Altona this very morning. If he should happen to come while -you are here, you would see a superb specimen of the usurer of to-day. -He is the dealer in curiosities, who sells you a portrait by Velasquez, -a Boule cabinet, a bust by Houdon, for a hundred thousand or two hundred -thousand francs, and buys them back for fifty or sixty thousand. The -amusing feature of it is that the Velasquez and the Boule and the Houdon -are genuine, and that the customer wouldn't do a bad bit of business by -keeping them. This enables Master Altona to pass himself off as a -collector, a dilettante, a connoisseur of art!--This fellow and his gang -learned of Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers' financial embarrassment. I -am somewhat to blame. I recommended your father to apply to a certain -Gruet, whom I thought trustworthy, and he was of the same stripe as -they! They knew also what the treasures of Grandchamp were worth. You -see the scheme; it's familiar enough: to force the marquis to a sale by -getting all his debts in one hand. Chaffin was to have his -commission--thirty or forty thousand francs, perhaps more. He undertook -to offer Monsieur de Claviers four millions, in Altona's name, for a -list catalogued in the notes to your family history! He had the audacity -to do that! And Monsieur le Marquis is so kind-hearted that he explained -it to me: 'He thought he was doing me a service,' he said.--Luckily we -were able to enlighten him by discovering the traces of a most -commonplace rascality: bills settled twice, if you please--once to the -tradesman, and once, to whom?--to Master Chaffin.--Monsieur de Claviers -cut off his head. When I wrote you that he was severe, Cauvet, the -advocate I got for you, had found only one of these bills. I said to -myself that there was a chance for a mistake. For all a man's a notary, -he has difficulty in believing in certain comedies, and this Chaffin -played one for me when I questioned him, with your letter in my hand. To -dismiss him so summarily was to run the risk of never getting to the -bottom of many things. However, we're beginning to see daylight. As I -always say to my cousin Jacques Molan, the dramatic author, the true -modern comedy is played in our own homes." - -"Then," queried Landri, as Métivier complacently mentioned his -cousinship to an illustrious writer, of whom he was proud after having -been very much ashamed of him, "then you think that Chaffin was -interested in the Altona deal?" - -"There's no doubt of it!" replied the notary. "By the way,"--one of his -clerks had just knocked at the door and handed him a card,--"if you'll -allow me to have him shown in here, you will see Altona himself. He is -here. You can measure up the man; you will be able to judge whether it -is possible that, having chosen the end, he resorted to the means, every -means," and going through the motion of counting money, "this included." - -Landri did not need this meeting with the usurer-antiquary to know what -to think concerning the nature of the conspiracy against the pictures, -the tapestries and the furniture of the château of Grandchamp. The -recollection of the advice insinuated by Chaffin: "Ask for your -property," would have sufficed of itself, without this visit to -Métivier, to convince him that the sending of the anonymous letter -might be explained simply by a desire for money. At the moment that -Jaubourg's legacy fell in, M. de Claviers was in the clutches of the -Altona claim. He could free himself only by selling the treasures of the -château. Chaffin's disappointment was proportioned, no doubt, to the -commission that he lost. His knew his master's temperament. To betray to -him his wife's liaison with his false friend was to make that money -impossible of acceptance by him. If the rascal had letters of Madame de -Claviers in hand, all was explained. This theory was less chimerical -than the other, but upon how many hypotheses did even it rest! For a -moment it seemed certainty to Landri, ready to collapse, as the first -had done, upon examination. - -Meanwhile he exchanged a salutation with Master Altona, as the notary -had slightingly dubbed the dealer in antiques. One had but to see the -two men side by side, to understand that ten years earlier he would have -called him "my boy," and ten years later he would call him "monsieur le -baron." - -Altona had one of those bloodless faces, faded for good and all, which -have no age. He was very black-haired, with moustaches and an imperial -cut in a fashion to give him the aspect of one of the portraits he dealt -in. His brown, velvety eyes, which were like two spots on his pale face, -betrayed his Oriental origin, as did the strange mixture of servility -and arrogance displayed by his whole person. A little too well-dressed, -with too much jewelry, too faultlessly correct, one realized -nevertheless that one last touch of "side"--we use the language of the -sharpers in his employ--would make of him a passably successful -make-believe _grand seigneur_. Métivier, on the contrary, that highly -esteemed notary, well-to-do and well established, but dull and heavy, -and made apoplectic at fifty-five by his sedentary profession and by -over-indulgence in eating and smoking, would never be anything more than -a vulgar French bourgeois. Through the chance that brought them -together, in the presence of the heir of a very great name on the eve of -disappearing forever, the four walls of that green-box-lined office -contained a striking abstract of contemporary history. - -Maxwell Altona--although born in Germany he bore that English baptismal -name--seemed in no wise embarrassed to find himself in the presence of -a son of the debtor he had plotted to rob, and when Métivier had named -them to each other, he said calmly, with his shrewdest glance and his -most engaging smile:-- - -"I am the more pleased to have the honor of being presented to you, -Monsieur le Comte, because I followed your trial with the deepest -interest and greatly admired your action at Hugueville. You have taken -your leave."--Here the foreigner betrayed himself, by that little -Germanism; no one is perfect.--"You are proposing, no doubt, to devote -yourself to your fine château. I am well acquainted with its -marvels."--At this point, one of the indescribably ironical expressions -that play over the mysterious features of these international -tradesmen.--"Allow me to suggest to you an opportunity that is perhaps -unique. You have but one of the two Gobelins of the Turkish Embassy. It -is the entry of Mehemet Effendi into Paris, in 1721, with the mission of -congratulating the King on his accession," he added, addressing -Métivier. Then, turning again to the possible purchaser, "I know where -the other is." - -"Isn't he amazing?" the notary asked Landri as he showed him out. "One -affair has failed. He goes about another at once. He was going to strip -you. He sells to you. Faith, I advise you to look at the tapestry. I am -sure it's genuine. That's his probity, the pirate! He doesn't cheat -about his wares. And Cauvet won't have a commission, I promise you." - -A commission? Was it possible that Chaffin had in very truth not -hesitated to commit the most shocking of private crimes, the betrayal of -a dead wife to her husband, of an illegitimate son to the head of a -family, after all the benefactions he had received, and all for fear of -losing his percentage, as Métivier had said, of the four millions? Was -it possible? At all events the objection urged at first by M. de -Claviers was removed: the fact that the anonymous letter was sent before -Chaffin's dismissal did not prove that he was not guilty. And yet how -many things still made it improbable that he was! And in the first -place, that he had had Madame de Claviers' letters in his possession! -Improbability? Yes. Impossibility? No. Here the son's complicity once -more appeared as the essential and sufficient condition. - -All these ideas were whirling about in Landri's mind as he returned from -Place de la Madeleine toward Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. They -suddenly crystallized in a resolution which caused him to turn his back -on his home and walk toward Place de la Concorde, then through the -Tuileries toward the Seine, Notre-Dame, and Ile Saint-Louis. How many -times he had followed that route, a mere child, on his way from the -paternal abode to Quai de Béthune, where Chaffin's family then lived. -Having agreed, it will be remembered, to live with his pupil, he often -took him on Sunday to pass a few hours with Madame Chaffin, their -daughter Louise, and their son Pierre, in the fourth floor apartment, -from the balcony of which one commanded such a beautiful view of the -Seine, with the chevet of Notre-Dame at the right, the dome of the -Panthéon and of the Val-de-Grâce in front, and at the left the -thickets of the Jardin des Plantes and the Salpêtrière. In course of -time the Chaffins had gone down to the third floor, then to the first, -without leaving the house, which was convenient to the young medical -student because of the proximity of the Hôtel-Dieu and the Latin -Quarter. Louise had never married, and Madame Chaffin was still living. - -These recollections of an existence apparently so upright protested in -the former pupil's heart against the insulting step he was preparing to -take. He was going to question Pierre Chaffin. But great heaven! That -virtuous occupant of an old house on a patriarchal quay had actually put -his fingers in his master's fortune. Were there but one chance in a -thousand, in ten thousand, that he had likewise stolen Madame de -Claviers' letters, with the connivance of his son Pierre, that one -chance was enough to cause Landri to try, at whatever cost, to find out. - -"What do I risk?" he said to himself on the way. "I ask him whether, to -his knowledge, any one except himself and the servants entered the sick -man's bedroom. If no one went in, he will say no, simply. If some one -did go in, and that some one was his father, he will be confused. If it -is only for a second, I shall see it. That will be a certain indication, -and then I shall act." - -How? By what steps? He did not know. But on the other hand he did know -that he was on his way to another trying scene in which all the -suffering of the last weeks would be revived, on seeing the physician -for the first time since that fatal Tuesday. He recalled Pierre's -preoccupied expression as he came from his delirious patient's bedside, -and the persistence with which he repeated: "It's downright madness." -But what then? They were likely to meet at any time, and if Landri -really proposed to keep to the compact he had made with M. de Claviers -and to defend his mother's memory, guilty though she was, against this -witness of Jaubourg's death-agony, it was much better to see him at once -and to bear himself in their interview as if the dying man had in truth -talked mere nonsense, which was of no consequence. - -There was, to be sure, a difficulty of another sort. Pierre was the son -of a man dismissed by the marquis for dishonesty. True. But Landri was -not making a personal call upon him. He was going to seek information at -the hands of a doctor who had been paid by M. de Claviers; for -Jaubourg's residuary legatee must have paid all the debts of the -deceased, including the expenses of the last sickness. Moreover, if -Pierre was not Chaffin's confederate, he certainly did not know the true -reason of his father's discharge. His father would never have told him. -In that case there was nothing in Landri's procedure to surprise the -doctor. In the contrary case, why spare a couple of brigands? - -All varieties of grief have their egoism. There was another hypothesis -which Madame de Claviers' son did not consider: perhaps, since his -father's dismissal, Pierre Chaffin had been passing through a crisis -similar to that of which his playmate in childhood was undergoing the -terrors. Between ignorance and actual complicity, there is room for -suspicion. Let us say at once that such was the plight of the physician, -worried to the point of dismay by the visible change that he had -observed in his father during the past month. - -One afternoon in November Chaffin had appeared, in a state of great -agitation. He had told his son that the marquis had made him the -scapegoat of his follies. He had inveighed against the ingratitude of -the _grand seigneur_, in whose service his life had been passed, had -declared that he would accept nothing, not even the smallest pension, -from that man, and had forbidden his name to be mentioned in his -presence. Since then he had been wasting away in a melancholic state, -the true causes of which were, on the one hand, terror lest his son -should learn the real reason of his disgrace, and on the other hand the -most violent and invincible remorse. - -Landri's instinct had led him to the right conclusion. Chaffin was the -anonymous informer. Enraged by the sudden collapse of his hopes, the -loss of a commission which would have rounded out his fortune, and -really convinced in his own mind that M. de Claviers would renounce the -Jaubourg legacy, Chaffin had gone to Altona to strike another bargain -with him, and to demand not one but two per cent of the four millions -offered for the list of treasures preserved at Grandchamp. He agreed, in -consideration of that sum, to induce the marquis to reopen the -negotiations that had been instantly broken off by the legacy. Altona -had accepted his offer. - -Chaffin had in his possession a letter from Madame de Claviers to -Jaubourg. He had opened it when he was only a tutor, nearly eighteen -years before. Finding it on a table, in a package prepared for the post, -he had yielded to an intense curiosity to learn the real relations -between the friend of the family and the marchioness. That was the -period at which the process of corruption already described began. -Perhaps this discovery of the sin of his pupil's mother was the most -virulent element in his moral degeneration. He had not used the paper, -as he might have done, as the foundation of a lucrative system of -blackmail. He was not ripe for such villainy. But he had not destroyed -it, by reason of that sort of vague expectation which, in certain -natures, outwardly sound but rotten at the core, is, as it were, the -gestation of crime. He had, in fact, supplemented it by adding to -it--these were the "other documents"--three notes from Jaubourg, -pilfered from Landri's mother's desk. At the time the lovers had -discovered, with dismay, the disappearance of Madame de Claviers' -letter. They had both made cautious inquiry, and failing to learn -anything, had attributed the loss to some irregularity on the part of -the mail. The marchioness had not detected the second theft, which would -have put her on the scent. Jaubourg had always suspected Chaffin. That -was the meaning of the question, "What is he?" uttered in such distress -on his death-bed. - -That is the sort of man that the former tutor was: a scoundrel who -lacked only a tempting opportunity. The bait of eighty thousand francs -was the opportunity. He had written the anonymous letter himself, on his -typewriter. He had placed it in an envelope with the other, the -incriminating one, and despatched them both to the marquis. But although -a greedy longing for gain, added to base and pitiless envy of the _grand -seigneur_, had impelled him to do this disgraceful deed in an hour of -madness, when the blow was dealt, his conscience of the earlier days, of -the humble giver of lessons to worthy bourgeois, had begun to make -itself heard. He could not banish from his thoughts the haunting image -of M. de Claviers' face as he had seen it during the fortnight between -his crime and his dismissal, so haggard, so ravaged by suffering! His -handiwork terrified him, especially as the end sought--at such a -price!--was not attained. Contrary to his expectation, the marquis went -on paying his debts. Pictures, furniture, hangings, remained at -Grandchamp. The eighty thousand francs Altona had promised him would -never come to his hands. - -There are not many criminals who, in the face of a useless crime, -practise the calm philosophy of the assassin in the old story, who found -only a single sou in his victim's pocket, and observed: "A hundred like -this will make five francs!" The absolute inutility of his murderous -villainy did not even afford Chaffin the semi-insensibility which might -have come from the possession of that little fortune which, added to the -store already accumulated, would have given him a round twenty thousand -francs a year. - -Tormented by this fixed idea, he was beginning to exhibit symptoms of -the acute mental alienation which incessant, poignant regret for an -irreparable sin is likely to cause in a man of some education. He could -no longer eat or sleep, read or write, attend to any business or remain -quiet. This agitation had not escaped the son's notice. The doctor had -begun, almost automatically, to watch his father. He soon assured -himself that these symptoms, so readily interpreted by an alienist, were -caused by no physical disturbance. The cause was entirely mental--the -physician said, cerebral. Almost automatically again, he had sought that -cause. - -One fact aroused his suspicion: he fancied that he observed a certain -constraint in Professor Louvet's manner toward himself. As the head of -the clinical staff he was in constant communication with the illustrious -master of the Hôtel-Dieu. It had seemed to him, during the last weeks, -that his chief's handshake was, not less cordial, but less unreserved, -less familiar--in a word, that there was "a thorn" in it, as they would -have said to each other in neurologists' parlance, in speaking of a -common abrasion of the skin on a patient. Under any other circumstances -Pierre would not have hesitated to question the professor. He did not do -it. He had put together the two symptoms: the change in his master's -manner to him, and the change in his father. He had drawn therefrom the -conclusion, still automatically,--a profession like his ends by -imparting a mechanical method, an instinctive gait, to the mind,--that -the same fact was at the root of both. What fact? The quarrel between -Chaffin and M. de Claviers, that old and very important patient of -Louvet. - -Pierre knew the marquis well, and although he had for him the antipathy -of one social class for another, his innate sense of justice compelled -him to esteem the great nobleman's greatness of soul. No, the châtelain -of Grandchamp, who bestowed pensions on scores of old servants,--only -two months since, his factotum was bewailing the fact at the family -table!--had not parted, without weighty reasons, from one whom he had -had in his service so many years. - -What were those reasons? This question had been haunting the physician -for several days, with such persistent and increasing distress, that it -had occurred to him to seek an answer to it from Landri. He had been -deterred by very diverse considerations. It will be recalled that their -relations had never been perfectly simple. It was hard for the plebeian -to ask the titled man if his, the plebeian's, father had been guilty of -any offence contrary to honor. It was painful, too, for the physician, -who had learned, in the delirium of a death-agony, the secret of an -illegitimate birth, to seek a meeting with the son of the patient,--a -meeting over which that consciousness would hover like a pall, -especially as Pierre knew the terms of Jaubourg's will, and he did the -child of that adulterous connection the justice to believe that M. de -Claviers' acceptance of the legacy was torture to him. - -One can imagine now the shock that it caused him, as he sat at work one -afternoon in his little study, littered with books and pamphlets, -when the maid handed him a card on which he read: "Comte de -Claviers-Grandchamp." Fate, which is wont to teach such lessons, brought -those two men face to face, who were born and reared under such widely -different conditions, and who were undergoing, unknown to each other, -the same universal ordeal of heredity, whereof one of the ancients said: -"We shall be punished, either in our own persons or in those of our -descendants, for the sins we have committed in this world." This is the -principle, at once mysterious and natural, moral and physiological, -which, by uniting persons of the same blood, creates the Family and -Society. - -Pierre's first impulse--so intolerable to him was the thought of his -father's possible shame--was to reply: "I am not at home;" the -second, to say: "Show him in." For the very reason that he was -ignorant of the real reason for the dismissal of the steward of the -Claviers-Grandchamps, he was unwilling to appear to dread a conversation -with the future head of that house, and he thought:-- - -"What does he want of me? Doubtless he has come on account of the will. -He is going to ask me not to mention what I may have heard and guessed. -Those people have no appreciation of the honor of the medical -profession. Bah! the honor of a bourgeois in the eyes of a noble!--A -noble?" He laughed sneeringly,--"and of an officer with such ideas as -this incompetent has, and as he exhibited in that stupid business of the -inventory!" - -As will be seen, his customary surly humor had already returned to this -strange creature, who had always taken life against the grain, if we may -so express it, because of his false position on the edge of a society in -which he had no well-defined place. The result was that on entering that -little room, the aspect of which disclosed the professional and -intellectual ardor of its tenant, Landri de Claviers encountered the -same armed glance that he had always known, behind the young scientist's -gold-bowed spectacles. With his red beard and his irregular features, as -if carved by a bill-hook, which gave him the aspect of a Tartar, the -younger Chaffin really had, at that moment, the look of a very -evil-minded man. This sensation was calculated to impart and did in fact -impart a dryness, almost a bitterness of accent to Landri's first words, -which were destined instantly to transform that conversation into a -brief and fierce duel. - -"I shall not detain you long," he began, after they had exchanged a few -words of ordinary courtesy. Because of their former companionship and -their difference in rank, they never knew how to address each other. -They never called each other "monsieur," or by their names simply. "I -have come upon a delicate, a very delicate errand. But the question I -have come to ask is not put to the man, but to the physician who -attended Monsieur Jaubourg." - -He had the strength to pronounce those two syllables without removing -his eyes from the other, who could not restrain a contraction of his -bushy eyebrows and a curl of his lip as he replied:-- - -"I am at your service so far as this question does not run counter to my -duty as a physician. We have a duty of absolute silence, which you do -not suspect," he continued with a peculiar bitterness: "nec visa, nec -audita, nec intellecta[7] is the old form of the Hippocratic oath. It is -still true." - -"It is a very simple matter," rejoined Landri. "You are aware that -Monsieur de Claviers is Monsieur Jaubourg's legatee. We have obtained -proof that some papers of great importance were taken from his apartment -during the last days of his illness. Well! I would be glad to have your -word--" - -"That I didn't take them?" the doctor hastily interrupted. "Don't tell -me that you came here to ask me that," he continued with an outburst of -anger; "I will not allow it." - -"You might have let me finish my sentence," retorted Landri, more -calmly, but very little more. Being absolutely ignorant of the inward -tragedy--so like his own, alas!--of which Pierre Chaffin was the victim, -this outbreak at the bare idea of a suspicion of dishonesty was -inexplicable to him. He had said nothing to justify it, and being -rendered so sensitive by his own suffering, he could not brook a reply -uttered in such a tone. "I finish that sentence. I would be glad to have -your word, not that you did not take the papers, but simply that no -person, to your knowledge, entered Monsieur Jaubourg's bedroom during -his illness,--besides the servants, Professor Louvet, and yourself, of -course. It seems to me that there is nothing in that to cause any -sensitiveness on your part. It is simply a matter of preventing -suspicion from going astray. You should be the first to desire it." - -"I have no answer to make to a question of that sort," said Pierre. He -did not clearly discern his questioner's object. It was true that he -would have no right to take offence at the question, if it had not been -couched in terms too imperious and inquisitorial. The conclusion -especially had irritated him. But as Landri had affected to speak in a -very self-contained tone, almost ceremonious in its stiffness, he -determined to meet his coldness with equal coldness. He would have been -humiliated to appear less able to control his nerves, or less polished, -than the young noble, and he added: "I do not admit that it is the duty -of a physician to keep watch over his patient otherwise than -professionally. I venture to assert that I treated Monsieur Jaubourg to -the best of my ability, and that is all that his heirs have a right to -concern themselves about with respect to me." - -"It is not a question of keeping watch," Landri replied. "You compel me, -in spite of myself, to make my questions more precise. Did you admit no -stranger to the invalid's bedroom? For you did receive visitors, I know -from Joseph." - -"Visitors?" exclaimed the physician. "No one, except my father." He had -no sooner pronounced the word, than he ejaculated the "Ah!" of one who -suddenly grasps the situation. He was silent for a moment. Then, -controlling himself with an effort, he continued, throwing out his -breast and walking up to the other, with distorted face and breathing -quickly: "I will satisfy you. I give you my word of honor that I -admitted no one to Monsieur Jaubourg's bedroom,--no one, you understand; -my word of honor, and it's the word of an honest man, again you -understand! And that gives me the right to put a question to -you, in my turn. For all you call yourself Monsieur le Comte de -Claviers-Grandchamp, and I am simple Pierre Chaffin, we are no longer -living under the old régime, and I don't know that you are entitled to -come here, on your private authority, to question me like an examining -magistrate. You told me that some one had stolen papers from Monsieur -Jaubourg's, and you asked me if the person from whom I received a visit -did not go into the room where the stolen papers were. That was -equivalent to saying that you suspected that person of stealing them, -and that person was my father. My question is this: Do you suspect my -father, or do you not?" - -"I will say, as you said just now, that I have no answer to make, having -named no one," Landri retorted. - -His irritation faded away in the face of evidence: he had before him in -very truth an absolutely honest man. He had felt it in the vigor with -which Pierre had asserted his honor, in the upheaval of his whole being, -above all in his outcry of indignant surprise. And lo! a strange and -melancholy sympathy stirred in his heart. The tone in which the son had -spoken of his father echoed in the depths of his soul. It was like a -sudden repetition of his own inward lament. He observed with dismay -that, having come thither to obtain confirmation of one suspicion, his -visit had aroused another, not in his own mind, but in that of the very -person upon whom he had relied to discover the truth; and already it had -ceased to be in his power to allay that suspicion. - -"To decline to answer is to answer," said Pierre Chaffin. "So papers are -missing from Monsieur Jaubourg's, valuable papers, no doubt, and you, -and Monsieur de Claviers, I suppose, with you, accuse my father of the -theft!" - -"No valuable paper is missing from Monsieur Jaubourg's," replied Landri, -"and, once more, we accuse no one." - -"If it is not valuable papers that have disappeared," continued the -physician, "it must be letters. And why do people steal letters? To sell -them, threatening to make them public, for blackmail." - -His habit of inductive reasoning began to work anew, and in that moment -of supreme agony, he made use of what he knew to guess the rest. Letters -had been stolen. What letters? Those which referred to the birth of the -child of Jaubourg and Madame de Claviers. They were afraid of blackmail. -What sort of blackmail? That which the will suggested. And he said -aloud, changing from questioned to questioner, to suppliant rather, he -trembled so with anxiety as he made this appeal to his playmate in -childhood:-- - -"I gave you my word just now; give me your word that you did not believe -that my father was capable of that.--You don't answer? Then it must be -that you did believe it. And yet you and Monsieur de Claviers are not -cruel. You believed that? Why? I must know. I must know everything, -everything, everything, and first of all the real reason why my father -and Monsieur de Claviers parted. I am a man, Landri, and I am addressing -another man. What was the reason? Tell me." - -"You are well aware that I was not here," Landri replied. "I know -nothing positive." - -"Yes or no, did you hear any talk of dishonesty?" - -"I heard something said of confusion in Monsieur de Claviers' affairs," -said Landri. "But I give you my word on this--that this matter of -Jaubourg's papers, as to which I wanted to obtain your testimony, had no -connection whatever with the reasons that may have led Monsieur de -Claviers to dispense with Monsieur Chaffin's services." - -He was only too well aware, when he made this indefinite reply, that the -craving for knowledge with which the other was consumed demanded a reply -of a very different tenor. But he could not answer yes or no. He had -suffered too keenly when he learned of his mother's sin to allow his -lips to form words which should inform a son of his father's crime. Nor -would his sense of honor permit him to be lavish of denials. Indeed, -what was the use? When he decided upon this step, he had had no means of -divining that Pierre's mind was already disturbed, so that he had -immediately read into his question a meaning that was only too dear. - -This altogether unforeseen result of their interview created in Landri's -mind the impression of an inevitable destiny, which he had felt many -times since his visit to his real father's death-bed, and he was, as it -were, paralyzed by it. Was that impression shared by the physician, or -was the poor fellow afraid of learning more? The evasive reply returned -by his interlocutor to so pitilessly precise a question seemed to have -overwhelmed him. He questioned him no further. - -After a few moments of exceedingly painful silence, Landri rose. The -other did not try to detain him, and the young men parted, just touching -each other's fingers, and almost afraid to look at each other. - -The same impression of Necessity, of a network of events woven by a will -stronger than his own, haunted Landri throughout that evening, which he -was able to pass alone, by good luck, M. de Claviers having gone to -Grandchamp. He found it on his pillow when he awoke, still pursued by -the image of that young man with whom he had played as a child, and whom -he saw as he had left him, pale and motionless in the grasp of that -horrible thought: "My father is a thief." As he said to himself at -Saint-Mihiel, "If the Clermont train had only been late!" so he said -now, "If only Louvet had not sent him to Rue de Solferino in order to -help him along! If only his father had not gone to see him--merely by -chance, perhaps!" - -But is there such a thing as chance in the world? The triviality of the -incidents which had led up, in Pierre's case as well as in his own, to -so terrible an ordeal, confounded Landri, especially as that ordeal was -merited--by whom? By those of whom they were born. - -The vision of the common catastrophe which enveloped the son of the -felonious steward and the son of the unfaithful wife, reached the point -of absolutely terrifying him when, about half-past nine, his servant -handed him a letter of which the handwriting alone made him tremble with -excitement. He was preparing to pay Joseph another visit. He had changed -his hypothesis since his visit to Quai de Béthune. He desired to talk -with Joseph concerning the people who were most intimate with Jaubourg, -remembering M. de Claviers' expression: "That smells of the club." As -will be seen, he had entirely abandoned the idea of incriminating -Chaffin. Now, this letter was from Chaffin! - -The young man's heart beat fast, as he tore the envelope open, and yet -faster as he read these lines:-- - -"Landri, your old master implores you, in the name of the past, to -receive him instantly. He has a favor to ask of you which will save more -than his life, and he can perhaps do you a service which will wipe out -many things." - -"Admit Monsieur Chaffin," he said to the valet; and almost in the same -breath: "Do you know whether Monsieur le Marquis has returned from -Grandchamp?" - -"Last night, Monsieur le Comte," the servant replied; and while he left -the room to summon the discharged steward, Landri said to himself:-- - -"Do me a service? What if he were really the culprit? What if he has -brought the other letters? What if I am able to get them and give them -to _him_, in a few minutes?" - -And the mere thought of M. de Claviers' expression as he thanked him -warmed his whole heart! - - -[Footnote 7: "A physician should disclose neither what he has seen, nor -what he has heard, nor what he has divined."] - - - - -IX - -SEPARATION - - -Chaffin was profoundly preoccupied, and very anxious as he followed the -footman who was instructed to usher him into Landri's presence. He would -have been even more so if he had glanced through the windows of the long -glass gallery that surrounded the courtyard of the hôtel. His legs, -trembling already, would have refused further service. He certainly -would not have crossed the threshold of the room where his former pupil -awaited him. - -At the very moment when he was proceeding thus toward an interview -of decisive importance to him, the small door on Rue du -Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, through which visitors on foot were admitted, -opened in response to an impatient ring, and Pierre appeared. His -arrival thus on his father's heels, in view of the circumstances under -which the two men had parted, was a threat well calculated to check the -flow of blood in the unfaithful steward's veins. He had hastened thither -to implore a compassion which his son's presence would render -unavailing. That implacable Fate, of which Landri had been the -craftsman, unwitting at first, then terrified by its working out, -continued its work. But what is this Fate if not the internal logic of -life, so well summed up, in the words of the poet: "We are the masters -of our first step. We are the slaves of the second." This force which -thus compels all the consequences of crime is not distinguishable from -it. We could not help committing a crime. Once committed it holds us -fast. Our very precautions serve only to hasten our punishment. It -overtakes us alike through our prudences and our imprudences, through -those who love us and those who hate us and those even to whom we are -indifferent, so inevitably do our sins unfold their results according to -a mathematical ratio. - -Landri's visit to Pierre Chaffin was a perfectly natural result of the -peculations committed by the steward of the Claviers estate, and that -visit had produced this other no less natural result: the doctor had -questioned his father. When Chaffin returned to the house on Quai de -Béthune on the preceding day, his son opened the door, anticipating his -ring, a sign that he had been at the window watching for his return. - -"I was waiting for you," he said. "Let us go into my study. I have -something to say to you, at once." - -"What's going on?" queried Chaffin. As he asked the question his glance -expressed more terror than surprise. This singular fact did not escape -Pierre. He was conscious of the false ring in the newcomer's laughter as -he added, with an impertinent allusion to the very advanced opinions -professed by the physician: "There's no question of an anarchist plot, -is there? For I am as much of a radical as you please, but still, you -know, a landed proprietor." - -"Landri de Claviers has just gone from here," Pierre replied, paying no -heed to the pleasantry. He had closed the door by way of precaution, and -spoke in a low voice. He did not wish his mother and sister, who were -looking over the week's laundry in an adjoining room, to suspect that -his father and he were closeted together. "Yes," he repeated, "Landri de -Claviers." And he gazed steadfastly at the discharged steward. He tried -to detect upon that enigmatic face a confusion which did not appear. The -thief recovered his self-control, and ventured to reply:-- - -"He is probably ashamed of the way his father behaved to his old tutor. -I don't class them together, Monsieur de Claviers and him. Landri is -weak. He doesn't dare to break a lance against the prejudices of a -society which he estimates none the less at its real worth. You saw how -absurdly he acted in that matter of the inventory. He is not a believer, -he adores the army, and still he gets his job taken away from him! He -has a poor head, but he's a very good fellow." - -"Landri did not come to apologize either for himself or his father," -said the doctor. "He came to accuse us." - -"Us?" cried Chaffin. "Of what, I should like to know?" - -Despite his self-control, that explicit statement made him jump. Among -the many suppositions with which his terror-haunted fancy had tormented -him, one had been especially persistent of late: he had written the -anonymous note, it will be remembered, on his typewriter. Several people -in the Claviers household knew that he had the machine. At the moment he -had said to himself: "Pshaw! there are thousands of others in Paris!" -and had gone ahead. Since then he had lived in deadly fear lest some -suggestion should lead the marquis to see whether the characters in the -letter did not correspond with those of his machine. It was an -extravagant fear. By virtue of what authority could M. de Claviers have -claimed such a power? But it is the peculiarity of the fixed idea, that -it does not distinguish the possible from the impossible. And then, -there was Pierre. To be assailed by an insinuation of that nature in the -esteem and affection of his son was to the father a worse punishment -than to be sent before the Assizes. Did Landri's accusation relate to -that? Did he claim the right to demand a test? But, if so, what was the -meaning of that "us?" - -"I will tell you about it," rejoined the physician. He began to repeat -word for word the conversation he had had with his father's former -pupil, ending with the terrible question asked by himself: "Yes or no, -did you hear any talk of dishonesty?" and with Landri's evasive reply: -"I heard something said of confusion in Monsieur de Claviers' affairs." - -As he told the story, which it was exceedingly painful to him to repeat -thus, his eyes continued to examine the face of the agent so directly -incriminated. Lively emotion was certain to be depicted thereon, even if -he were innocent,--especially if he were innocent. The news of Landri's -visit, under the existing conditions, could not be indifferent to a man -of heart. There was matter therein at which to take offence, to be -distressed, to be alarmed, to be indignant. Perhaps, if Chaffin had -foreseen this explanation with his son, he would have been shrewd enough -to feign agitation. But being attacked unexpectedly, he instinctively -feigned absolute impassibility. It is the least hazardous of defences -for a culprit taken by surprise. It offers no hold for an investigation, -but for that very reason it suggests mastery of self, a premeditated -reserve, the possibility of a secret. - -Pierre felt this so strongly that, at the end of this painful -narration,--this cross-examination, rather, scarcely disguised,--he -uttered a cry, a downright appeal to the sense of honor of that father -of his, who listened to him with an impassive face which made it -impossible to discover a single one of his thoughts:-- - -"And it doesn't make you jump from your chair that I, your son, have -reached the point where I could put such a question to that man, and -that he refused to answer? You seem to have no suspicion that I am -passing through one of the most ghastly hours of my whole life! Don't -tell me that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of Monsieur -Jaubourg's papers. I know it. Don't tell me that this act of Landri's -proves that he and his father are crazy. I know it. But I know something -else, by an experience of many, many years! Monsieur de Claviers and -Landri, with all their failings and their prejudices and their follies -and their absurdities, are perfectly honorable men, incapable of -wronging any one knowingly. If they suspected you of this, it was -because they believed that they had the right to. It must be that you -and the marquis broke off your relations for some reason of which I know -nothing. I insist on knowing it. Yes, why did Monsieur de Claviers, who -finds it so hard to discharge his employés,--you used to complain of it -so often!--why did he part with you so abruptly, so brutally? Ah!" he -concluded in a heart-rending tone, "if the reason was what you told us, -Landri would never have come here, he would never have left me with that -evasive reply, after he had seen how I was suffering, and what I -thought--never!" - -"I told your mother and sister and you the exact truth," said Chaffin, -pretending to be angry at last. - -He could not assume any other attitude, but the contrast was too great -between this sudden outburst and the carefully guarded attention of a -few moments before. They who simulate emotions always miss their -imitation of reality in some detail. They exaggerate the symptoms or -distort them. For instance, the impostors who feign an attack of -vertigo, and who fall with their hands extended to protect themselves. -The genuine epileptic, being hurled to the ground as it were, has no -time to take that precaution. The error, in this case, was the sudden -change from premeditated indifference to extreme rage, without -transition. The protest, too emphatic in his too abrupt somersault, was -not sincere. - -"Yes," the dishonest steward persisted none the less, "I told you the -truth, and it is incredible to me that you, my son, should be the one to -take sides against me with these great nobles whom you know only by -hearsay! I know them, I do, from having undergone innumerable -humiliations at their hands which I have always concealed from you. In -their eyes a man is of no account when he doesn't belong to their caste. -They wouldn't do you a material injury. They are very careful in that -respect, from pride. But as to other injuries, no. I expected better -things from Landri. Evidently he's no better than his father. Papers are -missing from Jaubourg's apartments, certificates of stock, I suppose? -They think at once of _us_, of _us_, mind you, of you as well as myself! -Do I conclude from that that they mean to accuse you of dishonesty? Not -at all. But you conclude that they do mean to accuse me! It is -incredible! But the dishonesty was in coming here to insult you and your -father! And you listened to my gentleman? And when he proved to you, by -the mere fact of coming here, his absolute lack of perspicacity, you -questioned him about me?--How many times must I tell you that Monsieur -de Claviers did not part with me, but I parted with him, and for the -reason that Landri admitted: he talked about confusion in my accounts, -when there was no confusion in anything but his expenditure, which was -insane! What Landri did not tell you is that I warned him personally of -the marquis's impending ruin, in order to save his fortune. Just ask him -about that. We will see whether he will dare to deny that conversation -at Grandchamp when I gave him the exact figures. I swear it, on your -mother's head and your sister's. If he had listened to me he wouldn't -have lost a sou. And this is how he rewards me! But he isn't my son, and -you, Pierre, have been too unjust to me, too ungrateful. I have only -lived and worked for you all, for you especially. I have tried to spare -you all the miseries of the breadwinner which crushed me at your age. -You were intelligent and hard-working. I kept you at home, so that you -could give your time to science as you chose, and prepare for your -examinations, while your comrades were wearing themselves out with -patients; and you have forgotten all my sacrifices!--Ah! it's too -horrible!" - -"For the very reason that I am living on your benefactions," replied the -physician with savage asperity, "I cannot endure certain ideas. And -those ideas," he continued still more harshly, "let us admit that it is, -as you say, horrible to entertain them. It is a fact that I do entertain -them. Would you like me to tell you why? Landri de Claviers' conduct has -nothing to do with it. The change in you that I have noticed these last -weeks has given them to me, nothing else. Since you left Grandchamp you -are not the same man. I see it with my eyes. I see that you are -suffering. You are growing thin. You don't eat. You don't sleep. You -have some persistent trouble that you cannot hide, and I too am -beginning to have one, I feel it growing and taking possession of me--it -is suspicion. I do not want it. We must not both play at madness. Let us -have more pride. A father and son should not exchange such words as -these twice. There is one way of putting an end to them. It is too late -to-day," he added, looking at the clock; "but to-morrow, at eleven, -after the Hôtel-Dieu, I'll call for you, and we will go together to Rue -du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. We will ask to speak with the marquis. You -will tell him, or, if you prefer, I will, that there are rumors abroad. -And it is true. Louvet has changed his manner to me since you left the -Claviers. These rumors have reached our ears. We have come to ask him to -cut them short by declaring publicly, and first of all before me, that -he has nothing to reproach you with in your stewardship that affects -your honor. I will demand that he put that declaration in writing for -me, if necessary." - -"I will not do it!" cried Chaffin, his eyes bulging out with terror as, -in imagination, they saw M. de Claviers. "I will not do it! You talk -about pride, and yet you don't see that you are proposing to me a -nameless humiliation, worse than all the rest!" - -"What, pray?" his son quickly retorted. "What humiliation is there in -going to a man as to whom you have nothing to reproach yourself with, -and claiming from him reparation for involuntary injustice? Tell me, -when Louvet and I--and how many others that I don't know!--may have -received an unfavorable impression of your quarrel with Monsieur de -Claviers, is not that an injustice, if the quarrel was a mere caprice on -his part? And is he not responsible for it by the exaggerated -indignation which you claim that he has shown?" - -"People may think what they choose," interposed Chaffin. "I won't go up -that man's stairs. I won't go to his house. I won't go." - -"Very good," said Pierre, "then I shall go alone." - -"You won't put that affront on me?" the father implored. "You shall not -go! I forbid you. To humiliate yourself is to humiliate me. We are one -as to that. You must obey me." - -"Because of that very identity of interest, I shall not obey you," -rejoined the son. "Your honor is my honor. I propose to know whether the -money I am living on is pure. At eleven o'clock to-morrow I shall be -there. I hope you will be there too. But if you are not, I shall go in -alone. Nothing on earth, you understand, nothing shall prevent my having -an explanation with Monsieur de Claviers, unless--" - -"Unless what?" queried Chaffin breathlessly. "Go on." - -"Unless you tell me that your leaving his service was for a different -reason, and what it was." - -"I can't invent one," the father replied. - -"Then I can't understand your objections to a step which, I tell you -once more, I must take in order to put an end to an intolerable state of -mind." - -"Well!" said Chaffin, after a pause, "do it, since you no longer believe -in your father; but remember this, that I will never forgive you." - -An awkward and ill-timed attempt at paternal dignity, which lacked the -accent, the expression, the gesture, in a word the inimitable and -irresistible reality, which Pierre craved as he craved bread and water, -air and light! Chaffin resorted to it, however, as a desperate effort to -prevent that visit, the threat of which had sent a stream of fire -running through his veins. What an evening and night he passed under the -apprehension of that hour, which every minute brought nearer, when his -shamefully wronged employer and his idolized son should be face to face! - -The young man did not dine at home, in order to avoid meeting his -father. The latter heard him come in about midnight. A mad temptation -assailed him, as he heard that well-known step, to rise and go to him -and confess everything. But no. Pierre's terrible words were still -ringing in his ears: "I propose to know whether the money I am living on -is pure." How could he bear to tell that boy, whose probity was so -absolute, that that money was not pure, that the little fortune, by -virtue of which he was pursuing his studies, almost without practising, -was, in part, stolen! For that was really one of the motives that had -led Chaffin into rascality: his passionate desire to assure his son -Pierre immunity from his own laborious life was his revenge for his -semi-menial position. He had imagined him physician to the hospitals, -professor in the Faculty, member of the Académie de Medicine, perhaps -of the Institute. - -This excitation of his paternal love was due to the same malevolence, -born of his abortive destiny, that filled him with implacable hatred of -his noble and magnificent employer. That most excellent sentiments can -exist in the same heart with evil sentiments, and criminal resolutions -inspired by the latter justify themselves by the former, is a fact of -every-day observation, as disconcerting as it is indisputable. It -explains why the great legislators, who were also great psychologists, -always strove to punish acts in themselves, without seeking the intent -with which they were committed. The decadence of civic justice began -with this search for the intent, which, in healthy societies, is left to -religion to deal with. The Church can still find reasons for pardoning a -Chaffin for his crimes, when human tribunals, taking cognizance of his -case, owe him naught save the galleys. - -"If he ever finds that out," said the guilty father to himself, in that -vigil of anguish, "he will leave me. He will go away from the house. His -mother and sister will insist on knowing, too. They will guess the -truth. At any price, Pierre must remain in ignorance. But how?" - -Then it was that in that mind, already exhausted by the stings of -conscience, an idea began to take root. It occurred to him to go -himself, about nine o'clock, while his son was at the Hôtel-Dieu, and -throw himself at the marquis's feet. He would implore him not to -dishonor him in Pierre's eyes. M. de Claviers was generous. He would -take pity on him. He would promise not to speak. He would not speak. But -to appear before Madame de Claviers' husband after he had, like a -dastard, dealt him that despicable blow of the anonymous letter, was -beyond the Judas's courage. He could not even endure the thought. There -had been, in the attitude maintained by that proud man since he had -received the letter of his wife, testifying to her liaison with Jaubourg -and the illegitimacy of the child, a mystery which terrified Chaffin. He -divined therein a bottomless abyss of suffering over which it would be -too horrible for him to lean. - -Landri's visit to Pierre had intensified that puzzled sensation. His -inquiries concerning papers said to have been stolen from Jaubourg -implied that the young count was informed of the anonymous letter. Had -M. de Claviers shown it to him? If so, why? Why, so that Landri might -institute this inquiry, of course! And with what object, if not to -unearth the holder of the "other documents"? Chaffin recalled those -words in his letter, which was written in the paroxysm of nervous -excitement caused by the gratification of long-cherished hate. He had -added to it, in pure wantonness, a threat of blackmail which he had -never intended to put in execution. - -That recollection suggested a second plan: since his threat had produced -such an effect on the two men, he had a certain means of obtaining from -them a promise of silence with respect to his son. It was to Landri that -the marquis had entrusted the mission of seeking those documents. It was -to Landri that he must appeal. The anticipation of that interview was -painful to the dishonored tutor. But it was not unendurable, like the -other. But would Landri give way under that pressure? Would he not, on -the other hand, reply: "You threaten us with a scandal? Very good. We -propose to apply for a warrant against you." - -No, he must not take that risk. Chaffin devised a safer method of -procedure. He thought that he was well acquainted with his pupil of so -many years. He believed him to be very weak, but he knew his absolute -loyalty and the noble elements of his character. The better way was to -go to him and say: "It was I who wrote that outrageous denunciation in a -moment of insanity. I am sorry for it. I have the other papers. Here -they are. I place them in your hands. I ask you, in return, to induce -Monsieur de Claviers not to tell Pierre the real reason for my leaving -him." The acceptance of that restitution would create the most sacred of -obligations in the eyes of the noble-hearted young man. - -Such are the disconcerting contradictions of human nature, that, upon -representing to himself that scene of confession, although dictated -entirely by self-interest, Chaffin had a sense of relief, almost as of -rehabilitation. At all events he should have spoken, should have -confessed his crime, which was suffocating him. - -Once determined upon this course, he was in such feverish haste to carry -it out that he left the house before nine o'clock, as soon as his son -had started for the Hôtel-Dieu. He had not reckoned upon the working of -Pierre's mind in a direction parallel to his own. The physician had said -to himself, on leaving his father:-- - -"To-morrow he will have reflected. He will decide to go to Monsieur de -Claviers with me if there's nothing wrong; and if there is anything, he -will confess." - -When he found, in the morning, that Chaffin did not mention the subject -again, he reasoned thus:-- - -"My father has devised some expedient. What can it be? If he is guilty, -there is only one: to go there first, in order to implore the marquis to -spare him with regard to me. But is it possible?" - -The physician had resolved to go to all lengths now, to put an end to -the torture of suspicion, which, to his horror, was already changing -from a recurrent to a fixed idea. He dreaded too keenly the form of -monomania so well defined by one of his confrères of ancient times: -_Animi angor in una cogitatione defixus et inhœrens_. He had acted at -once therefore. Instead of going to the hospital, he had stationed -himself at the corner of Rue des Deux-Ponts and Quai de Béthune. He had -seen his father leave the house, look about him like one who fears that -he is watched, and then bend his steps, with an air of feigned -indifference, toward Pont Sully, where he took a cab. Pierre himself -hailed the first cab that passed. He gave the driver a five-franc piece, -telling him to drive as fast as possible to the corner of Rue -d'Aguesseau and Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where he arrived in time -to see Chaffin's cab stop in front of the hôtel de Claviers. He waited -a few moments, then rang and asked the concierge:-- - -"Is my father with Monsieur le Marquis?" - -"No, Monsieur le Docteur," the man replied, "Monsieur Chaffin came to -see Monsieur le Comte." - -"Very well! I beg you to send and ask Monsieur le Marquis if he can -receive me," said Pierre, after a moment's hesitation. - -He had fancied that he could read in the concierge's eyes the same -constraint that he had noticed of late in Professor Louvet's. He was -only partly mistaken. Naturally, the magnanimous M. de Claviers had -confided to no one in his entourage his grievances against his -secretary. But his servants were well aware of his unalloyed kindness of -heart. They had imagined the reason of Chaffin's abrupt dismissal, the -more readily because they were not ignorant of his daily peculation. But -they were not officially informed. Pierre had sufficient proof of that, -for Landri's door was not closed to his father, and he himself was -admitted to the presence of M. de Claviers. The concierge called up the -speaking-tube that connected his lodge with the house. An affirmative -answer was returned. The bell rang, announcing the visitor, and the -doctor was ushered into the presence of the marquis five minutes after -Chaffin's humble and suppliant figure had passed through Landri's door. - -"There may be nothing wrong after all," thought the doctor, "as they -receive us both. If it were only true! What a weight would be taken from -my heart! However, I shall soon know." - -The _grand seigneur_, with whom the son of the unfaithful steward, of -the villainous informer, ventured to adopt this tragic step, was in the -vast, severe library, which had been the scene, a fortnight before, of a -no less tragic explanation, that with Landri. He was seated at his table -this time, engaged in a task which would have seemed most strange to one -who was not aware of the secret resolutions of his mind. He was -transcribing himself, upon detached sheets, the number of which was -already very great, a schedule of all the artistic treasures preserved -in the château of Grandchamp. He had proceeded methodically, room by -room, and he was at that moment, as was indicated by the line written at -the top of the sheet, in the apartment of the deceased marchioness. He -had kept it till the last. The reason will be only too readily -understood. - -The work, begun several weeks before, was nearing its end. The old -gentleman's handwriting had always resembled himself. It was bold, free -and distinct, with an air of the great century. But a slight -tremulousness in some letters testified how painful a task it had been -to him to write the lines of that page. A box stood open on his desk, -containing documents relating to the treasures. The "Genealogy of the -House of Claviers-Grandchamp" was also there with a mark at the famous -Appendix number 44, upon which Altona had formerly based his offer. The -last, in blood, of the magnificent Claviers was drawing up the -death-certificate of his family, in a form determined upon by himself. -He had, that very morning, been assailed by distressing emotions, the -reflection of which made his noble countenance more imposing than ever. - -His old-fashioned courtesy brought him to his feet to receive the son of -the corrupt steward. He waved him to a chair--without offering him his -hand; a slight circumstance which Pierre interpreted as confirming his -suspicions: the marquis was punishing his father's sins in him. - -Pierre's visit was, in fact, a surprise to M. de Claviers, and a most -painful surprise, but for a reason very different from that which the -young man imagined. He had been Jaubourg's physician. He had been -present during his last moments, when the patient had undoubtedly -spoken. Although M. de Claviers knew nothing of the learned theories of -modern specialists concerning "ecmnesia" and "onirism," he had seen -people die. He knew what confessions the excitation of fever sometimes -extorts from lips previously dumb. He explained in that way the -declaration of paternity made by Jaubourg. Perhaps Pierre Chaffin had -been present at that horrible scene of which the young man had told him. -That was the reason that the heroic marquis had consented to receive -him. He had not chosen to seem to fear the meeting. - -Another detail impressed the doctor--the truly extraordinary change in -that imposing countenance. M. de Claviers had aged, within the last few -weeks, as much as his ex-secretary. But it was the aging of a man -consumed by grief without remorse,--the despair, with undimmed eyes, of -him who has naught to blame himself for in the suffering that is killing -him; whereas Chaffin had exhibited to his son the mask of the unhappy -wretch with sombre, veiled glance, the conscious architect of his own -misery. This comparison shaped itself involuntarily in the physician's -mind, as he was saying:-- - -"You will excuse me for disturbing you. Monsieur le Marquis, and at such -an early hour. It will not be for very long." - -"It is your time that is valuable, doctor, not mine," replied M. de -Claviers, now wholly master of himself. He was trying to divine the -motive of this unexpected visit. "Probably he isn't satisfied with his -fees, as Métivier fixed them," he thought, and the other continued:-- - -"I shall not try to play at diplomacy with you, Monsieur le Marquis. -That is not my style, and I know that it isn't yours, either. I will go -straight to the goal. This then, in few words, and very simply, is the -object of my visit. You parted with my father after you had had him in -your service more than fifteen years. The separation was very sudden. It -has caused talk. I myself have had the impression that I do not know the -whole truth. My father has refused to explain himself clearly to me -thereon. Or, rather, he has explained himself, but in terms which do not -satisfy me, and I have come to say to you, knowing your ideas and how -high you rank the family spirit, I cannot endure the idea that my father -is suspected, still less to suspect him myself. If you parted for -reasons which do not involve his honor, as I believe, as I wish to -believe, I ask you to say so publicly two or three times, under -circumstances which will cut short all rumors, especially before -Monsieur le Professeur Louvet, my chief. I ask you to say so to me, too. -If, on the other hand--" And in a heart-rending tone: "I must know it." - -M. de Claviers had listened to the young man with a more and more -distressed expression in his clouded eyes. The resemblance was too -striking between the grief of this son who suspected his father and the -anguish with which he had seen Landri overwhelmed, in that same place, -because of his mother's sin,--the same Landri whom he continued to love -so dearly even while hardening his heart against him! He was too -entirely, too genuinely religious not to recognize the justice of a -higher power in this punishment visited, as the Book promises, on the -second generation. This view of the moral side of life harmonized -perfectly with his view of its social side. He was too humane not to -pity the young man whose toilsome and honorable career he had followed -from childhood. On the other hand, his indignation against Chaffin was -too fresh, too well-deserved.--And he was still ignorant of the wretched -creature's crowning infamy!--He could not give him the certificate of -honorable conduct which the son demanded. Moreover, he abhorred -falsehood. These diverse feelings were reflected in his reply, which he -did not make until he had taken what seemed to his visitor a very long -time for reflection. - -"Pierre," he said at last, addressing him in the familiar tone that he -had formerly used with him, "give me your hand." And he suited the -action to the word. "You are a very noble fellow. I have always known -it. I felt it more profoundly than ever while you were speaking to me. -But for the very reason that you are a very noble fellow, how could you -fail to realize the enormity of this appeal you are making to me? And -you say that you know my ideas! Remember, my boy, a son doesn't judge -his father. He does not institute an investigation concerning his -father. I shall not, by answering you, associate myself with what I -consider a deplorable mistake on your part, an aberration of the mind. -If I had spoken to any person whomsoever of my reasons for depriving -myself of your father's services, I might, by straining a point, permit -you to come and ask me to explain my words. But I have said nothing. -Your father left me because he mismanaged my affairs. That is all. It is -all that I have said or shall ever say about him, to you or to any one -else." - -"Mismanage has two meanings, Monsieur le Marquis," rejoined the -physician nervously; and, anticipating M. de Claviers' protest, "if I -insist it is because you have acknowledged my right to do so. Yes. You -say that you would permit my question if you had spoken to any one. You -meant by that, any stranger. You forgot your son. Monsieur le Comte de -Claviers came to my house yesterday afternoon to question me, in his own -name and yours, concerning certain papers which have been stolen, it -seems, from Monsieur Charles Jaubourg's apartment. He accused my father -of the theft, with my assistance. He probably knows now that he was -mistaken. But it is none the less true that such a suspicion justified -me in finding out upon what ground he could have conceived it. It must -have been upon what you had told him. He was under arrest when the thing -happened. He confronted me with that alibi when I questioned him. There -was nothing left for me to do but to apply to you. Tell me what you have -told him about my father. Is it unfair to ask you?" - -"My son is another myself," M. de Claviers replied. To learn, even in -this vague way, of the scene of the day before between the two young men -wounded him where his susceptibility was tenderest. What indications had -led Landri to invite an explanation which might well have been so -dangerous? It might arouse suspicions concerning the nature and -importance of the papers stolen at Jaubourg's. To maintain to the end -the rôle of a father on perfectly cordial terms with his child, the -marquis must neither ask a question upon that subject, nor seem to -disavow the young man's act. But the news affected him profoundly, and -his voice trembled as he continued: "You surely do not claim that I must -detail to you my interviews with Landri alone? Nor that I should take -you to my new man of affairs and inform you as to the details of my -receipts and expenditure? And observe that that is exactly what you -presume to demand of me! I excuse you because of the motive that impels -you. But let us stop here." - -He had risen, with contracted eyebrows and haughty bearing, thus -constraining his interlocutor to do likewise, and he pressed the -electric button on his desk. - -"I have told you that Monsieur Chaffin had mismanaged my affairs. -Wherein? How? That concerns him and myself, and us alone. I shall not -add a word. So that it is useless for us to prolong a discussion which -henceforth would have no meaning. You have your patients, and I"--he -pointed to the table--"have to finish this urgent task.--Garnier," he -added, as the maître d'hôtel for whom he had rung entered the room, -"show Monsieur le Docteur Chaffin to the door.--Monsieur, I have the -honor to salute you." - -"No, we will not stop here," said Pierre to himself, while yielding, in -spite of himself, to the extraordinary authority that emanated from the -old noble when he was in a certain state of concentrated irritation.--"I -am to go to Monsieur le Comte's apartments and get my father," he said -to the servant; "will you take me there?" - -As he followed the maître d'hôtel through the glass gallery which his -father had passed through a quarter of an hour before, another person -was on his way, by an interior passage, to that same room in which -Landri was talking with Chaffin. It was the Marquis de Claviers. He -wished to learn, and without loss of time, Landri's reasons for going to -Quai de Béthune, and whether he had at last discovered a way to solve -the mystery of the anonymous denunciation which had been a constant -source of anxiety to him for so many days. Thus it was that he knocked -at one door of the young man's smoking-room, at almost the same instant -that Pierre entered at the other door. - -This simultaneous double appearance, which had the air of being -concerted, almost extorted a shriek from the two occupants of the room, -between whom a scene had just taken place almost more distressing than -that between the marquis and Pierre. Their arrival brought about a -terrible dénouement. - -At the moment that they entered, Chaffin was seated at a table. He had -just laid aside a pen with which he had written upon an envelope before -him the following address: "Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp." -He was about to rise. The sight of his son caused him to fall back upon -his chair, and that of the marquis, the next instant, to spring up -again. He retreated backward, so demoralized by terror that his legs -gave way and he had to lean against the wall. - -M. de Claviers, thunderstruck himself by the presence of his former -secretary, and of his son, whom he had just left, gazed at them both and -at Landri. Then, addressing the latter,-- - -"I have to talk with you," he said, "when you have finished with these -gentlemen." - -At that moment his eye fell on the envelope lying on the desk. He -recognized his own name. He took it up and opened it. Chaffin had not -had time to seal it, a circumstance which made more striking the exact -parallel between that moment and another, when the betrayed husband had -compelled the adulterine son to read the proof of their common shame. -The envelope contained the three letters from Jaubourg to Madame de -Claviers stolen by the tutor, and, on a separate sheet, these lines in -his hand, written at Landri's dictation:-- - -"The wretch who, in a moment of insanity, sent an anonymous letter to M. -le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp, restores to him the other papers -mentioned in that letter, and, while asking his forgiveness, appeals to -his generosity not to dishonor him in the eyes of his son." - -The marquis read the note. He recognized on the other sheets the -detested handwriting of his wife's lover, his villainous friend. He -looked at Chaffin and said: "So it was you!"--Then he took two steps -towards him with an expression so threatening that the unhappy -wretch--ah! he well deserved that title at that cruel moment!--fell on -his knees, crying, "Pardon!" - -The doctor rushed between his father and M. de Claviers. The marquis -stopped, plainly struggling against himself, to refrain from revenging -himself with his own hands. At last, pointing to the door, he commanded: -"Go! go, I say!" in so imperative a tone that his former secretary, -still on his knees, crawled towards the door. His nerveless fingers had -difficulty in opening it. He escaped at last, while Landri said to the -horrified Pierre, who no longer needed to have any one tell him the -truth about his father:-- - -"Follow him. Do not leave him alone." - -"You're afraid that he'll kill himself," said M. de Claviers, when the -door had closed on the two men. "I suppose that he played that comedy -for you," he continued with a bitter smile. "It is not he, but his son, -who should not be left alone. Cowards live. It's the men of courage who -think of suicide in the presence of disgrace. And when one does not -believe in God! On that boy's account, I tried to control myself. I -could not do it.--But no," he continued, with a fierce energy wherein -the stern inheritance of a warlike race reappeared. "We are too much -afraid of suffering and of causing others to suffer. The grief of the -sons is the redemption of the fathers in this world and the next. We -must learn to atone for the sins that we did not commit, as we profit by -virtues that we never had." - -He had spoken as if to himself, and he seemed to have forgotten the -existence of Landri, who watched him pace the floor, silent now. -Chaffin's note and Jaubourg's three letters still lay on the table, -where he had left them when he rushed upon the traitor. The young man -trembled lest, when he emerged from that fit of excited meditation, the -sight of those sheets should increase the smart of the wound from which -his noble heart was bleeding. So that he was amazed by the calm tone in -which M. de Claviers, upon returning to himself and spying the papers, -said to him, pointing to them as he spoke: "Do as you did before!" He -resumed his walk while the proofs of the terrible secret were being -consumed. At last, halting in front of Landri, he said to him:-- - -"You have done what you promised. It is well. It is very well. I am -relieved of a horrible weight. We are entitled to think that all the -letters are destroyed. The Chaffins will not talk. They cannot talk. Our -honor is safe, thanks to you. Once more, it is well, and I thank you." - -"You thank me? O monsieur!" exclaimed Landri; and he continued, choking -with emotion: "If you really think that I have at least tried to satisfy -you, allow me to implore one favor--that you will hasten the time when -this pretence of intimacy that you have imposed upon me, that you have -rightly imposed upon me, shall come to an end. This life in society, -among all those indifferent people, is too hard. I haven't the strength -for it any longer. You must have seen that I have not shirked it. I -venture to say that no one can have guessed what I have suffered these -last weeks. But I am at the end. I can do no more." - -"And I?" said the marquis; "do you think that I am not weary of it, -too?--But it is true: the test has been a severe one. The world will -never dream now of supposing that we parted on a pretence. Your marriage -will suffice to explain everything. The author of that infamous -anonymous letter is unmasked and disarmed. We have nothing more to fear -now. We can put an end to it.--These are my wishes," he continued after -another pause: "You will write me a letter that I can show. You will -inform me of your purpose to marry Madame Olier, despite my prohibition, -and to employ such legal measures as the Code places at your disposal. I -don't know what they are, so you will specify them. You will leave the -house this very day, and let me know your address, so that I can -communicate with you at once in case of urgent need. I do not anticipate -such a contingency. Métivier, in conformity with my orders, should have -turned into cash by this time the property that you inherit from your -mother. It is fully understood that the share that she left me by her -will is to be added to it. I ask you to deposit the money at the Bank of -France, until further orders. In that way it will be easier for me to -turn over to your account, without intermediary, another fortune, which -you know about and which you accept. You have pledged yourself to do it. -Last of all, I ask you not to settle in Paris, so long as I last. It -won't be very long." - -"I will repeat what I said the first day," Landri replied: "I have no -wish but to obey you. As to the last point, I propose, not only not to -live in Paris, but to leave France, to undertake the farming business in -Canada. On my return from Saint-Mihiel, you said to me--I remember your -exact words: 'It is a horrible thing to me that the family you will -found will bear the name of mine.' It would be no less horrible to me, -knowing that that name is not my own. I cannot change it in France, -without causing people to seek the cause of such a resolution. By -expatriating myself, to engage in a new business in an absolutely new -country, I shall escape all comments. I intend to adopt one of the names -which belonged to my mother's family, and which no one has borne for -more than a hundred years. You spoke of legal measures. If there is any -possible means by which the title of Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp can -pass, after you, to some one of your young kinsmen, I will assent to it, -in whatever form you prefer." - -"You would do that?" cried M. de Claviers. The trembling born of an -emotion stronger than all his resolutions strangled his voice in his -throat. "You would change your name? But she--that woman--" - -"Madame Olier?" Landri interrupted. "I have told her of my plan. She -assented to it in advance, without asking for any explanation." - -"Yes," continued the marquis. "It is the truth. That is the true -remedy." He was no longer able to control himself, and his words echoed -his thoughts. "I saw it, from the first moment. But the suggestion could -not come from me.--Adopt another son,--who is not you? Never!--Ah!" he -continued, with increasing excitement, "I can truly say, like that widow -of the Middle Ages: 'You were stolen from me.'--No, I will have no other -son. The Claviers-Grandchamps will die with me. I shall be the last of -the name, as I am the last of the race. It is what they would have -wished, if they could have looked ahead. Our house will end, as it has -lived, nobly. By assisting therein, you have wiped out the insult. For -your sake, I can forgive.--We must do our duty to the end," he added, at -the conclusion of another pause, during which Landri waited, hoping for -a different word, a gesture, an embrace, a kiss. But the old nobleman -considered, doubtless, that he had said too much already, and, too, he -was doubtless afraid of himself, of that wave of affection which was -rushing from his heart, drowning every other sentiment; for he concluded -abruptly: "Go you to your goal. I go to mine. Adieu!" - -"Adieu," Landri replied. - -The marquis hesitated another second. He had his hand on the door-knob. -He opened the door and disappeared, without even turning his head. He -walked with the inert step that had characterized him since the ghastly -discovery had stricken him in his magnificent vitality--his head bent -forward, his back slightly bowed. When he was in his library once more, -and alone, his prostration was so complete that he let himself drop into -the first arm-chair within his reach and sat there an indefinite time, -gazing at--what? a portrait of Landri as a child that he had had in that -room for years. All that past of paternal love throbbed in his heart, -and he reflected that at that very moment the young man, who was the -object of his passionate affection, was preparing to go away, and -forever. - -But when he roused himself from that savage immobility, it was not to -return to the apartment where Landri undoubtedly still was. No. He took -from the table once more the bulky volume in which he had written the -history of his family, and opened it at the genealogical tree. He had to -unfold the enormous sheet on which were inscribed more than four hundred -names. The first two, Geoffroy and Aude, had above them the date 1060. -The blue eyes of Geoffroy IX, of 1906, embraced with a burning glance -that table which was, as it were, the imaginary cemetery of all his -dead. When he closed the book, he was calm. His hand traced, this time -without a tremor, the lines of a note which evidently represented a -decisive episode in a fully matured resolution. For he read it twice -before sealing it and writing the address on the envelope. - -"Is the automobile in the courtyard?" he asked Garnier, who appeared in -answer to another ring. "Let Auguste take this line to Monsieur le Comte -de Bressieux at once. If Monsieur de Bressieux is at home, let him bring -him back. If not, let him leave the note."--And, alone once more, "If -any one can resume the negotiations for the sale of the furniture of -Grandchamp with that Altona, he is the man," he said to himself. "Altona -will give four millions merely for the articles enumerated in Appendix -number 44. If I add all the rest, he will give five."--And he put in -order the papers on his desk, which were nothing less than a schedule -prepared by him of "the rest": plate, Dresden ware, weapons, books, -linen--in a word, all the furniture of the château.--"That wretched -money is to be returned. Suppose that, while I am waiting for Bressieux, -I write to Charlus to announce the marriage? Poor Marie! She loved -Landri. It's fortunate, however, that he did not love her as well. I -should have had to prevent their union. Should I have had the strength? -One has strength for anything when the honor of the name is at stake. -And all the great names stand together. The Claviers would not have -inflicted upon the Charluses, by my hand, the outrage of vitiating their -blood." - -As the suddenly evoked vision of the treachery restored his energy, he -began the letter to Marie's father which should justify his quarrel with -his supposititious son, in the eyes of the world; and this new upheaval -of resentment neutralized for a moment his misery at that parting. - - - - -X - -EPILOGUE - - -In the early days of March of this year, 1907, several of the guests who -had taken part, some months' before, in the last hunting dinner that the -châtelain of Grandchamp was destined ever to give, were assembled after -luncheon in one of the small salons of the hôtel Charlus. There were -Florimond de Charlus himself, and his daughter Marie, who had done the -honors of the repast, in the absence of her mother, who was perennially -ill, to the Sicards and Louis de Bressieux. With the coffee had appeared -little de Travers, the too intimate friend of little Madame de Sicard, -and the _alter ego_ of her diminutive husband. You will remember the -wretched pun on the size and names of the members of this family of -three: "The Three Halves." - -Elzéar de Travers, with his pink pug-nose, his pointed mustache, and -his great blue eyes on a level with his face, was a finished exemplar of -the peddler of scandal, who runs from club to club, from salon to salon, -with a "Have you heard the news?" ordinarily followed by the most -insignificant of tales. On the afternoon in question, he did not abandon -that habit. - -"Guess whom I met last night, on his way to England, at the Gare du -Nord, where I went to escort Lady Semley, who told me to give you her -compliments?"--He turned to Simone de Sicard, who smiled at -him.--"Geoffroy de Claviers, who is going there to buy horses!" - -"Doesn't he think himself sufficiently ruined, for Heaven's sake?" said -Sicard. "It seems that with the Jaubourg inheritance and the sale of the -pictures and furniture at Grandchamp, he still owes ten millions." - -"You ought to know all about it, Monsieur de Bressieux," observed Marie -de Charlus insolently, addressing the fashionable broker, whom she hated -twice over. As a young woman of noble birth and very proud of her rank, -she was, despite her "modernism," in a constant state of irritation -against those of her own caste who fell away either socially or morally; -and then too everybody who was involved, closely or distantly, in -Landri's marriage to Madame Olier, was insufferable to her. Now there -was a rumor, partly justified indeed, that, but for the subtle mediation -of the Seigneur de la Rochebrocante, the Marquis de Claviers would have -been unable to turn over to his son his mother's fortune. With the -slanderous imagination of a rival, Marie believed that, if that payment -had been delayed, the scheming Madame Olier would certainly have -preferred to delay the ceremony until the final settlement of the -accounts. She said to herself that Landri's eyes would have been opened -by such base conduct, that the marriage would not have taken place--in -short, all the follies of frantic jealousy. Bressieux had to pay the -bill. - -"I?" he replied, without irritation. He was not sensitive except when he -chose to be, and he was too dependent on the Charluses not to lower his -flag before the witty Marie. "It is true that I had the good fortune to -prevent poor Geoffroy from being robbed too outrageously in the sale of -the wonders of Grandchamp. Thanks to my advice, he got six millions in -all. Altona offered four, and he wanted to ask five. The tapestries -alone were worth eighteen hundred thousand francs.--This talk about ten -millions of debts is all fable. If you want my opinion, he is absolutely -free from debt, and has a good hundred thousand francs a year. Evidently -the blow was a hard one." - -"It seems that Landri, by that woman's advice, demanded interest on -interest," said Madame de Sicard. - -"I will never believe that of him," said Marie de Charlus hastily. "As -to her, it's true enough that she doesn't take very well. It's well -deserved. She'll have to work hard to get into society." - -"And so she won't try," rejoined Bressieux. "Geoffroy told me that the -couple were going to settle in America." - -"Aha! so Landri plays the _coup du 'ranch'_ on us!" said little Sicard. -"We know all about that. You'll see them coming back within a year, to -Paris-les-Bains, where life is so happy, even under the Republic. And -he'll present his wife, and we shall receive her, and we shall be jolly -well in the right. Between ourselves, the excellent Claviers has shown -no common sense in this whole business. One can't live in opposition to -his time to that extent." - -"Would you prefer that he should live in opposition to his name?" -interposed Charlus. To him, too, Landri's marriage had been an -over-bitter disappointment. "Upon my word!" he continued, "it's most -astonishing to me that Claviers' conduct, judicious and wise and -legitimate as it has been, should be criticized. And among ourselves! -But everything is going the same way, from great to small. Dine out, no -matter where: people to-day don't even know how to place their guests at -table. Claviers set a superb example." - -"I agree with you," said Bressieux. "If we do not defend our names, what -shall we defend?"--Then, with his characteristic dissembled irony: -"Evidently Geoffroy is ruining the market. But don't be alarmed, Sicard. -The title-exchange isn't in danger of being closed yet--even under the -Republic, to adopt your expression." - -"All the same," said Elzéar de Travers, coming to the rescue of -Simone's husband, "there's one pack of hounds less! And such a pack! How -it was kept up!" - -"And what a table!" said Sicard. - -"For my part," said Simone, "I am for the lovers. If I had been in -Monsieur de Claviers' place, I'd have scolded a little, on principle, -and then I'd have given one of those parties that he knew how to give." - -"Look you, my dear," interposed Charlus angrily, "when I hear you and -Jean talk like this, I wonder whether we oughtn't to long for another -'93, to bring you all to a realizing sense of what you are and what you -should be." - -"Oh!" laughed Madame de Sicard, "now you're just like my grandmother de -Prosny, who used to prophesy the guillotine every night." - -"I know," Marie de Charlus broke in, "and you replied: 'You hope for the -staircase of the nobles, but you'll get the wall.'--Wall or staircase, -it's always blood that flows, and I agree with old Claviers, let us try -to see to it that it's pure blood; and his grandchildren's won't be -that. He did all he could to prevent it, and he did well. That's what I -call _chic_ and not _chiqué_." - -And upon this conclusion of the "emancipated _gratin_," the conversation -took another turn, Bressieux having asked Simone, with an air of -indifference, whether she had seen the new play at the Français, in -order not to prolong the discussion of such dangerous topics. They -talked in undertones of a proposed marriage between Sicard's brother and -a Demoiselle Mosé, and the satirical personage almost regretted having -yielded to the temptation to bury his poisonous fang in the self-esteem -of the happiest of the "Three Halves." The commission he had received in -the second Altona deal--two hundred thousand francs, for the Chaffins -who are in society are more expensive than the others--had put him on -his feet for some time. But who could say? The future Sicard-Mosé -ménage might need advice about furnishing their abode. And so he tried -to repair with the young wife the bad turn he had done himself with her -husband by his epigram. He tried without energy, however. Contradictory -as it may appear, Geoffroy de Claviers' misfortune saddened him, despite -the two hundred thousand francs so quickly earned. He had pocketed the -money, but had actually made Sieur Altona pay another million. Moreover, -as there was in him a man of race, compared with the dealer, he had -admired the demeanor of the châtelain of Grandchamp during a trial of -which he alone understood the hidden side. In fact it was Jean de -Sicard's little attack on the chivalrous marquis that had drawn his -_mot_ from him; and while the salon discussed the actors on Rue -Richelieu, he was elsewhere in thought. - -"Claviers in England?" he said to himself. "To buy horses? Nonsense! He -probably wanted to see Landri once more. How he loved him! No one will -ever make me believe that he was not told the truth by that Chaffin,--to -whom the infamous performance didn't bring luck, however, for Altona -tells me he has had a paralytic shock. It's another piece of luck for -me, that shock. The rascal would have claimed a percentage, on the -ground that he baited the hook!" - - -Observers of the type of Bressieux, those disguised tradesmen, who earn -their bread--or their luxuries--by studying the characters of their -dupes or their rivals, really do possess a second sight. At the very -moment when these comments, neither very intelligent nor very foolish, -very kindly or very unkindly, were being exchanged in the Charlus salon, -another scene was taking place many miles away; and that scene was the -veritable conclusion of this tale. - -This dénouement had for its stage one of those spots where it seems -least likely that words of a certain sort can be spoken: a room in a -hotel at Liverpool, that city on the bank of the Mersey, the immense -mart of England's commerce, one of the extremities of a vast moving -street of steamships and sailing vessels, of which the other ends are -Boston and New York! City of docks and railway-stations, of smoke and -speed, panting with the travail of a world, with its irregular and -chaotic structures of brick and stone, built in haste, above which the -finest days spread only a mistily blue sky, dimmed by clouds of vapor. - -It was such a veiled, uncertain sky that Landri and Valentine saw -through the bow-window of a small parlor in that hotel, at which they -had alighted the day before. They were awaiting the time to go on board -the boat that was to take them in six days to New York, whence they were -to journey, via Montreal, to Ottawa, to prepare for their permanent -establishment. Little Ludovic had insisted upon going with his tutor on -board the steamer, which the husband and wife--they had been married ten -days--could see at the dock, within a few rods of the hotel. The huge -vessel was called the Cambria, the Latin name of the principality of -Wales. She was of thirty-two thousand five hundred tons, with engines of -seventy thousand horse-power; seven hundred and eighty feet long and -eighty-eight feet beam. Her vast black hull towered above the gray water -of the river, swollen by the rising of the tide. A floating palace, -pierced by innumerable port-holes, and dominated by four huge -smoke-stacks, reared its white walls above the waterline. Locomotives -whistled. Tram-cars ran along their electric wires, with a snapping -noise. Between the hotel and the landing-stage were travellers going to -and fro, giving orders, looking after their trunks, or hailing porters. - -Valentine had sent her maid on before, so that not even a package was -left in that empty parlor whose dark mahogany furniture emphasized its -depressing commonness. How far away they were, she from her homelike -little sanctuary on Rue Monsieur, he from the magnificence of Grandchamp -and Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré! That contrast was the anticipatory -reflection of the exile that Landri had desired and she had agreed to. -The melancholy aspect of their surroundings intensified the distress -with which the young man was weighed down. He was thinking of M. de -Claviers, and he said to his wife:-- - -"You see, he has not even given me a sign of life. If he had intended to -write he would have written to London. He knew my whole route, day by -day, hour by hour, but not a word, not a sign that he retains even a -little of the old affection!" - -"He retains it all," Valentine replied. She had taken her husband's -hand, and pressed it gently, as if to make the compassion with which she -was overflowing pass into his heart to whom she had given her whole -life. She saw him bleeding from a deep, deep wound, even in his -happiness, and she loved him with a love that was the more profound and -passionate therefor. "There is still an hour and a half before we sail," -she added. "Let us wait." - -"Wait?" rejoined Landri. "I have done nothing but that since that -horrible moment when he went out of the door without glancing at me, -without turning his head. I ought to have gone to his house and asked -for him, tried to see him." - -"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed. "If only I didn't give you bad advice when I -advised you simply to write! I had such a strong belief that we should -let him return of his own motion! But I shall hope till the last second. -You'll get a letter, a message,--something." - -They said no more, listening intently to the faintest sounds -on the staircase, echoing with the hurried footsteps of the guests -of the hotel, where people live after the fashion of a railway -station--between the swift ocean steamers like the Cambria, and the -boat-trains--"specials" as they are called in England--that run -constantly from Liverpool to London and from London to Liverpool. At -every such sound Landri had a convulsive shudder which Valentine soothed -with a warmer pressure. The steps did not stop at the door, and all the -visions of the past two months rushed back into Landri's mind, to -increase twofold the craving for another farewell from him whom, in his -thoughts, he still called his father. - -He saw himself once more, leaving the mansion on Rue de -Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, after their last, distressing interview, and his -quest of a furnished apartment in which to take up his abode for a few -weeks. He lived through the days which had followed, when he was -arranging the preliminaries of his marriage and his departure, avoiding -familiar streets and faces. Several episodes stood out more clearly than -the rest: visits to Métivier, one especially, when the notary, gazing -at him with such inquisitive eyes, despite professional discretion, had -spoken of the sale at Grandchamp--of a chance meeting with Pierre -Chaffin, who had turned his face away, an innocent victim of his -father's shame;--another with Altona, when the future baron had saluted -him with a familiar, almost patronizing, _coup de chapeau_, as from one -gentleman to another! - -He saw himself receiving an envelope directed in the marquis's -well-known hand, which contained a receipt for nearly three million -francs deposited to his account in the Bank of France. It was Jaubourg's -fortune. And he felt again the beating of the heart that he had had -when, after much reflection, he went to a priest at the church of -Saint-François Xavier, who was Madame Olier's confessor. What a -contrast to the morning when, jumping from his automobile, he ascended -the steps of the same church, to throw the chauffeur off the scent! He -entered the church on this second occasion, beset by more serious -anxieties than that of assuring the secrecy of his visits to Rue -Monsieur! He had gone thither to request the priest to be his -intermediary in an anonymous gift of that money to the "Society for the -Relief of Soldiers Wounded in the Armies of Sea and Shore." How proud he -had been and how hopeful, when, a week later, that difficult project -once realized, he had been able to send with his own hand to M. de -Claviers, in a letter, the documents which attested that investment! -This "French Red Cross" was still the army. How sad he had been when the -marquis did not reply! - -Nor had he replied to a second letter, in which Landri informed him of -his wedding and the date of his sailing. And the young man saw himself, -too, in one of the chapels of the same church of Saint-François, -kneeling before the altar with Madame Olier, in the presence of no -others than his wife's two witnesses, relations from the provinces, and -his own two, Captain Despois and Lieutenant Vigouroux. Last of all, he -saw himself writing to the Marquis de Claviers a last letter, in which -he set down the details of his journey: the date of his arrival at -London, the length of his stay and the address of his hotel; the date of -his arrival at Liverpool and the address of his hotel there, and the day -and hour of sailing; and he told him also the name he had chosen among -the ancient patronymics of the Candales--Saint-Marc. - -When he signed "M. and Mme. de Saint-Marc" on the hotel register at -London, for the first time, what a strange emotion had assailed him, -made up of relief and of sorrow together! And he had said to himself, -possessed still by the persistent image of the man whose son he had for -so many years believed himself to be: "The word of farewell that he -denied to Landri de Claviers, who was not a Claviers, he will not deny -to Landri de Saint-Marc, who, through his mother, is a genuine -Saint-Marc." - -Vain reasoning! That supreme sacrifice had not triumphed over inexpiable -resentment. And in the excess of suffering caused by that silence, now -evidently final, Landri looked at Valentine, who was looking at him. In -her travelling costume she was very slender and youthful. Her fathomless -eyes expressed such boundless devotion! Her fragile grace seemed to -appeal so for protection! And, drawing her to him, he held her long in a -close embrace, with the sensation that he could still live, for her and -through her. - -Strange mystery of memory! While his lips were pressed upon his dear -wife's, he remembered M. de Clavier's remarks concerning those exiles -who leave their city, "carrying their gods with them." In his -imagination he heard the "Émigré's" loud, clear voice saying those -words in his room at Saint-Mihiel.--Suddenly--was it an illusion?--he -thought that he heard that voice, in very truth, speaking in the -corridor. - -"Listen!" he said, grasping Valentine's arm. "Some one is coming. Why, -it's he!" - -"It is he!" she repeated, turning pale; and, as some one knocked at the -door, "I will leave you alone. It's better so." And, on the threshold of -the adjoining room, she turned, with her hand on her heart, to repress -its throbbing: "I told you to hope." - -She had hardly left the room when the door opened and, behind the -bell-boy, appeared the form of the Marquis de Claviers. Aged even more -in the last two months, his face more haggard and more hollow, he was -more than ever the Seigneur, the man of lofty lineage, who, wherever he -goes, is a Master. He was profoundly moved at that moment, when he was -taking a step so directly contrary, it seemed, to his recent attitude; -but he found a way to maintain, in his whole person, that species of -haughty bonhomie which was characteristic of him. He saw Landri, and -simply, without a word, held out his arms. The young man responded to -that gesture, which betrayed such deep affection, and they embraced, as -if they were still in those days when, as they rode together through the -forest of Hez, they believed themselves of the same blood, offshoots of -the same trunk, a father and son who might differ in ideas, but who were -bound together by a chain as indissoluble as their own persons. A father -and son! They had not ceased to be so in heart, and in that moment of -passionate impulse, after they had forbidden themselves to show their -affection during so many days, they listened to naught save that heart. - -"Ah!" said M. de Claviers, "you have not gone! I have come in time!--No. -I could not let you go away so. I could not. I wrote you. I prepared a -despatch. I sent neither. It was the sight of you that I craved--to hear -your voice, to speak to you once more. I resisted up to the last moment. -I knew that it would cost me so dear to lose you again! And then, when I -saw the hour for the last train for England draw near, after which it -would be too late, I held out no longer. I went to your hotel in London, -thinking that you might have postponed your departure.--However, here I -am and here you are. You have behaved so admirably! That very last act, -too--your refusal to keep that money! I shall at least have told you -again that I thank you. I shall have told you that I have never ceased -to love you." - -"I am the one who has to thank you," replied Landri, "for understanding -the appeal of my letters. It is true: to go so far away without seeing -you again was very hard. I would have endured that grief, like the -others, without rebelling. But I think that I did not deserve it. I, -too, have always loved you so dearly, revered you so--" - -"You deserved no grief at all," the marquis hastily interrupted. Then, -dropping into a chair, and in an attitude of utter dejection, "none at -all," he repeated, "and you were justified in thinking me terribly -cruel." - -"Cruel?" cried the young man. "Don't say that. Don't think it." - -"I do think it," M. de Claviers replied. "I felt that you were -wretchedly unhappy when we parted. You stood there, I saw, loving me -with all your heart, awaiting a word from me. I did not say it, because -I too loved you too well. If I had spoken to you then, I should not have -had the strength to go on to the end of what I had to do. That money -must be repaid. I must sell the treasures of Grandchamp. I must place an -indestructible barrier between you and myself, in the eyes of the world, -so that it might suspect nothing. I was obliged to stifle that paternal -feeling which I could not succeed in destroying. But it was I who formed -your character! If I had not been the heir of the Claviers-Grandchamps, -the depositary of the name, the representative of the race, I should -have held my peace for love of you when I received that anonymous -letter. If I alone had been involved, I would have swallowed the insult. -You would never have known what I knew. Because of them, in the interest -of their house, I had to act as I did. But I was able to measure your -grief by my own. And I had my dead to encourage me, while you--" - -"I had you," interrupted Landri. "I had your example. You say that you -formed my character. That is much truer than you have any idea; and I -myself did not know myself, did not understand to what degree I thought -as you think concerning matters of moment, until I was taught by this -sorrow. You remember that, in that conversation after the hunt, the last -afternoon of intimacy that we ever had, you spoke of the indestructible -connections, the unbreakable tie between ourselves and those from whom -we descend. And I argued with you. I maintained the right of the -individual to live his own life, to seek his own happiness. The instant -that I learned the secret of my birth, I realized how entirely in the -right you were in that discussion. Your right to demand satisfaction -from me, although I was not personally culpable, appeared to me so -clearly established! And so of my duty to give you that satisfaction, -entire, complete. I felt that the very quintessence of man is in this -solidarity between the present and a past which was his before he -himself existed. I realized all that nobility meant. All your ideas, -against which I had fought so long, revealed themselves to me in their -living truth. I made them my guide in the conduct which you are kind -enough to approve. When you said to me, 'For your sake I can forgive,' -what a healing balm you poured into my heart, and upon what an aching -wound! Even in my misery, I felt a peace of mind which has not abandoned -me. That is what has upheld me." - -"Ah, my child!" returned the marquis. "Yes, I can call you my child! You -talk of balm poured upon wounds, but who, pray, allayed the pain of my -wound a little, if not you? Your thoughts, your resolutions, your -actions--I have loved everything that came from you, and everything has -helped to prove to me that this at least had not been wasted--my efforts -during so many years, to inculcate my opinions in you, to make you a -man. Ah! I too have learned many things through this suffering. You say -that you fought a long while against my ideas. That was because, in -prosperity, they were mixed up with too many other things. Yes, I -yielded to too many temptations. I was too proud of my name, and too -fond of life. You might well have thought that there was more pride than -reflection, more emotion than reason in the principles whose real force -you discovered when the test came. I did not derive from them, when I -was fortunate, all that I should have done. In the rank in which -Providence had placed me, I did not see clearly enough the good that one -might do. Because of that I deserved to be punished, and, no doubt, my -dear ones through me. In a race which has endured for centuries, many -secret sins must have been committed, which demand expiation. I -interpreted this terrible misfortune in that sense. I accepted it and -offered it to God; and, as I told you, I forgave. And now," in a tone of -infinite melancholy, "I must offer Him my solitary old age.--How -solitary it will be without you! Without you!" he repeated; and, with -more and more emotion, "and yet, if we chose!--You spoke the other day -of my adopting a son. There have been families on the point of becoming -extinct that have prolonged their existence in that way!--I am -dreaming.--Suppose I should adopt you? Then you would not leave me. The -world, having known nothing of what has happened, would not know of the -secret compact between us. People would say: 'Claviers is crazy. It -wasn't worth while to make such an outcry, only to give way -finally.'--What do I care? I should have you. You would close my eyes." - -"No," the young man replied with extraordinary decision, "it is -impossible. One adopts a stranger, a kinsman, but not one like me." -Lowering his eyes, the child of sin repeated: "Not one like me! At this -moment it is your affection that is stirring and that speaks, not your -mind. These are not your--I make bold to say, our--convictions. To-day I -represent to you some one who is dear to you, and whom you are about to -lose. To-morrow, day after to-morrow, if we should be so weak, the thing -that I should soon come to represent to you again, would horrify you, -and me as well. I cannot consent. That name to which I have no right, -and which I bore so long, that stolen name, I will not take again, not -even from your hands." And, sorrowfully, he added: "Besides, even if I -had a right to it, I could not bear to live in France, now that I have -left the service. You say that you did not see clearly enough the good -that one in your station might do. The real truth is that, because of -that very station, you are condemned to inaction. But when you were of -my age, could a Claviers hope to see a government established in France -in which he could find employment? Such an expectation to-day would be -insane. And I need to be doing something. I long to work, to exert my -faculties. Where I am going, in that new country, I shall begin my life -anew, I shall found a family, without having to undergo the social -ostracism which seemed so cruel to me when I believed myself to be what -I was not. That again would prevent me from accepting, even if there -were not that falsehood, which you would never be able to endure. I -appeal to you yourself, to the head of the family, whom I have always -known as so unyielding, so irreconcilable, so hostile to any -compromise." - -"You are right," said M. de Claviers in a broken voice. "The Spirit is -strong and the Heart is weak! Let us say adieu then, Landri. If I miss -you too much, and if I live, nothing will prevent my joining you, -wherever you may be. And if I do not live!" He shook his aged head with -an air of supreme weariness. Then, as firmly as the other had spoken a -moment earlier: "Yes, I must learn to consider myself the last of the -line, to close the list worthily. You are right," he repeated, "too -wofully right! I shall have worn out my life in one long expectation, -always unfulfilled: the King come again, the Revolution driven out, our -houses restored, the Church triumphant, France regenerated, and resuming -her place in Europe, with her traditions and her natural frontiers--what -empty dreams! And nothing has happened, nothing, nothing, nothing! I -shall have been one of the vanquished. I shall have defended naught but -tombs. You told me so, justly enough; and, to end it all, this tragedy -in which my last hope is wrecked!--No, I cannot adopt you--that is true. -The Claviers-Grandchamps will die with me, and it is better so. They -will die as all the great families of France are dying, one after -another. We are passing away, like the old monarchy that made us and -that we made. But there will be no stain on the shield. I shall know how -to make a fitting end.--And now," he added after a pause, in the tone of -one who has made up his mind, manfully, and will lament no more, "let us -part. At what time does your boat sail?" - -"At half-past four," said Landri. - -"It is nearly four," exclaimed the marquis. "You must go aboard. Adieu!" - -He took the young man in his arms again and pressed him to his heart -with extraordinary force, but without a tear. Then, he seemed to -hesitate a second. An indescribable light of affection shone in his -eyes, and he said, almost in a whisper:-- - -"I should not like to go away without seeing your wife." - -"I will go and call her," said Valentine's husband, likewise almost in a -whisper, so profoundly moved was he by that last proof of an affection -which he thought that he had lost forever. To measure its depth, was to -measure the depth of the abyss of bitter sorrow into which that man had -descended, and where he was preparing to make a fitting end, as he had -said with sublime simplicity. - -When Landri reappeared, holding his young wife's hand, he was actually -unable to utter a word of introduction. She was very pale, very -tremulous, and with her noble, straightforward glance, as if to say, -"Read my heart," she looked at the _grand seigneur_, who was unknown to -her even in his physical aspect, but whose whole soul she knew. He gazed -at her for some moments, likewise without speaking. How could he not -feel the charm of that delicate, proud creature, whose every feature, -every movement, every breath revealed a nature ardent and refined, -loving and pure? And how could he not feel, in her presence, a reopening -of the secret, incurable wound? How could he not compare her with -another? But no. Those eyes could not lie. The graceful, trembling -woman, whose blue eyes were raised to his with such fervor and purity, -would be to him who had chosen her the faithful companion, the friend of -every hour, she who divines and soothes all cares, who supports every -noble effort. He could let Landri go away with her, without any -apprehension. She would know how to assist him in the heroic rebuilding -of a home, amid such a mass of ruins, which he was about to attempt! -Such was the thought that the old man expressed aloud, incapable at that -solemn moment of uttering conventional phrases, and obliged to refrain -from uttering others which would have been too true. - -"I was most anxious to salute you, madame, before you sailed. The past -is past. I see in you now only the wife of the man whom I love best on -earth. I desired to know to what sort of hands he had entrusted his -happiness. I know now, and it is a great joy to me, the last of my life. -I owe it to you." - -"And I, monsieur," said Valentine, "shall never forget this moment. We -should have missed your blessing too sadly! You bring it to us. That too -is a very great joy, and one which I needed, as Landri did." - -She had taken the marquis's hand in hers, and, with filial respect, was -about to put it to her lips. He drew her to him and kissed her on the -forehead--a kiss of respect, of affection, of blessing, as she had said. -He gave a last glance at Landri, a friendly wave of the hand, and left -the room, where the young people remained, side by side, stirred to the -lowest depths of their being by all that there was of human suffering -and loftiness of soul in that despairing but uncomplaining adieu. - -"What a great thing is a great heart!" said Valentine at last. - -"You understand now how hard it was for me to contend against his -influence in the old days, don't you?" said Landri. "And to think that I -shall never see him again on earth, perhaps!" - -"He'll be there to see you off," she replied. - -Three quarters of an hour later, in fact, when the Cambria began to -move, and as Valentine and Landri, leaning on the rail near the stern, -were watching the crowd on the pier, already some distance away, of -those who had come to take leave of the passengers, they espied at the -end of the pier a man standing apart from the rest, with his face turned -towards them, and in that haughty countenance they recognized the -marquis. He had stationed himself there to obtain a last glimpse of -Landri, and to be seen by him. At that distance, and in the misty -twilight, it was impossible to distinguish his features. The sea breeze -blew his dark cloak about him as he stood there motionless, in an almost -superhuman immobility; and although Valentine was by his side, -breathing, living, loving, Landri felt the chill of death creep into his -heart at the sight. The last of the Claviers-Grandchamps, standing there -on English soil, alone, on that foggy evening, watching all that he had -loved and had sacrificed to the honor of his name sail away into the -darkness, was in very truth the "Émigré," he who is not of his country -or of his epoch. The private drama, of which this station of the old -French gentleman on the planks of the Liverpool pier, was the crowning -episode, expanded into a broader and more pathetic symbolism. Behind -that living phantom arose the phantoms of all his ancestors. That heir -of a long line of nobles, whose race would die out with him, became for -a moment, in Landri's eyes, the incarnation of all the melancholy of a -vanquished caste. And what was he himself but another "Émigré"? Was -not he about to try to reconstruct, beyond the sea, an existence which, -with his fortune and with the name which the law recognized as his, he -should have passed upon his native soil peacefully and happily? He had -sacrificed that destiny, so enviable in the eyes of many people,--to -what? To a principle. It was to uphold that principle that he was -leaving his fatherland, ceasing to bear a name which was not his, and at -the same time to safeguard his mother's memory. Another remark made by -M. de Claviers in their discussion at Saint-Mihiel, after his refusal to -assist in taking the inventory, came to his mind: "One must sometimes -lay down one's life in order to keep intact the germ of the future!" -Landri realized all its force, and what a store-house of honor is -represented by a genuine aristocrat like him whose form was becoming -more and more indistinct in the distance. - -Bringing his mind back to his country, he reflected with much sadness -that France no longer employs those exemplars of an unchanging and -superior type. She paralyzes them by persecution. She degrades them by -idleness. She ruins them by her laws concerning inheritance. All her -efforts are directed toward destroying the conditions in which others -might grow great. - -The Cambria was about to leave the Mersey. The great swell of the -Channel rose and fell about the steamship's mighty hull. The Channel -lights pierced the thickening mist with a duller gleam. Around the exile -voices arose in a strange tongue, that of the rivals of centuries, who -have been wise enough to retain all of the past, the better to control -the present; and the ex-lieutenant mingled pity for that France which he -should never again make his home, perhaps, with pity for the old -nobleman for whom he should never cease to feel the affection of a son; -and he strained his eyes in a vain effort to see once more, across the -space that lay between them, the haughty and motionless figure that had -disappeared in the darkness--doubtless forever! - - - - -THE END. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEIGHT OF THE NAME *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The weight of the name</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Paul Bourget</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: George Burnham Yves</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 28, 2022 [eBook #68859]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Dagny and Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by Hathi Trust Digital Library.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEIGHT OF THE NAME ***</div> - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/weight_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h1>THE WEIGHT OF<br /> -THE NAME</h1> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>BY</h4> - -<h2 class="nobreak">PAUL BOURGET</h2> - -<h4>Author of "A Divorce," "Pastels of Men," etc.</h4> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><i>Translated from the French by</i></h4> - -<h3>GEORGE BURNHAM IVES</h3> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>Boston</h4> - -<h4>Little, Brown, and Company</h4> - -<h5>1908</h5> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h4>CONTENTS</h4> -</div> -<p class="nind">CHAPTER</p> -<p class="nind"> -I. <a href="#chap01">Landri</a><br /> - -II. <a href="#chap02">A Grand Seigneur</a><br /> - -III. <a href="#chap03">The Tragic Underside of a Grand<br /> -Existence</a><br /> - -IV. <a href="#chap04">The Tragic Underside of a Grand<br /> -Existence (<i>Concluded</i>)</a><br /> - -V. <a href="#chap05">In Uniform</a><br /> - -VI. <a href="#chap06">The Will</a><br /> - -VII. <a href="#chap07">All Save Honor</a><br /> - -VIII. <a href="#chap08">On a Scent</a><br /> - -IX. <a href="#chap09">Separation</a><br /> - -X. <a href="#chap10">Epilogue</a></p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>THE WEIGHT OF<br /> -THE NAME</h4> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap01"></a></p> - -<h4>I -<br /><br /> -LANDRI -</h4> - -<p> -The automobile turned sharply about the chevet of -Saint-François-Xavier. With an instinctive movement, Landri de -Claviers-Grandchamp seized the megaphone. He called to the chauffeur to -stop before one of the side entrances. The powerful limousin was still -in motion when he jumped out upon the sidewalk and disappeared within -the church, to reappear a few seconds later, by way of the main portal, -on Boulevard des Invalides. With the elegant and self-assured bearing -characteristic of Landri, with his charming face, at once soldierly and -thoughtful, which a proud, almost haughty mouth, beneath the slightly -tawny veil of the mustache, would have made too stern had not the eyes, -of a caressing brown, softened its expression, that childlike stratagem -could mean, but one thing,—the desire, to guard from curiosity and -comments a clandestine rendezvous. -</p> -<p> -It was true, but—a circumstance which would have made the officers of -the dragoon regiment in which the young count was serving as a -lieutenant burst with laughter—he had this rendezvous with a woman -with whom he was madly in love without having ever obtained anything from -her. What do I say? He had not even ventured, except on one occasion, to -speak to her of his sentiments. -</p> -<p> -How many elements in his life had conspired to make him a fop and -blasé: that face and that profession, his fortune and his name—one of -the best in France, which had lacked nothing but the éclat of great -offices at court! But Landri was born romantic. He was still romantic at -twenty-nine. In him, as in the hearts of all genuinely tender-hearted -men, emotion neutralized vanity. -</p> -<p> -He had met Madame Olier in 1903. That was the name of the woman in -question, a widow to-day, then the wife of one of his comrades. It was -now 1906, so that he had loved her for three years. It had never entered -his head that such perseverance in a dumb and unselfish devotion was a -delusion. He thought so less than ever on this warm and, so to speak, -languid morning of late November, as he went his way, drawn on, uplifted -by a proximate hope. -</p> -<p> -Although he had reasons for very serious reflection, the air seemed -light to him, his step was buoyant on the sidewalks of that ancient -quarter, of which he recognized the most trivial features. Behind him -the dome of the Invalides stamped the gold of its cupola on a pallid, -pearl-gray mist. At his right the slender towers of Saint-François -soared aloft in a transparent vapor. At his left the trees of a large -private garden waved their almost leafless branches over the enclosing -wall, and, as far as one could see, the populous Boulevard de -Montparnasse stretched away, swarming with tramways and omnibuses, with -cabs and drays. -</p> -<p> -In due time the young man turned into Rue Oudinot, then into Rue -Monsieur. There he paused before a porte-cochère, the door of which, -although it was ajar, he hesitated for some seconds to open. This door -gave access to a courtyard, at whose farther end was hidden one of those -dainty, oldish hôtels, pleasing to the eye, albeit out of style, of -which that street with its <i>ancien-régime</i> name contained some -half-score or more a quarter of a century since. Alas! they are -vanishing one by one. As soon as the owner of one of them dies, the -crowbars of the demolishers set to work. An aristocratic plaything of -stone is razed to the ground. In its place rises one of those vulgar -income-producing houses, on whose threshold one finds it difficult to -imagine the lingering of such a lover as this. To be sure, it is simply -prejudice. In the eyes of a man in love, the profile of his mistress, -espied in the cage of an elevator, would bedeck with poesy and -fascination the staircase of one of those monstrosities in brick and -steel which the Americans brutally call "sky-scrapers." All the same, -there is a more intimate, a more penetrating sweetness in a perfect -accord between the setting in which a woman lives and the passion that -she inspires. This sweetness Landri de Claviers had ecstatically -intoxicated himself with in all his visits to that hermitage on Rue -Monsieur. Never had he savored it more deeply than at this moment, when -he was about to risk a step most important for the future of his love. -</p> -<p> -He had come to Valentine Olier's house with the firm determination to -bring about a decisive interview between them, and to ask her for her -hand. If he had insisted that she should receive him at a most -unseasonable hour, he had had for that insistence imperative reasons -which excused him beforehand for his indiscretion. His timidity before -that day, and the rapid throbbing of his pulse as he finally crossed the -courtyard, did not come from an embarrassment of the sort that can be -explained. It was the sinking of the heart from excess of emotion, which -accompanies over-powerful desire in untried sensibilities. Naturally -refined, Landri had not aged himself prematurely by the abuse of -precocious experiments. To this young man, who was really entitled to be -so called, what awaited him behind the curtains of that ground floor was -the happiness or the misery of his whole life. But, we repeat, he hoped. -</p> -<p> -His eyes feasted themselves, as their custom was, on the lines of that -façade, so closely associated with the image of his Valentine. Ah! -would she ever be his? A reflection of her person illuminated in his -eyes that two-story building, charming in very truth, whose light -pilasters, modest decorations, pediment with balustrades, and niches -adorned with classic busts, presented a perfect specimen of the -architecture of the time of Louis XVI,—a composite style, antique and -pastoral, like that extraordinary epoch itself, in which a moribund -society played at idyls—awaiting the tragedy—amid Pompeian -architecture. -</p> -<p> -This hôtel had been the "folly" of one of the luxurious farmers-general -of that day. To-day the <i>petite maison</i>, divided bourgeois-fashion -into small apartments, numbered among its tenants, besides the officer's -widow, a retired magistrate on the first floor, and on the second the -head of a department in the ministry. Thus an elegant caprice, -originally designed for the suppers of a rival of Grimod de la -Reynière, found itself giving shelter to existences of quasi-cloistral -regularity. How gratifying to Landri was Madame Olier's choice of a -habitation so retired! -</p> -<p> -Left free and alone, at twenty-seven years, with an infant son, with no -near relatives, having few kindred in the world and a modest fortune, -Valentine had valued in that apartment the very thing that would have -disgusted so many women,—the charm of oblivion, of silence and of -meditation. On the other side the ground floor looked upon a very small -garden, adjoining others much larger; and as the dividing wall was -concealed beneath a cloak of ivy, that enclosure of a few square yards -seemed like the corner of a park. -</p> -<p> -As he pressed the electric bell, Landri was sure that the only servant, -answering the ring, would conduct him through the narrow reception-room -and the salon with its covered furniture, to a tiny room, looking on the -garden at the rear, which Madame Olier used as a second salon. She would -be there, writing, at the little movable table which she placed by the -fire or by the door-window according to the season. Or else she would be -reading, seated on the bergère covered with an old striped stuff, dead -pink and faded green, always the same. Or else her slender fingers would -be busy with her embroidery needle. Correspondence, reading, work or -music,—a piano which she rarely opened except when alone, told of -that taste of hers,—her occupation would be constantly interrupted -by a glance at the path in the garden, where her son Ludovic was playing. -Landri found therein an image of what the whole life of that widow and -mother had been during the year since she had lost her husband! Great -God! how dearly he loved the young woman for having thus proved to him -how justly he had placed her so far apart from all other women from the -moment of their first meeting! -</p> -<p> -Valentine was there, in fact, in the small salon softly lighted by the -morning sun which was just making its way through a last film of mist. -She was apparently engrossed by an endless piece of embroidery. But the -music portfolio, still open on the piano, and the stool pushed back a -little way, might have betrayed to the young man how she had passed the -time while awaiting his coming. Still another sign betokened her -agitation. She had not her child with her. Contrary to her custom she -had sent him out to walk at ten o'clock. Why, if not that she might be -alone with her thoughts? Her self-control, however, enabled her to -welcome her visitor with the same inclination of the head as usual, -friendly yet reserved, the same smile of distant affability. At most the -quivering of the eyelids betrayed a nervousness which was contradicted -by the even tones of her voice and by the impenetrable glance of her -limpid blue eyes. -</p> -<p> -Such women as she, with hair of a pale gold, almost wavy, with slender -hands and feet, with a tapering figure, and dainty gestures, seem -destined to allow their faintest impressions to appear on the surface, -one judges them to be so vibrant and quivering. On the contrary, it is -generally the case that no one can be more secretive than such -creatures, all delicacy and all emotion as they are. Their very excess -of nervousness becomes in them a source of strength. From their first -experience of the world they comprehend to what degree the acuteness of -their sensations renders them exceptional, solitary beings. By one of -those instincts of self-defence which the moral nature possesses no less -than the physical nature, they manœuvre so as to conceal their hearts, -in order that life may not brutalize them. They become, as it were, -ashamed of their emotions. They hold their peace, at first concerning -the most profound of them, then concerning the most superficial. And -thus they end by developing a power of external impassiveness which adds -to their charm the attractive force of an enigma, especially as this -intentional dualism, this constant watch upon themselves, this prolonged -contrast between what they show and what they feel, between their real -personality and avowed personality, does not fail to exert some -influence even on their manner of feeling and thinking. They are capable -of the nicest shades of discrimination, even to subtlety, when they are -pure; and, if they are not pure, even to stratagem, for the fascination -or the despair of the man who falls in love with them, according as he, -in his turn, is very complex or very simple. -</p> -<p> -Landri de Claviers-Grandchamp was both, for reasons which were connected -with the peculiar features of his destiny. Thus he had already suffered -much through that woman, and still had owed to her the most delicious -hours that his youth, darkened by an inborn and acquired melancholy, had -ever known. The first words exchanged between him and Madame Olier will -enable us to understand why, and at the same time what dangerous, almost -unhuman, chimeras can suggest themselves to a scrupulous sentimental -woman like Valentine, who loves love and fears it, who cannot determine -either to deprive herself of an affection that is dear to her, or to -sacrifice her self-esteem by abandoning herself to it, who becomes -agitated without losing her head, and whose pulses throb without causing -her to abdicate her reason. -</p> -<p> -But the hour had come to have done with all equivocation. The young -man's mind was made up. The young woman had read it between the -enigmatical lines of his letter. She read it in those eyes, whose -glances she had so often dominated in the past three years, simply by -her attitude. No earthly power would prevent Landri from speaking -to-day. She knew it. She knew what words he would utter, and she was -preparing to listen to them, and then to reply, perturbed to the inmost -depths of her being, and outwardly so calm in her mourning garb. She was -dressed as if to go out, in order to have a pretext for breaking off the -visit at her pleasure. The black cloth and crêpe gave to her delicately -hollowed cheeks an ivory-like pallor which made her even lovelier. -</p> -<p> -After the first words of commonplace courtesy, amid which she found a -way to slip in an allusion to an errand to be done before luncheon, -there ensued one of those intervals of dumbness that occur between two -persons at the moment of uttering words which cannot be retracted, and -which they crave and fear in equal measure. The crackling of the fire on -the hearth, and the ticking of the clock, suddenly made themselves heard -in that silence, which the officer broke at last, in a tone in which his -emotion betrayed itself. -</p> -<p> -"Doubtless you understood, madame," he began, "that it was a very -serious matter which made me presume to ask you to receive me at this -hour. I had no other at my disposal. I must start for Saint-Mihiel -to-morrow evening. I was able to obtain only a very short leave of -absence. My father awaits me at Grandchamp, where he is hunting to-day, -and you know how much importance he attaches to his hunt. I must be -there before the end, or run the risk of disappointing him. I succeeded -in catching the train at Commercy last night. I was at the Gare de l'Est -at nine o'clock. In an hour and a half by automobile I shall be at -Grandchamp. I tell you all this because—" -</p> -<p> -"Because you do not think me your friend," she interrupted, shaking her -head. "But I am, and most cordially. You have nothing to apologize for. -You have accustomed me to a too loyal devotion, which I know to be too -loyal," she repeated, "for me not to divine that a very important motive -dictated your letter. Tell me what it is very simply, as a friend, I say -again, a true friend, who will answer in the same way." -</p> -<p> -She had assumed, as she said these few words, a very gentle but very -firm expression. Her voice had dwelt with especial force on the word -"friend," which she repeated thrice. It was a reminder of a very -hazardous and very fragile engagement. Thousands of such engagements -have been entered into, since passionate men, like Landri, are able to -respect those whom they love, and since women secretly enamored, like -Valentine, dream of reconciling the emotions of a forbidden affection -with the strict requirements of virtue. The rare thing is not that one -suggests and the other accepts the romantic compact of friendship -without other development, but that the compact is adhered to. Absolute, -almost naïve sincerity on the part of both contracting parties is -essential, a sincerity which excludes all trickery on his part, all -coquetry on hers. There must also be a voluntary separation of their -lives, which does not permit too frequent meetings. He who says -sincerity does not always say truth. One may maintain sincerely a -radically false situation, may obstinately abide by it through mute -rebellions, through secret and long-protracted suffering, through hidden -anguish, like that the memory of which quivered in the young man's -reply:— -</p> -<p> -"A friend!" What bitterness those soft syllables assumed in passing -through those suddenly contracted lips! "I knew that, at the outset of -our conversation, you would shelter yourself behind my promise. I knew -that you would anticipate the sentences that I wish to say to you, and -that you would not allow me to say them. God is my witness, and you, -too, madame, are my witness, that I have done everything to maintain the -absolute reserve which you imposed as a condition upon the relations -between us.—Let me speak, I deserve that you should let me speak!" -he implored, at a gesture from Valentine, who had half risen. He put -such mournful ardor into that entreaty, that she resumed her seat, -without further attempt to arrest an avowal which her woman's tact had -foreseen only too plainly during these last days. Accustomed as she was -to control herself, her constantly increasing pallor, her more and more -rapid breathing, disclosed the agitation aroused in her by the voice of -him whom she had pretended to look upon only as a friend, and who -continued: "Yes, I deserve it. I have been so honest, so loyal in my -determination to obey you! Anything, even that silence, was less painful -to me than to lose you altogether. And then, I had given you such good -reason! I have reproached myself so bitterly for that madness of a few -minutes, three years ago! That I had confessed to you what I ought -always to have hidden from you, since you were not free, crushed me with -such profound remorse! Every day at Saint-Mihiel I pass the wall of the -garden where that scene took place. Never without seeing you again, in -my thoughts, as I saw you after that mad declaration, abruptly leaving -me and going back to the house, without looking back. And what weeks -those were that followed, when we met almost every day, and I did not -exist for your glance! 'She will never, never forgive me,' I said to -myself, and the thought tore my heart. I was sincere when I determined -to exchange into another regiment, to leave Saint-Mihiel; sincere when I -tried, before my departure, which I believed to be final, to speak with -you once more. I felt that I must explain my action to you, must make -you understand that no degrading thought of seduction had entered my -mind, that I must have been demented, that I had never for one second -ceased to have such unbounded esteem and respect for you! Ah! I shall be -very old, very cold-blooded, when I am able to recall without -tears—see, they are coming to my eyes now!—your face on that -day, your eyes, the tone in which you said to me: 'I have forgotten -everything. Give me your word that that moment of aberration shall never -return, and I will see you as before. I do not wish your life to be -turned topsy-turvy because of me.'—While you were speaking, I was -saying to myself—that hour is so vivid to me!—I was saying -to myself: 'To breathe the air that she breathes, to see her go to and -fro, to continue to hear her voice, there is no price I will not pay.' -And you marked out the programme of our relations in the future. You -said that the world did not place much credit in a disinterested -friendship between a man and a woman, but that you did believe in such a -thing provided that both were really loyal. I could repeat, syllable for -syllable, every word that you said that afternoon. I listened while you -said them, with an utterly indescribable sensation, of assuagement and -exaltation as well, through my whole being. It was as if I had seen your -very soul think and feel. Yes, I solemnly promised you then that, if you -would admit me once more to your intimacy, I would be that friend that -you gave me leave to be, and nothing more. That promise I have the right -to say again that I have kept. I declare that I would continue to keep -it if the circumstances had remained the same. But they have changed. -Ah! madame, if one could read another's heart, I would beseech you to -look into mine. You would see there that at the news of the misfortune -which befell you, I had no selfish reflection concerning that change. I -thought only of your grief, your solitude, your orphan child. So long as -the catastrophe was recent, I was ashamed even to glimpse a new horizon -before me—before us. But I cannot prevent life from being life. At -twenty-seven a woman is entitled to reconstruct her life without -offending in any wise the memory of him who is no more. On my part, I am -not breaking my plighted word when I say: 'Madame, the worship, the -adoration that I had for you three years ago, and that you justly -forbade me to express to you then, I still entertain. My silence -regarding my sentiments since that time is a guarantee of their depth. I -break it to-day, when you can listen to me without having the -protestation of the most fervent, the most respectful, the most -submissive of passions cause you remorse. What I said to you in the -garden I say again to-day, adding to it an entreaty which you will not -deny. I love you. Let me devote to you what I have left of youth, my -whole life. Allow me to be a support in your solitude, a consolation in -your melancholy, a second father to your son. Be my wife and I will -bless this long trial, which justifies me in repeating to you what I -felt on the first day that I met you,—but how could you have -failed to suspect it?—I love you, and I never have loved, I never -shall love, anybody but you.'" -</p> -<p> -This impassioned harangue, so insistent and so direct, bore little -resemblance to the one that Landri had prepared during the long waking -hours of the night and in the cold light of dawn, while the express -train of the Chemin de Fer de l'Est bore him away from the little -garrison town where his destiny had caused him to meet Captain Olier and -his charming wife. What diplomatic stages he had marked out for himself -beforehand! And he had hurried through them all to go straight to that -offer of marriage, put forth, abruptly, with the spontaneity that is -more adroit than all the prudence in the world with a woman who -loves,—and Valentine loved Landri. She loved him despite complexities -upon which we must insist once again in order to avoid the illogical -aspects of that woman's nature, loyal even in its subtleties, even to -the slightest appearance of coquetry. She loved him, but in a strange -ignorance of the elements of love, despite her marriage and maternity. -Her union with a man older than herself, arranged by her family, had not -caused her to know that total revolution of her existence, after which a -woman is truly woman. With her, affection had never been anything more -than imaginary. In the chaste and artless delights of this intimacy, -without caresses or definite words, with a young man by whom -nevertheless she knew that she was loved, and whom she loved, she had -found the only pleasure which her sensibility, still altogether mental, -could conceive. To tell the whole fact, she loved—and that friendship -had sufficed for her! It was inevitable, therefore, that at the first -attempt of her alleged "friend" to draw her into the ardent world of -complete passion,—and this offer of marriage, under such conditions, -was such an attempt,—she should throw herself almost violently back. -She ought, however, to have foreseen it, that step which would put an -end to the paradoxical and unreliable compromise of conscience devised -by her between her conjugal duties and her secret love. Yes, she had -foreseen it, and on the day after her husband's death. Her habit of -reflection, intensified by the monotony of her semi-recluse existence, -had led her to take an almost painful pleasure in a minute scrutiny of -the reasons for and against a decision, and she had ended, in the false -perspective of solitary meditation, by thinking solely in opposition to -her heart. She had ceased to see anything but the force of the -objections, the insurmountable difficulties, and she had taken her stand -with the party most strongly opposed to her passionate desire. With that -she had soothed herself with the chimerical hope of postponing from week -to week the explanation which had suddenly forced itself upon her so -imperatively. She came to it deeply moved and at the same time prepared, -overwhelmed with surprise and, as it were, armored rather than armed -with arguments long since thought out. She ran the risk thus of seeming -very cold when she was deeply moved, very self-controlled and -conventional, when she was all a-quiver. How near to weakness was her -borrowed energy from the moment that she began her reply! -</p> -<p> -"You have made me very unhappy, my friend,—for I shall continue to -give you in my heart that name which you no longer care for. I do not -reproach you. It was I who deceived myself, in thinking that your -feeling for me might change, that it had changed. Perhaps such a -transformation is not possible. I too have acted in good faith in -wishing for it, in longing for it, in hoping for it. You know it, do you -not?—Now that dream is at an end." She repeated, as if speaking to -herself: "At an end, at an end." And, turning toward Landri: "How do you -expect me to permit you to come here now, to indulge myself in those -long conversations and that correspondence which were so dear to me, -after you have talked to me in this way? One does not try such an -experiment twice. Three years ago I was able to believe in an -unconscious outbreak of your youth, in an exaltation which would soon -subside. To-day, I am no longer able to flatter myself with that -illusion. But on one point you are right. The circumstances are no -longer the same. If at that time it was my right and my duty to judge -severely a declaration which I should have been as culpable to listen to -as you were to make it, how can I blame you now for a step in which -there is no other feeling for me than respect and esteem? I have not lived -much in the world,—enough, however, to realize that the fidelity -of a heart like yours, prolonged thus and under such conditions, is no -ordinary thing. It touches me far more than I can tell you."—Despite -herself, her voice trembled as she let fall those words which signified -too clearly: "And I, too, love you."—"But," she continued, firmly, -"this interview must be the last, since I cannot answer you with the -words that you ask, since in that hand which you offer me I cannot place -mine." -</p> -<p> -"Then," he faltered, "if I understand you, you refuse—" -</p> -<p> -"To be your wife. Yes," she said; and this time her blue eyes beneath -their half-closed lids gazed steadfastly at Landri. Her delicate mouth -closed in a fold of decision. Her whole fragile person was as if -stiffened in a tension which proved to the lover the force of the -emotion that she held in check. She repeated: "Yes, I refuse. I could -find many pretexts to give you which, to others, would be good reasons, -and which should be so to me. I have a child. I might say to you: 'I do -not want him to have a stepfather.' That would not be true. You would be -to him, I am sure, as you said, a second father. I might dwell upon my -loss, which is so recent, in order to postpone my reply until later. -Later, the reason which makes me decline the offer of your name would be -the same, for it is just that name, it is what it represents, which -forbids me to abandon myself to a liking of which you have had too many -proofs. I shall soon be twenty-eight, my friend. I am no longer exactly -a young woman. I have reflected much on marriage. I know that if people -marry to love each other, they marry also to live and remain together, -to have a home, to be a family. For that it is essential that there -should not be, between the husband and wife, one of those unalterable -differences of birth and environment, which make it impossible that her -people should ever be really related to his.—Your name? It is not -only very old, it is illustrious. It is blended with the whole history -of France. There was a Maréchal de Claviers-Grandchamp who was a -comrade of Bayard, a Cardinal de Claviers-Grandchamp who was a friend of -Bossuet. Claviers-Grandchamps have been ambassadors, governors of -provinces, commanders of the Saint-Esprit, peers of France. Your house -has contracted alliances with ten other houses of the French or European -aristocracy. You are cousins of English dukes, of German and Italian -princes. You are a <i>grand seigneur</i>, and I a bourgeoise, a very -petty bourgeoise.—Do not you interrupt me, either," she said, -placing her slender hand on the young man's arm and arresting thus his -protest; "it is better that I should say it all at once. In all this I -am moved neither by humility nor by pride. I have never understood -either of those sentiments, when there is question of facts so -impossible to deny or to modify as our situation. I am a bourgeoise, I -say again. That means that my people lived in straitened circumstances -at first, then modestly. I consider myself rich with the thirty thousand -francs a year that they saved for me, in how many years! It is a fortune -in our world, in yours it would be ruin. When I walk in that quarter, -before those ancient hôtels which are still to be found there, on the -afternoon of a grand reception, I see their courtyards, the coupés and -automobiles waiting, the footmen in livery, all that luxury of existence -which you no longer notice, it is so natural to you,—and do you -know what my feeling always is? That if it were necessary for me to live -there, and in such fashion, I should be too much out of my element, too -overpowered! These are trifles. I mention them to you because they -represent a whole type of customs, an entire social code. Do not say -that you will not impose those customs on your wife, that you will -liberate her from that code. You could not do it. To-day, as a bachelor, -and because you are an officer, you have been able to simplify your life -a great deal. But your wife would not be merely the companion of -Monsieur de Claviers-Grandchamp, a simple lieutenant of dragoons, -stationed at Saint-Mihiel, she would be also the daughter-in-law of the -Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp, who lives in a veritable palace in -Paris, and who has a historic château in the Oise. He is a widower. He -would require, and he would have a right to require, his -daughter-in-law, with him and for him, to do the honors of those -princely residences. And besides, he would begin by not accepting me. -You have talked so much to me about him! I know him so well, without -having seen him. Not for nothing do you call him the 'Émigré.' So many -times you have exerted yourself to prove to me that he is not a man of -our time; that he has the pride, the religious veneration of his race -and of old France. And such a man would consent that his heir, the only -survivor of his four sons, should take for his wife the widow of an -officer who was the son of a physician, herself the daughter of a -provincial notary, who, before she became Madame Olier, bore the name of -Mademoiselle Barral? Never! To marry me, my friend, would be first of -all to quarrel with your father, and, more or less, with all your -relations and your whole social circle. What do you care? you will say. -When two people love, they suffice for each other. That is true and it -is not true. You would suffer death and torture that I should be -humiliated, even in trifles, that I should not have the rank due to your -wife, being your wife. I should suffer to see you suffer, and -perhaps—I do not make myself out any better than I am—on my -own account. People are so ingenious in all societies in wounding those -whom they look upon as intruders. If we should have children, would they -feel that they were really the brothers and sisters of my boy, of a poor -little Olier, they who would be Claviers-Grandchamps? And if—But -what's the use of enumerating the miseries comprised in that cruel, -wise, profoundly significant word—mésalliance. No. I will not be -your wife, my friend, and the day will come when you will thank me for -having defended you against yourself, for having defended us—dare -I say it?—But not effectively, for I could not prevent your saying -words which are destined to break off forever, for a long time at all -events, relations so pleasant as ours.—So pleasant!" she repeated. -And then, with something very like a sob: "Oh! why, why did you speak so -to me again?" -</p> -<p> -"Because I love you," he replied, almost fiercely. "And you! But if you -loved me, you would bless them, these differences between our -environments, instead of fearing them! You would see in the hostility of -my circle—I admit that I had not thought of it!—a means of -having me entirely to yourself. I should have heard you simply discuss -the matter and hesitate. But the coldness of your reply, this keen -analysis of our respective social positions, this balance-sheet of our -families spread out before me, calmly, coldly, mathematically, when I -had come here, mad with emotion, and thinking only of the life of the -heart!—I am more deeply hurt by that than by your refusal. I might -have discussed it and argued against your reasons. One does not discuss, -one does not combat indifference. One submits to it, and it is -horrible!" -</p> -<p> -"How unjust you are, Landri!" she exclaimed. It very rarely happened -that she addressed him so, by his first name. That caress of language, -the only kind that she had ever bestowed on him, and that so seldom, -came to her lips in face of the young man's evident despair. A woman who -loves can endure everything, conceal everything, except the compassion -aroused by a sorrow which she has inflicted upon the man she loves; and, -destroying, by that involuntary outburst of her passion, the whole -effect of her previous refusal, she added: "I! indifferent to you! Why, -of whom was I thinking when I spoke, if not of you, solely and only of -you, of your future and your happiness?" -</p> -<p> -"How happy I should be," he interrupted, "if, on the other hand, you -would think only of yourself, if you would have the selfishness of love, -its exigences, its unreasonableness! And yet," he continued with the -asperity of a passion which feels that it is reciprocated, despite all -manner of resistance, and which is exasperated by that assurance, "it is -true. You have some feeling for me in your heart. You are not a -coquette. You would not make sport of a man who has shown you so plainly -that he loves you, and how dearly! I said just now that you didn't love -me. At certain times I believe it, and it tortures me. At other times I -feel that you are so moved, so trembling—see, now!—Oh! by -everything on earth that you hold sacred, Valentine,"—he had never -before allowed himself that familiarity, which made her start like a -kiss,—"if you really regard me with the feeling that I have for -you, if my long fidelity has touched you, answer me. Is it true, really -true, that between me and my happiness,—for you are my happiness, -only you, I tell you,—between your heart and my heart there is -nothing but that single, wretched obstacle, my name?" -</p> -<p> -"There is nothing else," she replied, "I swear." -</p> -<p> -"And you expect me to bow before that, to give you up because I am -called Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp and you Madame Olier, and because my -social circle will frown upon the marriage!" -</p> -<p> -"It is not I who expect it," she replied, "it is life!" -</p> -<p> -"Life?" he repeated in a voice that had suddenly become dull and harsh; -"what do you mean by that? But what need have I to ask you? As if, ever -since my youth, I had not seen that same barrier always standing in the -path of all my impulses: my name, always my name, again my name! I shall -end by cursing it! I am a <i>grand seigneur</i>, you say. Say rather a -pariah, before whom so many avenues were closed, when he was twenty -years old, because he is called by that great name; and the woman he -loves won't have him because of it! Ah! how truly I shall have known and -lived the tragedy of the noble,—since my evil fate decrees that I am -a noble,—that paralysis of the youthful being, quivering with life, -hungry for action, because of a past which was not his own, suffocation -by prejudices which he does not even share.—Valentine, say that you -do not love me. I shall be terribly unhappy, but I shall not feel what I -felt just now, and with such violence,—a fresh outbreak of that old -revolt through which I have suffered so keenly, which I have always -fought within myself, and which goes so far, at times, as downright -hatred of my caste. Yes, I have been, I am now sometimes, very near -hating it, and that is so painful to me, for I belong to that caste, in -spite of everything. It holds me a prisoner. I know its good qualities. -I have its pride at certain moments, and at others, this one for -instance, it is a perfect horror to me!" -</p> -<p> -"Do not speak so, do not feel so," pleaded Madame Olier. "You frighten -me when I see you so unjust, not only to me,—I have forgiven -you,—but to your own destiny. It is tempting God. You speak of -barriers, of prison, of suffocation. For my part, I think of all the -privileges you received at your birth, and first of all, and greatest of -all, that of being so easily an example to others. If you could have -heard the remarks that were made about you when you came to -Saint-Mihiel, you would appreciate more justly the value of that name -which you all but blasphemed just now—and for what reason? I heard -those remarks, and I am still proud for you. 'He's the Comte de -Claviers-Grandchamp, and he works! He'll have three hundred thousand -francs a year and he passed his examinations brilliantly! He's a good -fellow. He treats people well. He has all the qualities of a leader of -men.'—You call nobles pariahs, because they arouse much envy. But -when they are worthy of their rank, what influence they can exert! And -all this is no longer of any account, because you can't bend to your -will the will of a poor woman, who, in ten years, will be -<i>passée</i>! And you will say of her then, if you recognize her: -'Where were my wits when I thought that I loved her so dearly?'" -</p> -<p> -"And if, ten years hence,—I still love her," said the young man, "and -if I have employed those ten years in regretting her! Suppose it should -happen that that woman's refusal were coincident with one of those -crises as a result of which one's whole life is transformed? Suppose I -had reached one of those times when a man has to make a decision of -tragical importance to himself, and when he needs to know upon what -support he can count?" -</p> -<p> -He seemed to hesitate, and then continued in the altered tone of one -who, having just abandoned himself to the tumult of his emotions, puts -constraint upon himself and resolves to confine himself to a formal -statement of facts: "You will understand me in a moment. I came here -with the idea of beginning with this. Your presence moved me too deeply! -I have told you that I was able to obtain only a very short leave of -absence, forty-eight hours, and that with difficulty. Our new colonel -does not agree with you about nobles. He is strict and harsh with them. -He made this remark about me the other day, because of my title and my -'de': 'I don't like names with currents of air.' Under the circumstances -he was not wrong in requiring me to return to-morrow night. Within a few -days, we know from official sources, there will be two church -inventories made in the district. And they anticipate resistance." -</p> -<p> -"Is it possible?" cried Valentine, clasping her hands. "Since the law of -separation was passed, I have never read about a scene like those at -Paramé and Saint-Servan without trembling lest you should be caught in -one of those cases of conscience of which so many gallant officers have -been the victims! I thought that at Saint-Mihiel everything had passed -off quietly and that the troops had not had to interfere. Besides, they -so rarely use in that business the arm of the service to which you -belong." -</p> -<p> -"They will use it this time," Landri replied; "we have been warned. It -is logical. Either the chasseurs or we will have to serve. Those two -regiments contain a considerable number of people who bear names 'with -currents of air,' one of whom is that same Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp, -who 'works,' who 'treats people well,' who 'has all the qualities of a -leader of men.' It is an excellent opportunity to break his ribs and -those of some others of his sort! The pretext is all ready: the two -churches to be inventoried are those of Hugueville-en-Plaine, and the -Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Montmartin. In the former there is an old -priest, revered for fifty leagues around, who has declared from the -pulpit that he will not yield except to force. You know the devotion of -the department to the Madonna of Montmartin. It is essential to act -quickly, very quickly, so that the peasants may not have time to -collect. Hugueville and Montmartin are a long way from Saint-Mihiel. The -cavalry is already selected. If the dragoons march, as my term of duty -comes at the end of the week, I have an excellent chance of being in the -affair." -</p> -<p> -"My poor, poor friend!" said the young woman, enveloping the officer in -a glance eloquent with the affection which she had sworn so often to -conceal from him; "so you, too, are going to be forced to leave the -army, of which you are so fond, and in which so fine a place is in store -for you—" -</p> -<p> -"I shall not leave it," he interrupted; and his face was, as it were, -frozen in an expression so stern that Valentine was amazed by it. -</p> -<p> -"What do you mean?" she asked. -</p> -<p> -"That I have questioned myself closely, and have not found in my -conscience what my comrades of whom you speak have found in theirs. They -were believers, and I—you know too well that I have doubts which I do -not parade. I shall have to execute certain orders with repugnance. But -repugnance is not scruple. I shall go ahead. I shall not leave the -army." -</p> -<p> -"Even if it is necessary to order your men to break down the door of a -church?" -</p> -<p> -"I shall give them that order." -</p> -<p> -"You!" she cried. "You—" -</p> -<p> -"Finish your sentence," he rejoined with a still more gloomy expression. -"'You, a Claviers-Grandchamp!' You dare not say the word. You think it, -you have it on the end of your lips. In another than myself, you would -consider it perfectly natural—you above all, who know our -profession—that he should execute, in my frame of mind, a military -order, and that he should see, in the taking possession of the church of -Hugueville or Montmartin, simply a matter of duty to be done. In me you -do not admit it. Why? Again, because of my name! And you are surprised -that I break out in explosions like that of a moment ago against -a servitude of which I alone know the weight!—Oh, well!" he -continued, with increasing wrath, "it is precisely because I am a -Claviers-Grandchamp that I don't propose to leave the army. I propose to -do my duty. You hear, <i>to do my duty</i>, not to be a useless idler, a -rich man with a most authentic coat-of-arms on his carriages. I do not -propose, for the purpose of handing down an example for which I am not -responsible, to undo the work of my whole youth, to become an 'Émigré' -within the country, like so many of my kinsmen, so many of my -friends,—like my father!" -</p> -<p> -"You are not going to deny him, him too!" she implored. "You loved him, -you admired him so much!" -</p> -<p> -"I love him and admire him still," replied the young man in a tone of -the utmost earnestness; "yes, I admire him. No one knows better than I -his great qualities and what he might have been. What a soldier! He -proved it during the war. What a diplomatist! What an administrator! -What a Councillor of State! And he is nothing. Nothing, nothing, -nothing! Why, it is the whole tragedy of my thoughts, the evidence of my -father's magnificent gifts, paralyzed by his name, solely by his name! -Since I have become observant, I have seen that he, intelligent, -generous, straightforward as he is, makes no use of his energies, takes -part in none of the activities of his time. And yet there is a -contemporaneous France. He is in it, but not of it. It will have none of -him, who will have none of it. He will have passed his youth, his -maturity, his old age, in what? In taking part in a pompous parade of -the <i>ancien régime</i>, what with his receptions at Paris and Grandchamp, -his stag-hunting, and the playing the patron to an enormous and utterly -unprofitable clientage, of low and high estate, who live on his luxury -or his income. I felt the worthlessness of all that too soon; he will -never feel it. He is deceived by a mirage. He is close to a time when -the nobility was still an aristocracy. My grandfather was twenty-six -years old in 1827, when he succeeded to my great-grandfather's peerage, -and my great-grandfather was colonel of the dragoons of Claviers before -'89. For there were dragoons of Claviers-Grandchamp as there were of -Custine and Jarnac, Belzunce and Lanan. They are far away. But in my -father's eyes all those things so entirely uprooted and done away with -are still realities. He is in touch with them. He has known those who -saw them. As a little boy he played on the knees of old ladies who had -been at court at Versailles. One would say that that past fascinates him -more and more as it recedes. To me it is death, and I desired to live. -That was the motive that led me to enter the army. Indeed, I had no -choice. All other careers were closed to the future Marquis de -Claviers-Grandchamp.—These are the privileges you spoke of just now. -I let you have your say.—Yes, closed. Foreign affairs? Closed. My -father would have been welcomed by the Empire at least. To-day they no -longer want us. The Council of State? Closed. The government? Closed. Can -you imagine a nobleman as a prefect? They were under Napoleon and the -Restoration. The liberal professions? Closed. Though a noble had the -genius of a Trosseau, a Berryer, or a Séguin, no one would have him to -treat a cold in the head, to try a case about a division fence, or to -build a foot-bridge. Commerce? Closed. Manufacturing? Closed, or -practically so. To succeed in it we nobles must have a superior talent -of which I, for my part, have never been conscious. Politics? That is -like all the rest. People blame nobles for not taking up a profession! -They forget that they are excluded from almost all, and the others are -made ten times more difficult by their birth. And you would have me not -call them pariahs! I say again, I resolved not to be one. The army was -left. I prepared at Saint-Cyr, not without a struggle. There at least I -knew the pleasure of not being a creature apart, of feeling that I was a -Frenchman like the others, of not being exiled from my time, from my -generation, from my fatherland; the delight of the uniform, of touching -elbows with comrades, of obeying my superiors and of commanding my -inferiors. That uniform no one shall tear from me except with my life. -In losing it I should lose all my reasons for living.—All, no, since -I love you. I wanted to speak to you to-day to learn whether I shall keep -you in the trial that is in store for me. It will have its painful -sides!—Now that you know what the crisis is that I am on the point of -passing through," he added, "will you still answer no as you did a -moment ago? I have no pride and I ask you again, will you be my wife? -Not the wife of the Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp, whose father and whose -environment you dread, but of a soldier with whom that environment will -have no more to do, whom his father will have spurned? If I should ever -have superintended the taking of a church inventory, it will arouse in -the mothers another sort of indignation than for a mésalliance, as you -call it, and as I do not call it. If I have you, the wound will bleed, -doubtless, but I shall have you. You and my profession, my profession -and you, those are enough to make me very strong." -</p> -<p> -"You have disturbed me too profoundly," said Valentine. "I no longer -know anything. I do not see clear within myself. I have felt your -suffering too keenly. Mon Dieu! when I received your letter, I did guess -what you wanted to speak to me about. I did not guess everything. I had -taken a resolution. I believed that I was sure of keeping to it. In the -face of your trouble I can not.—Listen. Be generous Do not urge me -any further. Give me credit for the answer that you ask. I told you just -now that I could not receive you any more after this. I have no pride, -either. I withdraw that also. As you will pass through Paris again -to-morrow, returning to Saint-Mihiel, come again to see me. I shall have -reflected meanwhile. I shall be in a condition to answer otherwise than -under the impulse of an emotion which discomposes me. Oh! why, in all -the talks we have had together in these last three years, have you never -told me so much about all these intimate details of your life? I would -have helped you—I would have tried, at all events." -</p> -<p> -"That is another of the misfortunes of the noble," Landri replied. -"There is one subject that he can never broach first, the precise -subject of his nobility. But calm yourself, I implore you, as I do -myself. See. It is enough that you do not repeat the 'never' of a few -moments ago, for me to recover my self-control. I will be here -to-morrow, and if you still cannot answer me, I will wait. I have seen -that you pity me, understand me. That is one piece of good fortune which -wipes out many disappointments! Am I as you would have me? Do I speak to -you as you wish?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes," she replied, more touched than she chose now to betray, by this -sudden softening, this return of submissive affection after his bursts -of passion. "But," she insinuated, "if you were really as I would have -you, you would let me give you some advice." -</p> -<p> -"What is it?" he inquired anxiously. -</p> -<p> -"To confide in your father. Yes, to talk with him of your plans,—of -me if you think best,—but first of all, and at any cost, of your -apprehension on the subject of these impending inventories. You owe it -to him," she insisted at a gesture from the young man. "I say nothing of -the bond that binds together the members of the same family, in order -not to return to that question of the name, although bourgeois and -nobles are equal when the common honor is involved. You owe it to him -from respect for his noble heart. He loves you. A determination so -opposed to his wishes is likely to cause him very deep sorrow. He must -not learn it first from another than you, so that he may not misconstrue -your motives. You must tell him what they are, and even if he blames -them, at all events he will know that you deserve his esteem. I know it -well, I who am a believer, and to whom that proceeding will be so -grievous if you carry it out. Ah! how earnestly I will pray God to spare -us, your father and me, that trial! But you must speak to Monsieur de -Claviers. You realize yourself that you must, don't you?"' -</p> -<p> -"I will try," replied the young man, whose eyes once more expressed -genuine distress. "You do not know him, and what an imposing effect he -has, even on me. I ought to say, especially on me, since I can read his -heart so well. But you are right, and I will obey you." -</p> -<p> -"Thanks," she said, rising. "And now think that you must not prepare him -to receive in bad part what you have to say, by displeasing him. Since -he was urgent that you should come to Grandchamp for this hunt, you must -go. You must do it for my sake, too, for I need a little rest and -solitude. Besides you still have to lunch, and it is quarter to -twelve."—The clock of a near-by convent struck three strokes, whose -tinkling cadence reached the little parlor over the trees of the garden. -The clock on the mantel-piece also emitted three shrill notes.—"You -have just time." -</p> -<p> -"With the automobile I shall be at Grandchamp in an hour and a half," he -replied. "But I mean to continue to be obedient, as obedient as I have -been rebellious." He had taken the young woman's hand and he pressed it -to his lips as he added: "I forgot. I have to stop on Rue de Solferino -to inquire for a friend of my father who is very ill. It won't take very -long." -</p> -<p> -Valentine Olier withdrew her fingers with such a nervous movement that -Landri could not help exclaiming:— -</p> -<p> -"Why, what's the matter?" -</p> -<p> -"Nothing," said she. "Rue de Solferino? Then it's Monsieur Jaubourg, -this sick friend? it is to Monsieur Jaubourg's that you are going?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes. How do you know his name?" And then, answering his own question, -"To be sure, I have been to his house several times on leaving you. I -have talked about him to you, and rather unkindly. I am sorry now. He -has never shown much liking for me, and when I wanted to enter -Saint-Cyr, he did much to excite my father against me. I bore him a -grudge for it. But that was long ago, and he is mixed up in so many -memories of my childhood! The news of his illness touched me. According -to my father's despatch which I found at the house, asking me to go to -see him, he is dying." -</p> -<p> -"He is dying!" she echoed. "Mon Dieu! I hope you will not be admitted. -In your present state of wounded sensibility, that visit will be too -trying, and it's of no use. Promise me that you won't try to see him!" -</p> -<p> -"Dear, dear friend!" exclaimed Landri, bestowing a second kiss on -Valentine's clenched hand, "I tell you again that you do not know how -completely you have restored my tranquillity, nor how brave I should be -at this moment before the worst trials. And this visit would not be a -trial to me. But I will manage to do what you wish, even in so -unimportant a matter. I shall deserve no credit for it. I prefer not to -place any too painful image between what I feel here"—he pointed to -his heart—"and my return—to-morrow. How far away it is, and yet -so near!" -</p> -<p> -"Until to-morrow, then," she rejoined with a half smile, as to which he -could not divine that it was forced. "Come at two o'clock as -usual,—and now, adieu." -</p> -<p> -"Adieu!" he said. Instinctively he drew near to her. In his eyes blazed -a gleam of passion instantly subdued by her eyes. He repeated "Adieu!" -in a voice stifled by the effort he made to control himself and not to -give way to his ardent longing to cover with kisses that fair hair, that -pure brow, that quivering mouth. -</p> -<p> -He rushed from the salon. She listened to the young man's step as he -passed through the adjoining room, then through the reception-room and -the street door, which opened and closed. When he had gone from the -house, and doubtless from the street, a long while, she was still on the -same spot and in the same attitude, steadfastly contemplating her -thoughts. What she saw was not the refined and soldierly profile of the -young man whom she loved, who loved her, and whose wife she <i>knew</i> now -that she would be. No, she saw herself at Saint-Mihiel, a very long time -before. She fancied that she was living through that hour again. Landri -had just joined the regiment. Valentine had a friend, one Madame Privat, -the wife of one of the officers of the garrison. On several occasions -she had fancied that that friend was extraordinarily cold to the -newcomer. Inconsiderately enough she had asked her—she could hear -herself putting the question: "Monsieur de Claviers-Grandchamp seems so -antipathetic to you. Why is it?" And she could hear Marguerite Privat -reply:— -</p> -<p> -"I admit it, but it's an old, a very old story. We have a distant -cousin, a Monsieur Jaubourg, of whom we used to see a great deal. I say -we; I should say my parents. They had a little plan for having him marry -one of my aunts. Suddenly the relations between us lost their warmth. -The marriage didn't take place. This coldness dates from the day that he -became intimate with the Claviers. He had, at all events my parents -thought so, a passion for Madame de Claviers. They even believed that -there was a liaison. In families many things are known that the public -doesn't understand. He seemed to avoid us. My parents did not seek a -reconciliation which would have seemed to be based on self-interest. -Monsieur Jaubourg is the son of a broker and very rich. I witnessed my -father's grief from this rupture, which was the cause of a very unhappy -union contracted by my aunt out of spite. I have always blamed Madame de -Claviers for it, perhaps unjustly. The sight of her son stirs those -memories and is painful to me." -</p> -<p> -Yes, that was long, long ago, and lo! Madame Olier found anew in her -heart the melancholy sensation with which Madame Privat's words had -suddenly oppressed her. Must it be that she loved Landri even then, -unconsciously? The truth of that confidence was guaranteed both by the -character of her who made it and by the chance that led to it. But -perhaps it was all a matter of chance. So that Madame Olier did not -believe in it altogether. However, she had retained an ineradicable -doubt. How often she had wondered whether the young man's mother had -really made a misstep, and whether he was in danger of ever hearing of -it! She had had a little shiver every time that he had mentioned the -name of Jaubourg, by chance, in their conversations; and deeply stirred -as she was, all those complex and confused sensations had suddenly -reawakened when he had spoken of his proposed visit to Rue de Solferino. -She had fancied him at the bedside of a sick man who, in his last -moments, would perhaps let a terrible secret escape his lips! Her -apprehension had been so great that an impulsive entreaty had followed, -most imprudent if the relations between Jaubourg and the late Marquise -de Claviers-Grandchamp had really been culpable! -</p> -<p> -"I am mad," she said, rousing herself from the sort of waking dream, -which had reproduced with the detail of an hallucination that brief -scene, her apartment at Saint-Mihiel, Madame Privat's face, her voice, -her very words. "If Monsieur Jaubourg had been Madame de Claviers' -lover, he would not have continued to be Monsieur de Claviers' friend -after her death. If only my movement and my exclamation did not arouse -suspicion in Landri's mind! I should never forgive myself. No. He is so -honest, so straightforward. He has too noble a heart to imagine in -others the evil that it would be a horror to him to commit. If he will -only speak to his father about that possibility of an expedition against -a church! He promised. He will speak to him. His father will prevent him -from following out that shocking purpose. For my part, I cannot. I love -him too well. Mon Dieu! how I love him! how I love him! I defended -myself too long. Ah! I feel that I am all his, now!" -</p> -<p> -And as, at that moment, she heard laughter through the partition, -announcing little Ludovic's return, she opened the door to call her -child, and, pressing him to her heart, she embraced him frantically, to -prove to herself that this love to which she was on the point of -abandoning herself, by promising to become the wife of a second husband, -would take nothing from the son of the first; and she said to him:— -</p> -<p> -"You know that your mother loves you, you know it, tell me that you know -it." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap02"></a></p> - -<h4>II -<br /><br /> -A GRAND SEIGNEUR -</h4> - -<p> -Madame Olier's prevision was just: that little unthinking gesture, as of -a hand extended to prevent a fall, was destined to be one of the signs -which should arouse in Landri the most painful of ideas, but not until -later. That youthful heart—Valentine had read it accurately in this -respect, as well—was too noble not to entertain an instinctive -repugnance for suspicion, that calumny of the mind. How could he have -made an exception in his mother's case? He had never ascribed a criminal -motive, even for a second, nor imagined that any one could ascribe such -a motive to the assiduities of one of the intimate friends of their -family. The tears that he had shed on Madame de Claviers-Grandchamp's -death had been the loving, sincere tears of a son, with no alloy in his -veneration. And so, while he returned from Rue Monsieur to Place -Saint-François, to get his automobile, no suspicion entered his mind. -The imprudent entreaty that his friend had addressed to him not to see -the invalid on Rue de Solferino was only a proof of an affection a -little too easily disturbed, and he was the more touched by it. -</p> -<p> -"How I love her!" he exclaimed, echoing, and conscious of it, the -passionate sigh which she, on her side, was breathing toward him. "And -she loves me, too. She fights against it still, but I understood it, I -saw it, I know it. I know that she will be my wife.—My wife!" he -repeated, with an intimate quiver of his whole being which made him -close his eyes. Suddenly Valentine's image brought before his eyes that -of his father, and the memory of the undertaking he had entered into -abruptly crushed that outburst of joy. "She is right," he said to -himself, without transition, mentally repeating the very words that she -had used. "I owe it to him to speak both of her and of all the rest. I -owe it to him from respect for his noble heart. I will do it." -</p> -<p> -The bare thought of that explanation oppressed the young man with an -agony of timidity. He had always suffered from it in the presence of -that man whose name he bore, whose heir he was, whom he loved, and by -whom he was loved, and he had never been able to open his heart to him -fully, to explain himself concerning his inmost thoughts. His character, -which was very manly in respect to important decisions, but extremely -sensitive, and consequently easily disconcerted in its outward -manifestations, had always been taken by surprise as it were by that of -the marquis, so unhesitating, so dominating, so impervious to argument. -His resistance to this moral despotism was not altogether conscious. It -was that which incited him in his constant effort not to be an -"émigré," as he said, to make himself useful, to belong to his own time, -"to do his duty"—another of his phrases. We must repeat it. There -are none more just. Many another young man of his class has felt, as he -did, that magnanimous and praiseworthy appetite for efficient and -beneficent action. Many have, like him, tried to rebel against the -ostracism which France, the offspring of the Revolution, practises, by -her customs as well as by her laws, against the old families. They have, -like him, stumbled over obstacles. They have rarely felt them, as he -did, as tragedies. This excessive and morbid view of his destiny -betrayed in Landri a lack of equilibrium, of certainty. In truth, if, in -certain directions, his ideas were absolutely opposed to those of his -father, in others he underwent a veritable hypnotism at the hands of -that powerful personality, and he was very near the point of doubting -himself before an irreconcilability which he had not dared really to -face but once, when it was a question of entering Saint-Cyr. His mind -had been developed by reading, observation, reflection, all solitary, -constantly held in check by the loud speech, the imperious intelligence, -the steadfast and logical convictions, in a word, the decision, of the -marquis. Landri, too, had decision, but by fits and starts, and when he -had provided himself with very well-considered reasons therefor. His -father had it always, gaily, buoyantly, as he walked, as he breathed, by -an unfolding of his inward energy, if one may say so, which was as -natural in him as the muscular development is in a lion. The prestige of -that opulent and powerful nature maintained so complete a domination -over the temperament, more refined perhaps, but less masterful, of his -son, that he had been on the point of equivocating when Valentine asked -him for that promise. He had given it, however. His lover's pride would -have been too deeply humiliated to confess a weakness of which he was -now sensible once more. -</p> -<p> -"Yes," he repeated, "I must speak to him—but how? Of her? That will -be very difficult, but let him once see her and my cause will be won. She -is so refined, so pretty, such a lady!—Of the inventories? It is -impossible. She understood me at once, devout as she is. Their religion -is not the same. To her the Church is the faith. Those who haven't it -are simply to be pitied. To him the Church is like the monarchy, like -the nobility, the essential condition of public order. It is the -hierarchy that guarantees all the others. What answer can I make? I -should think as he does if our time were not our time." -</p> -<p> -Soliloquizing thus he reached the side of the Church of -Saint-François-Xavier, at the spot where he had left his automobile. -His chauffeur, when he did not return, had left his car in the care of -one of the numerous idlers who transform that isolated square into a -club of bicyclists and tennis-players, and had gone to refresh himself -at one of the wine-shops in the neighborhood. -</p> -<p> -"Deuce take it!" said the young man ill-humoredly, "Auguste isn't here! -I shall never get to Grandchamp. I sha'n't have any lunch, that's all," -he concluded. "But how is the machine?" and while the small boy who had -been left in charge of the vehicle ran off to fetch the conscienceless -chauffeur, he began to examine the different parts of the machine with a -connoisseur's eye. That too was one of the small points upon which he -had based his self-esteem as a "modernist." He understood how to repair -and handle his automobile as well as a professional. "Everything is in -order," he said. "I will drive myself. We shall go faster, and I shall -not irritate my nerves by thinking." He began therefore to put on the -cloak and cap and goggles and gloves of the profession, and Auguste had -no sooner joined him, than he started his heavy machine with as much -precision as if he had not borne the name of Landri, which denoted in the -family of Claviers-Grandchamp pretensions more or less justified—but -they date back to the twelfth century—of descending from -the kings of the first race. And this car of the latest model bore on -its panels the curious arms which, with the device, <i>E tenebris -inclarescent</i>, symbolize that legendary origin: three frogs <i>or</i> on -a field <i>sable</i>. These were, according to some authorities in -heraldry, the arms of our first kings. Géliot waxed wroth over it long ago, -in his "Vraye et parfaite science des armoiries."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> He saw therein only -three roughly executed fleurs-de-lys. He would have enjoyed maintaining -that opinion before the choleric marquis. "And to think," reflected the -heir of the pseudo-Merovingian, "that it took years to make my father -admit the mere idea of the telephone, of electricity and the automobile! -But at last we have one, and of an excellent make. I shall be there -before the hunt is over." -</p> -<p> -He had, in obedience to a childish whim in which all young men will -recognize themselves, instead of driving straight along the boulevard, -the Esplanade and the quay, taken Rue de Babylone, in order to pass Rue -Monsieur. He longed to see once more the outside of the little -hôtel of the time of Louis XVI. Valentine became once more so present -to his mind that he was absorbed anew in that inward vision -when he reached the house in which Jaubourg lived. Lovers, even the most -affectionate,—especially the most affectionate,—are almost -savagely insensible to what does not concern, either nearly or distantly, -the object of their passion. He had no need to remember his promise, in -order to avoid trying to see the invalid. -</p> -<p> -"There should be a bulletin in the concierge's lodge," he said to -Auguste; "get down, copy it, leave my name and come back quickly. We -haven't five minutes to waste." -</p> -<p> -The chauffeur jumped down from his seat, with the reckless haste of a -servant who seeks to earn forgiveness for a fault. He disappeared like a -gust of wind behind the door of the enormous porte-cochère which -imparted a seignorial aspect to the abode of the unique personality, -untitled, but of the most unexceptional elegance, that Charles Jaubourg -had been. In order that his name should have been so much as mentioned -in connection with Madame de Claviers-Grandchamp, it must have been that -he, who came of such a widely different social caste, had been able to -win for himself an exceptional position in society. Of that supremely -refined man, of the great bourgeois, who had become, by dint of -adaptability of manners, and, in due time, of wit, a notable member of -Society, there remained only a poor tattered remnant, an old man at the -point of death with pneumonia, behind those high windows. The straw -spread upon the pavement to deaden the noise of passing vehicles -attested the gravity of a condition of which Landri had a more decisive -proof. His messenger reappeared, holding in his hand a paper on which -was written this laconic and ill-boding bulletin: "A very bad night. -Condition stationary.—Professor Louvet, Dr. Pierre Chaffin." -</p> -<p> -The officer read these words in an undertone; and with an indifference -which, under the circumstances, was of an irony no less unintentional -than cruel, he folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket, saying: -"All right. Let's be off!" -</p> -<p> -"The concierge told me to tell Monsieur le Comte," interposed the -chauffeur, "that Monsieur Jaubourg had given special orders to send -Monsieur le Comte up to him when he came." -</p> -<p> -"Me?" exclaimed the young man, with unfeigned surprise and vexation. -There was a gleam of hesitation in his eyes, and he started to get down. -"But no, I really haven't time!" And with this exclamation, the irony of -which was even more cruel, he started the automobile once more. It had -already crossed the Seine, turned into Rue des Tuileries, passed the -Opéra, the Gare du Nord, the barrier, and Saint-Denis, and entered upon -the road through the forest of Hez, beyond which is the château of -Grandchamp, before the mind of Madame de Claviers' son had even begun to -detect behind that second little sign the mystery which was destined, a -few hours later, to revolutionize his career forever. -</p> -<p> -"Jaubourg dying and wanting to see me? Why, when he has never in his -whole life shown anything but antipathy to me? It's easily explained. My -father had told him I would call. Really, I ought to have gone up. But -what more should I have had to take to Grandchamp than this bulletin? -And then, Chaffin is there. He must have been sent by my father, and -he'll keep him posted." -</p> -<p> -Pierre Chaffin was the son of Landri's former tutor, become, under the -more distinguished title of secretary, the marquis's steward and man of -business. The younger man, formerly intern at a hospital, and very -eminent in his profession, was now the head of the clinical staff of -Louvet, who had been the Claviers-Grandchamps' physician from time -immemorial. -</p> -<p> -"Besides," continued the lover, "I promised"; and his mouth, which was -open to inhale the cool breeze caused by their speed, closed as if to -place, despite the distance, a last kiss on his friend's burning hands. -That recollection sent the blood coursing more hotly through his veins, -and the automobile flew the faster through the wild flight of the -houses, already beplumed with smoke, of the autumn crops, of the misty -fields, of that whole landscape, which ordinarily was to Landri the -source of reflections rather than of sensations. How many times, on his -way to Grandchamp, had he noticed that multiplicity of small estates, -which checker the land, isolate the châteaux, surround them, as if -determined to conquer them! A symbol of the upward progress of the lower -classes. To-day he saw nothing save space to be devoured, at the end of -which he would stand face to face with his father and his promise. He -had chosen to drive, in order not to think; and, despite himself, he -formed and unformed in his mind the plan of that interview, while he -drove on, leaving behind him, one after another, Saint-Denis and its -basilica, Groslay and its moss-covered roofs, the forest of l'Isle-Adam -and its white quarries, Beaumont and the long blue ribbon of the Oise, -the charming nosegay of Cahet, the wood of Saint-Vaast, Cires-lès-Mello -and its mills, Balagny, and peaceful Thérain, Mouny and its graceful -gables. -</p> -<p> -"Thirty-three minutes past one," said the chauffeur, looking at his -watch, when the first houses of Thury appeared at the end of the road, -and the oaks of the forest of Hez. "That is travelling! And Monsieur le -Comte never drove better." -</p> -<p> -"Now all we have to do is find the hunt," Landri replied. "It hasn't -been a bad run, that's a fact. Take the wheel now, Auguste, please. I am -going to search the avenues with my glass. Let's go toward La Neuville, -and drive slowly, so as not to lose any sound." -</p> -<p> -The forest, over whose gravel roads they were now driving, told no less -clearly than the fields the story of the parcelling out of old France. -It formerly joined the forests of Compiègne and of Carnelle, and the -whole formed, between the Seine and the Oise, a vast region teeming with -game, of which only fragments remain. This of Hez occupies a plateau, of -a slightly irregular surface, which the automobile traversed at a very -slow pace. There were constant halts, to ask information of some -passer-by, to investigate with the glass the interstices in the hedges, -and above all to listen for the baying of the hounds. Several times -Landri had thought that he detected a "Vue!" or a "Bien allé." Suddenly -he put his hand on the chauffeur's arm. He heard distinctly a blast of -the horn. -</p> -<p> -"Why, that's a <i>hallali</i>!" he exclaimed. "So -soon?—Yes.—And it's not far away. To the left, and a little -speed. There we are. I see the hunt. Stop a moment while I look! Oh! -what a beautiful sight!" -</p> -<p> -A sharp turn of the road had disclosed a depression in the ground. At -the end of the avenue appeared one of the infrequent clearings of that -dense forest. In a frame formed to perfection by the horn-beams and -beeches, which blended their rusty foliage with the pale gold of the -birches and the dark verdure of the firs, was being enacted the final -scene of that too short day. Victorias and automobiles were arriving at -the cross-roads. They drew up in line along one of the roads. In the -centre a considerable crowd had already gathered in a circle, composed -of country people come to assist at the finish, guests who had followed -the hunt in carriages, and hunters, whose costumes in the colors of the -hunt—Spanish snuff-color with blue lapels—heightened with a -dash of brilliancy that truly charming and picturesque little tableau. -Here grooms were covering with blankets the horses heated by the ardor -of the chase. Farther on servants were bringing baskets filled with -provisions for the lunch. The mellow autumn light bathed with its -invigorating rays those groups, over whose heads rang out blasts of the -horn, blended with the baying of the restless hounds; and each blast, by -its few notes, explained to Landri the movements which were taking place -in the crowd, and which he amused himself by following with his -glass.—The horns blew the <i>mort</i>. The dogs were led away from -the game. The first huntsman cut off the right fore-foot and handed it -to the master of the hunt. The horns blew the honors of the foot. The -master presented the foot to one of the ladies whose three-cornered hats -could be seen beside the velvet caps of the men. The horns blew the -<i>mort</i> anew. The baying of the pack redoubled. From his post of -observation Landri could distinguish quite plainly all the details of -the <i>curée</i>: the whipper-in, standing astride the stag, waved the -head, by the antlers, before the slavering jaws, held in respect by the -raised whip of the huntsman. Another blast. The whips had fallen. The -dogs had hurled themselves on the bleeding mass of which already nothing -remained. -</p> -<p> -In the front rank of the spectators of this ancient and savage ceremony, -the young man had had no difficulty in making out his father's imposing -profile. In his costume of master of the hunt, completed according to -the old fashion by a three-cornered hat turned back with a copper -button, the Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp instantly justified, by his -aspect alone, the sobriquet of "Émigré" which his son often bestowed -upon him. He inevitably recalled the image of one of those sportsmen -represented in the charming paintings of the staircase at Fontainebleau, -or that exquisite picture at Versailles which depicts one of the -hunting-parties of the Prince de Conti in the neighborhood of -l'Isle-Adam. -</p> -<p> -The marquis was a man of sixty-five, whose sturdy old age put to shame -the worn-out middle-aged men of to-day. He was very tall, very straight, -and was still slender, although powerfully built, with a handsome face, -high-colored, of which his snow-white hair intensified the ruddy hue. -His long, delicate, tapering nose, a little too near the epicurean and -clever mouth, gave to his profile a vague resemblance to that of -François I. He was conscious of it, and he emphasized the likeness by -the cut of his beard, which was snow-white, like his hair. His face did -not need that adventitious aid to make even the most ignorant say of him -when they first saw him: "He's a walking portrait." Everything in him -was eloquent of race, the prolonged existence of a family in the -constant enjoyment of energy, wealth, and domination. His whole person -was instinct with kindliness of nature, and yet there emanated from it -an indescribable atmosphere of dignity, and the self-assurance of one -who has always maintained his rank, not only through himself, but -through all his kindred. -</p> -<p> -At this moment his eyes, deep-blue and piercing none the less, -expressed, as did his whole haughty countenance, the most complete and -heartfelt satisfaction. His lips laughed gaily and disclosed his large -white teeth, of which not one was missing. He had beside him two men of -his circle whom Landri knew very well, a M. de Bressieux and a M. de -Charlus. The latter, who was very small, almost puny, seemed a dwarf -beside the superb master of the hunt. His refined features also savored -of race, but of a meagre and worn-out type. He was only fifty-five, but -he was the older man. Bressieux, who was younger, was more comely of -aspect, and yet there was in his face a something which vitiated it, and -his cold arrogance contrasted no less strangely with the simple grand -manners of the marquis. -</p> -<p> -At that short distance Landri was able to study the group in detail with -almost photographic accuracy, and he felt once more the sentiment of -which he had told Madame Olier, a heartfelt admiration for his father. -Monsieur de Claviers-Grandchamp realized in every respect the physically -and mentally superior type of aristocrat, of the best. He was built of a -more ample, richer human material. What a difference between his -generous, his magnificent way of carrying off his rank, and the -bickerings of Charlus about questions of precedence! That was the sole, -contemptible occupation of that most refined and upright man, who was -nevertheless hypnotized by trivial details concerning his nobility, -though it was of the most authentic! What a difference, too, between the -spontaneous geniality of Monsieur de Claviers and the obsequiousness of -a semi-sharper which Bressieux displayed beneath his assumption of -importance, in order to maintain the course of an ultra fashionable life -by doubtful expedients. Very well born and well connected, endowed -moreover with taste, education, shrewdness and much dexterity, he acted -as intermediary between people of his own station, who were straitened -in their circumstances, and the dealers in curios or wealthy collectors. -Upon what terms? No one had ever dreamed of asking the question of that -individual with the face of a gambler and duellist, ruined by cards and -women, but who had retained the most impeccable manners and the most -virile courage of his race. -</p> -<p> -In Charlus and in Bressieux their caste was drawing near its end. In the -marquis, however, caste might be unemployed, but it was intact. To his -son he seemed so perfectly the <i>grand seigneur</i> in his bearing even at -that moment, when the picturesque amusement of the day came to an end in -the most bourgeois of occupations: a cold luncheon eaten in the open -air! He went from one to another of his guests, from carriage to -carriage, assisted in that hospitable duty by a young woman in a riding -habit, who had followed the hunt on horseback, without taking part in -it. Landri recognized one of his partners at the infrequent balls which -he had attended during the last two winters. -</p> -<p> -"Poor Marie de Charlus!" he muttered; "she hasn't grown beautiful!" And -he added, aloud, to his chauffeur: "I am going inside, and we will go -on. I have certainly earned my luncheon." -</p> -<p> -The limousin began to descend the slope, while the young man removed the -mask, the cap, the gloves and the cloak in which he had arrayed himself. -If the marquis had arrived at that stage of concession at which he -recognized the existence of the automobile, he was still savagely -hostile to the hideous accessories which that style of locomotion -multiplies from day to day. This childlike precaution against the -possible ill humor of his father would have made Landri himself smile -under other circumstances. But the sight of Mademoiselle de Charlus had -suddenly rearoused his preoccupation, which had been somewhat allayed, -in spite of everything, by the fatigue and distractions of the journey. -He foresaw an additional reason for sparing the marquis's least -prejudices. The monomaniacal gentleman's daughter in no wise deserved -the contemptuous apostrophe with which he had saluted her. To be sure, -Marie de Charlus had not regular features. Her mouth was too large, her -nose too short, her forehead too protuberant, but her eyes saved all the -rest by their brilliancy, and, if she was not beautiful, she possessed -that charm of the "ugly-pretty girl" which so many men prefer to beauty. -Rather small, like her father, but of a very good figure, dancing and -riding with a grace at once bold and maidenly, she too had, in her -original physiognomy, that "portrait" aspect which is so frequent in -stationary classes. Those who are most impervious to the theory of -heredity must needs resort, in spite of themselves, in the face of this -fact, to the vulgarized, indefinite and indefinable, yet accurate term, -"atavism." -</p> -<p> -Landri was more capable than most men of grasping the interesting -character of that young girl's face, closely resembling one of those -eighteenth-century faces of which La Tour has noted the intelligent -expression,—but he was in love with another woman, he had come to -Grandchamp with the purpose of disarming his father's hostility to a -marriage which he passionately desired, and already well-meaning persons -had spoken to him of Marie de Charlus more than once in a very -significant tone. Did not her presence at this hunt, after the marquis -had insisted so earnestly that he should attend it, accord with these -hints? Certain it is that she was the first to espy the young man, even -before the motor had stopped. A faint blush rose to her cheeks. She said -a word to the marquis. He turned. He saw his son descending from the -heavy vehicle, and at the wave of his hand over the surrounding heads, -Landri felt, as usual, the warm blood rush to his heart. This was -perhaps the strangest detail of their strange relations—never had the -son approached the father without an impulse of enthusiasm and -affection; and the next instant he recoiled, withdrew within himself. He -literally bore in his breast two hearts: one which felt a thrill of -emotion upon contact with that powerful vitality, another which was, as -it were, terrified and thrown into confusion by it. This time, however, -the second impulse did not follow at once. The young man, in his -anxiety, felt a too grateful surprise when he realized that there was no -trace of reproach in that greeting, although he arrived when the hunt -was over, after a downright objurgation to be prompt. He passed through -the line of carriages, exchanging hand-shakes, and salutations with the -hat. M. de Claviers' first words to him were accompanied by one of those -hearty laughs which always rang true—the old nobleman would not have -been the admirable and knightly person that he was, if his frankness had -not been absolute, in the most trivial no less than in the most -important circumstances. -</p> -<p> -"Well, Landri, you won't boast again of the convenience of the -automobile! Your train arrived at Paris at nine o'clock, and now it's -two. Ah! the horse! the horse! The four good post-horses that made the -trip without a stop! However, here you are. It's a pity. You have missed -a fine run. It was hotter than the result would indicate. The attack was -sharp. But Tonnerre has an admirable scent for doublings. He did not -allow the dogs to make a mistake, and the stag was in sight almost all -the time. He was in the water only a few moments. The beast was winded -by the pace. We finished with a run of a kilometre. That's what your -trouble-machine has made you miss." -</p> -<p> -"I'll make him change his mind about the automobile, Monsieur de -Claviers," said Mademoiselle de Charlus gaily, addressing Landri, "I -pledge myself to do it. On the next <i>circuit</i> I am going to take him -with me, and we shall go a bit fast. He'll find that it's as amusing as -a fine run to hounds. I have sworn to make him <i>up-to-date</i>." -</p> -<p> -She looked at the new arrival with a glance most desirous to please, as -she uttered that untranslatable Americanism, which, indeed, might well -have been her motto. Marie had that characteristic common to certain -women of her class, which is traceable to a reaction against the -monotonies of their environment: an unwillingness to go slow. While -Landri was a modernist, she prided herself on being ultra modern. "Not -in the train, in the express," she would say; "in all the expresses"; -which did not prevent her thinking about the substance of things exactly -as her father and the marquis did. By an unexpected contrariety the -young man disliked her and the "Émigré" liked her. Behind her poses -the marquis divined the immutable "one does not mix with the canaille -when one has a name like ours," of the pure-blooded aristocrat; and -then, too, she loved his son, and he knew it. Landri, for his part, -blamed the young woman for that defiant air, that radicalism which was -like a caricature of his own ideas. And above all, he guessed that she -loved him, and he loved Valentine! He replied neither to her glance nor -to her words, but said to the marquis:— -</p> -<p> -"I had no trouble, father. I was simply detained in Paris a little -longer than I expected." -</p> -<p> -"Did you go to Jaubourg's?" asked M. de Claviers. "Did you see him?" -</p> -<p> -"I didn't see him," Landri answered. He too was incapable of lying well. -It was his turn to blush as he added, evasively: "He is so ill! But I -have brought you the bulletin." -</p> -<p> -"Give it to me," said M. de Claviers eagerly. He read the ominous lines -aloud. "Pierre Chaffin!" he repeated. "I am glad Chaffin's son is there. -His father must have sent him, on my account, because he knows how fond -I am of Jaubourg. He didn't tell me anything in order not to disturb me. -Good Chaffin! And good Jaubourg! I dined with him at the club last -Wednesday—not a week ago. He complained of lassitude and headache. I -said to him: 'You've taken a little cold. Don't worry about it. It's -nothing.' It was the first symptoms of pneumonia and perhaps he will die -of it!" -</p> -<p> -"He'll have a fine sale," said Bressieux. He had the affectation of -speaking with the ends of his teeth, as if he nibbled at his words. "I -know of two Fragonards that he has, of the very choicest. Those that -were in the poor Duc de Fleury's collection, don't you remember, -Geoffroy?" This other Merovingian name was borne by the marquis, but few -persons were privileged to call him by it; Bressieux never lost an -opportunity. "He was a good buyer," he continued; "he had a deal of -taste." -</p> -<p> -"And for a man who was not <i>born</i>," interposed Charlus, "he was -wonderfully well brought up. I knew of but one fault that he had: he was -not religious." -</p> -<p> -"A man so <i>comme il faut</i>!" said Marie sarcastically; "it's -surprising. Never fear, papa, he won't have a civil burial. He won't -inflict that on you." As she was really kind-hearted, she was a little -ashamed of having scratched a dying man on the petty absurdities of his -life, and she added: "No matter, even if he was a bit of a 'snob', he -was an excellent man." -</p> -<p> -"Excellent!" echoed the marquis; and with the simple benignity which had -always touched his son so deeply, he continued, with tears in his eyes: -"I have known him more than thirty years. He has been a perfect friend -to me. A friend, that is something not to be replaced at my age, nor at -any age! We are happy, breathing freely, going our ways; I see him -suffering, and—" He paused, then continued in a deep voice: "If he -must go, I wish I had bade him adieu." He paused again, and as the -wonderful vitality of his blood naturally inspired his brain with -optimistic thoughts, he said: "But we are in a great hurry to bury him, -and the bulletin does not suggest an aggravated case. Let us hope. I -couldn't go to Paris to-day, on account of the hunt. To-morrow we shall -shoot a few partridges. I will go day after to-morrow." -</p> -<p> -Plainly he had felt a twinge of remorse because he was not at the -bedside of the friend he loved. He had yielded, he yielded again to the -hereditary passion which decreed that Louis XVI should hunt the stag -while the Jacobins were taking away his throne. And, shaking off his sad -thoughts definitively, he said to his son:— -</p> -<p> -"You must be tired, my boy. You must have something to eat."—And, -to a servant: "A plate.—Some foie gras? Here." He began to serve -Landri himself.—"The liver of my own birds, mademoiselle, and I am -proud of it!—A glass of champagne? I am hungry too."—He ate -again.—"But it's a healthy hunger, of the sort that your circuit -in an automobile won't give me, mademoiselle, no. A four hours' gallop -in my forest, and I breathe in life through every pore. These woods have -been ours for three hundred years. That's a long lease!—Ah! so you -propose to make me <i>up-to-date</i>! On the contrary I will make you -'old France.' You recited some decadent verses to me just now. I am -going to recite you some of the sixteenth century. They're by Jacques -Grévin, the physician of Marguerite de France. It's a description of -this very forest of ours:— -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">"'Dedans ces bois et forests ombrageuses</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Sont les sangliers et les biches peureuses,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Les marcassins, fans de biches et daims,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Les cerfs cornus, familiers aux silvains,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Bref, le plaisir et soulas et bonheur</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Que peut avoir ès forests le veneur.'"<a name="FNanchor_2_1" id="FNanchor_2_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_1" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span> -</div></div> - -<p> -He repeated these verses in a sympathetic tone which proved that he felt -their archaic charm, and that the sportsman had a nice taste for -letters. He needed not to borrow a pen to write the famous work on the -"History and Genealogy of the Family of Claviers-Grandchamp," a -chef-d'œuvre in its way, one of those "livres de raison" to be placed -on the same shelf with the eloquent "History of a Vivarois Family," -published that year by another heir of a very great name. Marie de -Charlus was too refined, even in her affected bad form, not to feel the -picturesqueness and pathos of that figure of an old nobleman, whose -originality, so vigorous to begin with, had emphasized its salience by -its reaction against a too hostile age. The force of the type he -represented measured the degree of his solitude. She replied, half -mischievously:— -</p> -<p> -"I used to call myself the emancipated <i>gratin</i>; if all of us were -like you, I think I should very soon call myself the repentant -<i>gratin</i>." -</p> -<p> -"What a memory!" said Charlus admiringly. "But my grandfather was always -talking to me about your grandfather's memory." -</p> -<p> -"You'll give me those verses, won't you, Geoffroy?" besought Bressieux. -"I am sometimes asked for mottoes to be painted on panels in hunting -lodges." -</p> -<p> -"I am the repentant <i>gratin</i>," rejoined the marquis. "Yes, for having -presumed to lecture the cleverest of Maries. My grandfather's memory? -Yes, I have always been told that I resembled him. There's nothing left -of the army of Condé, but for that!—You shall have the verses, Louis. -Although as to the mottoes on panels—Humph! when one has a motto one -keeps it. When one has none, one has none. But I must excuse myself, -mademoiselle, and you, my friends. I am obliged to leave you. The -carriages will take you home. I do not propose to inflict on you a long -détour that I have to make before I go home. Landri will come with me. -We will take the automobile, mademoiselle, and I will practise at the -<i>circuit</i>. <i>À tout l'heure</i>, at the château." He had taken his -son's arm and was leading him toward the motor, saluting on all sides, and -addressing this one and that. "You won't forget, Travers? I rely on you -for dinner this evening.—You dine at Grandchamp, Hautchemin. I will -send you home.—Férussac, you dine at Grandchamp with Madame de -Férussac, that's understood, isn't it? Eight o'clock. If you're late, -we'll wait for you." -</p> -<p> -When they were seated in the motor, after telling the chauffeur the -direction to take, he said to Landri: "We shall be more than thirty at -table. I don't know just how many; fancy that! I ordered for forty, at a -venture. I like that sort of thing! It's almost the open house of old -times. What a generous and proud expression: open house! The men of -to-day talk about the social question. But our fathers had solved it. -What was a <i>grand seigneur</i>? A living syndicate, nothing else. -Consider how many people lived on him, how many live on us! To spend -freely a handsome fortune, from father to son, on the same estate, is to -support a whole district for many generations. When people prate of the -luxury of the nobles of the olden time, they always think of them as -like Cleopatra, drinking pearls, selfishly. But that luxury was a public -service! It was the fountain which monopolizes the water in order to -distribute it. The fountain was overturned, and the water is dribbling -away, turning to mud, and disappearing—that's the whole -story!—Ah! Auguste is going wrong!" And, seizing the megaphone, he -shouted: "To the left, to the left, and then the second avenue on the -right. There are three oaks in a clump and a Calvary."—And turning -once more to his son: "I know the forest, tree by tree, leaf by leaf, I -have ridden through it so often and on such good horses. Do you remember -Toby, my gray Irish horse, and how he jumped? We are going to Père -Mauchaussée's." -</p> -<p> -"Our old gardener?" inquired Landri. "What has become of him?" -</p> -<p> -"He is what he always was. -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">"'Qu'ils sont doux, bouteille, ma mie,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Qu'ils sont doux, tes petits glouglous!'</span> -</div></div> - -<p> -But it's his son that I want to see. I made him second gardener when his -father retired, do you remember? He crushed his foot last week, not on -our land, but at his father's, cutting down a tree. The doctor thinks he -won't be able to work any more. He is in despair. Fancy, a wife and five -children! Chaffin wanted me to help him a little, and nothing more. 'We -don't come within the law relating to accidents to workmen,' he said. 'I -don't need their laws to tell me what my duty is,' I replied. 'He shall -be paid his wages in full, as long as he lives, like his father.'—I -am a socialist, you know, in the old way. It was different from the new way -in this, that the poor received the money of the rich directly, whereas -to-day the politicians keep it all. It's very <i>up-to-date</i>, as our -young friend Marie de Charlus says. What do you think of her? She is -charming, isn't she?" -</p> -<p> -"Charming," Landri replied; "but I am surprised that she pleases you, -with such ideas as she has." -</p> -<p> -"As she thinks she has," the marquis corrected him. "That will pass off. -It's the impulse of youth. What will not pass off, is the old stock. She -has it to the tips of her fingers and toes. Did you look at her? Ah! -she's a genuine Charlus, and signed! Do you know what I said to myself -when I saw her on horseback to-day?—And how beautifully she -rides!—That she would make the sweetest little Comtesse de -Claviers-Grandchamp.—And do you know this too? That it depends on you -alone? But it does. Tell me if it doesn't begin like a chapter in a -novel? A year ago she was twenty years old. She was sought in -marriage—by the little Duc de Lautrec, if you please. She refused. -Parents astounded. She was so young, they left her in peace. Six months -ago, another offer, from Prince de la Tour Enguerrand, the widower. -Another refusal. A month ago, Lautrec comes forward again. She refuses -again. Then follows an explanation with the mother. Who would have -thought that the 'emancipated <i>gratin</i>,' as she calls herself, that -girl who puts on so many twentieth-century airs, is still governed by -sentiment after the old style—the only style, on my word, that is -always good and always young! 'I will marry Monsieur de Claviers,' she -said, 'or I will die an old maid.'" -</p> -<p> -"That is impossible," interposed the young man; "we just speak to each -other at a ball two or three times in a winter." -</p> -<p> -"You are too modest, monsieur my son," rejoined the marquis. "It seems -that two or three times have sufficed.—In a word, stupefaction of -the mother; stupefaction of the father. They tell the story to Madame de -Bec-Crespin, their cousin, who tells it to her mother, Madame de Contay, -who tells it to Jaubourg, who tells it to me; and as such a -daughter-in-law would suit me marvellously, and as I have a horror of -beating about the bush, I invited them all three, mother, father and -daughter, and I sent for you. The mother sent her excuses. She's a -little put out; she won't see you. She knows you, plant and root, I -venture to say.—Ah! everything is there: wit, spirit, -charm,—I don't say great beauty, but what a figure, and what eyes! -A hundred thousand francs a year at this moment, of her own, if you -please, left her by her uncle Prosny. Later, three hundred thousand -more. And such relations! No more mésalliances in that family than in -ours. One of those superb trees that resemble a noble action continued -for seven hundred years: all the younger sons officers, bishops or -knights of Malta; all the unmarried daughters nuns, abbesses or -prioresses; twenty of the name killed in foreign wars. I have not often -annoyed you with suggestions of marriage, my boy. Your dear mother would -have known so well how to choose a wife for you! I waited a while for -you to open your heart to me. But you are approaching thirty. I am -sixty-five. Your three brothers are dead. I have no one but you to keep -up the family. I should like not to go away before I have put in the -saddle a Geoffroy IX of Claviers-Grandchamp. You are Landri X. We must -look to it that the Geoffroys overtake the Landris. Well! what do you -say?" -</p> -<p> -"I say, father," Landri replied, "that I came to Grandchamp to-day, -myself, with the purpose of speaking to you about a project of -marriage—a different one," he added. -</p> -<p> -"With some one whom I know?" inquired the marquis. -</p> -<p> -"No, father, a young woman of twenty-seven, the widow of one of my -fellow officers in the regiment, who has a child, and no fortune, or -very little. It's a far cry from the marriage-portion of Mademoiselle de -Charlus. But I love her passionately, and have for more than three -years." -</p> -<p> -"Another chapter of a novel," said M. de Claviers, still without losing -his good-humour. "This does not displease me. I will not deny that I -have been just a little disgusted with you. I was afraid that you had -some wretched liaison in your life. You have a real love. That's a -different matter. I love to have people love, you see—love long and -dearly and faithfully. No fortune?" He repeated, "No fortune? My dear -boy, how I would like to be able to say to you: 'Don't let that disturb -you!'" A cloud had passed over his face, which was as transparent as the -blue sky of that waning afternoon, stretching above his beloved forest, all -turned to gold by the autumn.—"This is not the time to discuss that -question, which I have wanted to talk to you about for a long while. We -have many charges on the estate. If it still produced what it did once, -we could extricate ourselves more easily—and, perhaps, if I had known -better how to handle our interests. Consider that there have been two -generations over which this outrageous Civil Code has passed, with its -compulsory partitions, which are grinding France to powder. Of the -income of a million which your great-grandmother saved during the -Revolution by not emigrating, and demanding her pretended divorce, how -much have I had? Three hundred thousand francs a year, and, in addition, -all the burdens of the old days! I say again, this is not the time to -talk about it.—For three years?" he added, after a pause. "Who is it? -What is her name?" -</p> -<p> -"Madame Olier," replied the young man. -</p> -<p> -"Ah!" exclaimed the father, "and she was born—?" -</p> -<p> -"Mademoiselle Barral." -</p> -<p> -"Olier?—Barral?—Why, in that case, she is not a person of your -own rank? Answer me frankly, my boy. I am your father, the head of your -family. You owe it to me. You are her lover? You have a misstep to -repair? The child is yours?" -</p> -<p> -"No, father, I give you my word of honor. Twice in my life I have told -her that I loved her. Once when her husband was alive. She refused to -see me again except on my promise that I would never speak to her again -of my sentiments. The second time was to-day. That was the reason of my -being late." -</p> -<p> -M. de Claviers had listened to this confession with contracted brow and -lips tightly closed. His blue eyes took on that sombre hue which his son -knew too well. It indicated the clash of profound emotions in that -violent temperament. There was between the two men a further pause -coincident with the stopping of the motor before the Mauchaussées' -house, a dainty structure which the châtelain of Grandchamp placed at -the disposal of his former retainer, without rent. The curtains at the -windows and the thread of smoke issuing from the chimney bore witness to -the physical well-being of these vassals of his charity. He had, -however, the countenance of a magistrate rather than an alms-giver as he -alighted from the automobile, without speaking to his son, who did not -follow him. -</p> -<p> -The ten minutes which his father passed in the little house seemed -immeasurably long to Landri. To be sure he felt as if a weight had been -lifted from his heart: the first part of his confession was made, the -part that had seemed to him the most formidable to put in words. It -touched such a sensitive spot in his heart! Would he have the courage to -make the second part, and to inflict another blow upon that man, whom he -felt once more to be so impassioned, so loving and so impetuous? By what -sort of an explosion would the wrath vent itself, with which he had seen -that powerful brow suddenly overcast? Other questions arose in his mind: -why had the marquis, whose repugnance for financial affairs was so -intense, spoken with such detail of the wealth of the Charluses, and of -his own with that reserve laden with hidden meaning? Landri was too -unselfish to think of his own future and of the possible diminution of -his inheritance. He knew that his father was very wealthy, and he had -never wondered at a lavish expenditure which the marquis had seemed -always able to support. He had never even asked for his own property -after the guardianship accounts were once settled. The marquis gave him -an allowance which represented the fifteen hundred thousand francs he -had inherited from his mother. Did this enigmatic plaint mean that the -<i>grand seigneur</i> would be compelled eventually to reduce an -establishment which was as necessary to him as breathing and moving? At -the same time that he revolved this question in his mind without putting -it to himself so plainly, the young man was thinking of the negotiator -of the Charlus marriage. -</p> -<p> -"What an idea of Jaubourg's to meddle again in my affairs! It's just as -it was before about Saint-Cyr. He has never shown anything but antipathy -to me, and he is always putting himself between my father and me. That -is why he wanted them to send me up to him.—But the door is -opening—I must prepare to sustain the assault!—Courage! it's -for Valentine." -</p> -<p> -The charming image passed before his mind. It was exorcised instantly by -a chorus of voices saying in the accent of the countryside: "Bonjour, -Monsieur le Comte. Is everything right with you. Monsieur le -Comte?"—It was the five Mauchaussée children, their mother, -grandmother and grandfather, whom the marquis was driving before him -toward his son. The wondering, laughing eyes of the little boys and -girls, the timid and humble bearing of the two women, the jovial bloated -face of the drunkard, supplied a comic illustration of the speech with -which M. de Claviers presented them to their future patron. -</p> -<p> -"Do you recognize them?" he said. "The little monkeys are growing. They -are pushing us aside, Mauchaussée, and you too, Madame Martine. Soon -they'll be pushing you too, Landri, but you have the time. Come, -children, shout, 'Vive Monsieur le Comte!'" -</p> -<p> -"Vive Monsieur le Comte!" chirped the five children. -</p> -<p> -"And vive Monsieur le Marquis!" exclaimed Mauchaussée. It was amid -acclamations as paradoxical, in the year 1906, as the existence of M. de -Claviers himself, that the automobile resumed its journey. -</p> -<p> -"To the château," he said to Auguste. Then, taking his son's hand and -pressing it: "That is why you cannot make the marriage of which you -spoke to me just now. It is because of the Mauchaussées and their -like,—and they are legion,—who live on us, on the house of -Claviers-Grandchamp; for there is a house of Claviers-Grandchamp. Surely -you cannot wish to assist in destroying it. When one demolishes a roof, -one destroys all the nests in that roof. When one cuts the trunk of one -of these trees, all the branches die. Our family, as I told you just -now, is like that of the Charluses. Not a mésalliance since 1260. One -can count them on one's fingers, such lineages as that. You will not -demean yourself." -</p> -<p> -"Is it demeaning myself," demanded Landri impatiently, "to bring you as -your daughter-in-law a woman of irreproachable character, whom I love -profoundly and who loves me,—pretty, refined and intelligent? One -demeans one's self by lacking a sense of honor. Does it show such a lack -to marry according to one's heart, without regard to money, without any -secret prompting of ambition? In what way would Madame Olier, having -become Comtesse de Claviers-Grandchamp, embarrass the Mauchaussées and -all this generous task of supporting traditionary dependents, which -forms one of the moral appanages of great families and a <i>raison -d'être</i> of the nobility, I fully agree with you;—in what way?" -</p> -<p> -"In this,—that she is Madame Olier, born Barral, simply; that her -child has Olier uncles and aunts and Olier cousins, and she has Barral -cousins, perhaps brother and sisters,—a whole social circle. That -circle, by marrying her, you make akin to us. That family you ally with -ours. You ally it! Dig into that word, so profound in its significance, -like all those in which the language simply translates instinctively the -experience of ages. That means that between the Oliers, the Barrals, and -the Claviers-Grandchamps, you establish a bond of fellowship, that all -those existences are bound together.—I will suggest but one question -to you: tell the Mauchaussées that Madame de Claviers' cousin keeps a -shop, for instance, that he is like one of their own relations. Do you -think that Madame de Claviers will retain the same prestige in their -eyes? And let us assume that there are no Oliers, no Barrals in this -case,—do you think that our kinsfolk, the Candales, the Vardes, the -Nançays, the Tillières, in France, and all the others, and the -Ardrahans in Scotland, the Gorkas in Poland, and the Stenos in Italy, -will be altogether the same to your wife as if she were a Charlus? So -that our family unity will be impaired. You will have diminished the -importance of the house of Claviers, without failing in honor—that -goes without saying. But, do you see, a name like ours is honor with -something more." -</p> -<p> -"Or less," retorted Landri. "Why, yes," he insisted, as his father -recoiled in amazement, "less life, life, to which all men have a right, -but not I. No right to individual happiness,—you just told me so. No -right to individual action. How much it cost you to allow me even to -enter the army! What else is there for us to do? Defend tombs? You have -the strength for that, but I haven't." -</p> -<p> -He had never said so much concerning his secret thoughts. It had been -too painful to him to hear from the marquis's lips the same objections, -in almost the same words, as from Valentine's. He had felt too strongly -their implacable and brutal truth. The pain had been all the keener. He -had no sooner uttered that cry of rebellion, than he had a passionate -reflux of emotion toward his father. He took his hand, saying: "Forgive -me!" while M. de Claviers returned the pressure, and answered in an -affectionate voice, but so firm, so virile,—the voice of a man who, -having reached the evening of his days, girds up his loins and declares -that he has not gone astray in his faith. -</p> -<p> -"Forgive you, and for what, my poor boy? For loving, and for feeling an -impulse of rebellion of your whole heart before an obstacle in which all -boys of your age, and even of your class, would see to-day, as you do, -only a prejudice? For being young, and for having this longing to employ -your energy to some purpose, which you cheat by playing at -soldiering,—for it is only a game and you know it perfectly well? -Suppose that to-morrow the people who rule us order you to execute one -of their infamous jobs, the burglarizing of a church, what shall you -do?" -</p> -<p> -As he uttered these words, which by their unconscious divination proved -how much he thought about his son, the marquis was looking at his idea. -He did not notice the young man's sudden start. On the latter's lips was -an exclamation which he did not utter. He listened to the words in which -his father continued, with an interest all the more intense, because M. -de Claviers was not in the habit of discussing his convictions. He -asserted them by his mere presence. Doubtless his affection for Landri -warned him that that was a fateful moment, such as most frequently -occurs unexpectedly, in the relations of a father and son, when a word -misunderstood may lead to tragic dissensions; and as if he were -determined to justify in advance the sternness of his veto by arguments -impossible of refutation even by him who was destined to be their -victim, he explained himself, he confessed himself, or, better still, he -thought aloud:— -</p> -<p> -"Do you think that I have not gone through such rebellions? Do you think -that I, too, when my father spoke to me as I am speaking to you, did not -ask myself if he were not a man of another century, who did not -understand his epoch and who wished to involve me in his error? Do you -think that I was not attracted by action, by actions of all sorts, by -war, diplomacy, the tribune? that I never heard the voice of the tempter -whispering: 'One does not serve the government, one serves France?' How -many of my friends listened to that voice! I do not judge them. I could -not do it, and I do not repent. This is why. Listen. What I am going to -say will seem to you a long way from the starting-point of our -conversation. But I do not lose sight of it.—No, I could not do -it, because by dint of studying her, I realized that this France, -offspring of the Revolution, had other workmen than me to employ, in its -barracks, its public offices, its assemblies, and that we were very -little able to serve her elsewhere. You have told me sometimes that I -had the heart of an 'émigré.' It is true. But who saved France from -dismemberment in 1815, if not the 'émigrés,' and Louis XVIII, first of -all. Had there been no 'émigrés,' had not the King, supported by that -handful of loyal subjects, made himself felt during twenty years in the -councils of the coalition, the country would have been partitioned. What -did they preserve for it, for that country which was so cruelly hostile -to them?—<i>A principle</i>. Who will measure the strength of -principles, of social truths, maintained by a group of men, by a single -man sometimes, if he is called the King? Ah, well! the disease of -France, offspring of the Revolution, does not lie in facts, nor in men, -but in lack of principles, or in false principles, which is worse. I am -not unjust to her, to this France I speak of. She has worked hard during -these hundred years. She is working hard. And what endurance, what a -sturdy will, what impetuosity! With all these is she bankrupt in all her -aspirations—yes or no? Yes or no, does this country hold in Europe -an inferior place to that she held in the worst days of the old -monarchy? She is no older than England, however, her great rival in the -Middle Ages! Has she progressed in social tranquillity? Has she found -stability, that test of all political doctrines, as the regular beating -of the pulse is the test of health? The fact is that the Revolution -tried to base society on the individual, and that nature insists that it -be based on the family. When I understood that great law, I understood -the nobility. I understood then that our prejudices were profound social -truths, elaborated by that result of experience during long ages which -is called custom, and transformed into instinct. It is a profound social -truth that there is no increase in the strength of a country unless the -efforts of successive generations are combined, unless the living -consider themselves as enjoying the usufruct only, between their dead -and their descendants. But that is the law of primogeniture and entails! -Another profound social truth: families must be deeply rooted in order -to endure; they must have territorial interests, they must be -amalgamated with the soil. But that means patrimonial domains, which are -left undivided that they may not be sold!—Another profound social -truth: there must be diverse environments, in order that there may be -morals, and there are no environments unless there are classes, and -distinct classes. But that means the three estates! Another profound -social truth: every individual is simply the sum of those who have -preceded him, a single moment in a long lineage. By marrying him to -another individual at the same stage of development of her family, there -is the chance of obtaining a superior creature, of solidifying acquired -characteristics. But that means race!—All these truths the old -France put in practice, and they were incarnate in the great Houses! The -great Houses! On the instant that I realized their importance and that -they were a working-out of the very laws of the family, the rôle of the -noble in the presence of the Revolution was made clear to me: to -maintain his House first of all. If we had all acted on that theory, -what a reserve force France would have had for the hour of the -inevitable crisis! However, there are still enough of us who fulfilled -that duty, each as he could, especially in the provinces, and in that -sturdy rural aristocracy which you will find in existence to-day, as in -'71. But, even if I were alone of my kind, I should be no less assured -of my duty. If we are fated never to be wanted again, let us at least -make a noble end. <i>Decenter mori</i>. An aristocrat should either -remain an aristocrat or die. I have remained one. The misfortunes of the -time have not allowed me to add a page to the history of the -Claviers-Grandchamps, but I have written that history, and I have -maintained our house in its place. I have sounded the splendor of the -name, as our ancestors said. What more can I say, Landri? Your father -has continued his father, who had continued his. They all ask you by my -mouth: 'Will you continue us?'" -</p> -<p> -"I revere you and love you," replied the young man; and it was true that -that profession of faith, pronounced by the old nobleman among the trees -of the hereditary domain, assumed an almost painful grandeur. After an -interval of a hundred years the Claviers-Grandchamp of Condé's army -expressed his thoughts by the mouth of his grandson with that -self-consciousness which is one of the characteristics of the -thoroughbred. He realized that, before they disappear, the social -species like the animal species spend their last vigor in producing most -perfect types in which all the excellences of all that have gone before -are consummated. Once more Landri had a realizing sense of the -superiority of that man who, for lack of a suitable environment, had -spent his long life in attitudinizing, and for motives so profound, so -blended with the most generous idealism! He was too intelligent not to -understand the bearing of the lofty philosophy amassed by M. de Claviers -in his solemn harangue. In spite of himself, as was so often the case, -his mind acquiesced in ideas which, none the less, he did not choose to -accept. In what utter solitude they had confined his father! His heart, -too, rebelled against it. "The profound social truths," as the marquis -had said, are but cold friends of mature years. A lover of less than -thirty will always sacrifice them to a glance from two bright blue eyes, -to a reflection of the light upon golden hair. Images of that sort were -still floating before Landri's eyes; they gave him strength to argue -with his father. -</p> -<p> -"But in that old France, which you claim to continue, the classes -intermingled, and by marriages, too. Colbert's daughter was a duchess, -Monsieur de Mesmes' daughter a duchess, Gilles Ruellan's daughter a -duchess, and Colbert's father was a draper, Monsieur de Mesmes' father a -peasant of Mont-de-Marsan, and Gilles Ruellan had been a carter." -</p> -<p> -"That is true," rejoined M. de Claviers. "But in those days France was -sound. She was like those strong constitutions which can safely indulge -in deviations from a regular diet. The great houses were not attacked. -The great social truths which their existence alone represents to-day -did not need to be defended in every detail. There is not enough -'irreconcilability' in our time, even among us, for me to renounce mine. -I admired nothing so much in my youth as the attitude of the Comte de -Chambord, when he carried his white banner,—and how many understood -it, even among our friends? No, Landri, one does not compromise in the -defence of a vanquished principle. One can never defend it too -vigorously." -</p> -<p> -"Then, if I should come some day to ask your consent—" the young man -queried, with a tremor. -</p> -<p> -"To marry Madame Olier? I shall refuse to give it." -</p> -<p> -"And if I should do without it?" he ventured to say. -</p> -<p> -"You will not do without it. She is the one, do you hear, she is the one -who will not allow it. I know you, my Landri," continued the father, in -an affectionate tone in striking contrast to the evident inflexibility -of his decision. "For you to love this woman so dearly, she must be very -pure and of a very delicate sense of honor. It was she who insisted that -you should speak to me before she gave you her answer, was it not? Such -a woman will never consent to marry you against your father's declared -wish. If she were not magnanimous and high-minded to that degree, you -would not love her." -</p> -<p> -"And if it were so, you would not be touched?" -</p> -<p> -"There is no question here of my emotions, my son, nor of yours. It is a -question of our name. Military heroism is not the only sort. There is a -family heroism. As a soldier, you would consider it a perfectly natural -thing to sacrifice your life. A man of a certain name should consider it -natural to sacrifice his happiness. But is there really so much at -stake? It is a crisis, and it will pass away. In any event," he added, -in a tone of affectionate banter, "you haven't asked for my consent. So -that I have not refused it. We have talked about plans, probabilities, -supposititious cases—nothing more. All the same, be agreeable to -Marie de Charlus this evening. Don't be too angry with her for having -distinguished you, as our grandmothers used so prettily to say. And now -let us enjoy what my grandmother left us. Here we are out of the forest -and in the park. If the fearless woman had not stayed here, during the -Terror, everything would have been cut down, devastated, burned, -pillaged. I never return to Grandchamp without giving her a thought." -</p> -<p> -He ceased to speak, and his blue eyes were filled with pious veneration -as he looked at the château, a sedate and grandiose structure in -Mansart's very earliest manner. In the eighteenth century a -Claviers-Grandchamp, to whom a friend, in gratitude for a service -rendered him, had bequeathed a fortune made in the Compagnie des Indes, -had reconstructed it inside without touching the façade. In front lay -an immense garden <i>à la française</i>. Twelve gardeners were required to -keep up this marvel, laid out in flower-beds, ponds and tree-lined -paths, with many bronze groups about the ponds, and stone statues in the -paths. In that closing hour of a lovely day, in that atmosphere now so -delicately tinged with gray, the garden was a beautiful sight. Like -those of Versailles, and of the whole seventeenth century, it bore the -physiognomy of nature respected in its strength and at the same time -guided, regulated and harmonized in its expansions. It was in truth -visible "order," the order of the society of olden time whence the -Claviers-Grandchamps had sprung. The trees, which were still vigorous, -but pruned and trimmed, did not put forth their leaves until they had -been disciplined. -</p> -<p> -At the close of this conversation, Landri's wounded sensibility found a -symbol of his destiny in the aspect of that garden. He, too, like those -trees, bore witness to the effects of discipline. No more than they -could he develop freely. He should never marry Valentine,—M. de -Claviers reasoned too justly. She would never enter a noble family -without the consent of its head. The allusion made by the far-sighted -and implacable marquis to the possibilities of his military career, -finished freezing his heart. What should he do, in either case? The tree -in the hedge which pushes its branches beyond the line fixed by the -gardener destroys the fine ensemble, and it will never bloom. It retains -the marks of the hatchet that pruned it. In the hedge they added to its -beauty. They are a mutilation when it stands by itself. Such is the fate -of the member of a caste who cuts loose from it and essays to live for -himself. But nobility, great houses, caste, mésalliances,—were not -all these ideas a mere phantasmagoria, a superstition, the imaginary -residuum of an abolished reality, an absurd anachronism in the France of -to-day?—Away from his father the son would have answered yes. He -could not do it at that moment, in that carriage where he could hear the -slightest movement and the very breathing of that man, so intensely -alive, who imparted to his beliefs that ardent flame of his individual -life which gave them their inspiration. The prestige of his father's -presence acted anew upon Landri, with such force that he could not even -blame the paternal determination, against which he would rebel -to-morrow, but at a distance,—and he fell into a fit of melancholy -which M. de Claviers finally observed. With his temperament the -"Émigré" was most worthy to utter the words of Don Diego, savage and -sublime in his dauntless manliness:— -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Il n'est qu'un seul honneur, il est tant de maîtresses.<a name="FNanchor_3_1" id="FNanchor_3_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_1" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span> -</div></div> - -<p> -He had almost quoted it in characterizing his son's passion as a mere -passing crisis, and once more there was a world of compassion, a world -of affection in the tone in which he renewed the conversation, in order -to divert his mind from his thoughts:— -</p> -<p> -"Can you imagine the existence of that woman here, under the Terror? You -know that a denunciation against her was the cause of the proposal of -that villain Roland, in a committee of the Legislative Assembly, in -November, '92, that the decree of the 20th of September should be -suspended so far as the wives of 'émigrés' were concerned. If it had -not been for the procureur-syndic de Thury, a former gardener of ours, -her being legally divorced would have availed her nothing, they would -have taken everything from her, and her life with the rest. She never -ceased to correspond with her husband. She went twice to see him, and -she received him here three times. One shudders to think of those -interviews! But what courage! What heroism, to repeat my former word! It -was of us that she was thinking, she was determined to defend the -inheritance, the House. With her jewels she might have passed all those -years happily in Germany or in England, and she died, worn out with -grief, in 1804. From veneration for her memory, my grandfather would -never allow anything to be changed inside the château, nor my father, -nor I. Nothing, nothing, nothing. When I am no longer here, I authorize you -to have the telephone put in, as you are more <i>up-to-date</i> than your -old father," he concluded, laughingly, "but that's all!—Ah! there's -the worthy Bressieux conspiring with Chaffin again. They are far greater -changes that he has in his head than the installation of a telephone. It -seems that certain details are not in style, and thereupon Monsieur -Chaffin comes and bores me with dissertations on door-knobs and tiles at -the back of the fireplace, and shutter-fastenings, which Bressieux has -taught him. Nothing, nothing, nothing! I will change nothing. I don't -know where I have read that line of an English poet, 'The Siren loves -the sea, and I the past.'—Come, come, Bressieux!" he cried in his -strong, resonant voice through the window of the automobile, "don't -spoil Chaffin for me altogether. He will end by refusing to live at -Grandchamp any longer, because it's not pure enough." -</p> -<p> -Louis de Bressieux was in fact standing at an angle of the château, -intently considering—so it seemed, at all events—the detail of -the decoration of a window on the ground floor. He had not yet changed his -hunting costume, and the visor of his velvet cap concealed his eyes. -Beside him stood a man of small stature, thick-set, with hair once red, -now turning gray,—one of those men whose crabbed countenance leads -one at a glance to judge them to be very frank and downright. His gleaming -eyes, shifting and impenetrable, indicated that he concealed many -complexities behind the rough bonhomie of his manners. He was Landri's -former tutor, promoted twelve years before to the rank of general -factotum, which was not likely to be a sinecure with the very large -income of the Marquis de Claviers, and his expenditures, which, alas! -were much larger. He called him, it will be remembered, "my good -Chaffin," as he said "my good Jaubourg," and "the worthy Bressieux." A -learned connoisseur of human nature has said: "He who does not make up -his mind to be a dupe will never be magnanimous"; and the admirable -Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp was truly magnanimous. How surprised he -would have been if, at the moment when he called to Bressieux, one of -those modern machines—the objects of his half-sincere, half-simulated -aversion—had been at hand to record and transmit to him the -conversation which his sudden arrival had interrupted! -</p> -<p> -"The affair must be settled within ten days, at the latest," Bressieux -was saying. "The two American dealers are to sail December eighth. I -know them. They won't postpone their sailing. They want to carry the -tapestries with them. If the thing drags, they'll back out. The other -dealers haven't the means to make up the whole amount. In that case it's -a public sale, with all its risks. Everybody will know that the marquis -is embarrassed. You won't find the four millions. It's in his interest -that I speak to you." -</p> -<p> -"And it's his interest that I have in mind, no less," replied Chaffin. -"Four millions? The debts would be paid,—the largest -ones,—and perhaps he would consent to cut down his establishment. -But he won't allow me to mention the subject. I didn't dare even to show -him the summonses last week. He refuses to acknowledge, what he is well -aware of, however, that he is ruined. The idea that I, who know how -attached he is to this whole château,—he wouldn't let so much as -a cup be sold,—should suggest to him to sell everything at one -stroke, tapestries, furniture, portraits!" -</p> -<p> -"But is he absolutely driven to such a sale, or is he not?" -</p> -<p> -"He is." -</p> -<p> -"Has he any way whatever of escaping it?" -</p> -<p> -"He has not, unless millions should fall from the sky." -</p> -<p> -"Or a friend, Jaubourg, for example, should leave him his fortune?" -insinuated Bressieux. -</p> -<p> -"He would leave it to Monsieur le Comte Landri," said Chaffin hastily, -"who would not accept it." He continued, after a pause during which the -two men avoided looking at each other, like people who know a thing, -know that they know it, and do not choose to admit it: "Oh, well! it's -through Monsieur le Comte Landri that I will act. I owe it to him, to -him as well, that his fortune shall not be swallowed up in the pit. I -will tell him the truth, and that this offer to purchase all the -treasures of the château in a lump is an unhoped-for piece of luck, the -only way of gaining time. It will be enough for him to revoke the -general power of attorney that he gave his father, and to demand his -principal. Monsieur le Marquis cannot give it to him. To avoid -undergoing that humiliation before his son, he will give way.—But I -hear his voice. This very evening I will speak to Landri. You shall have -his answer at once." -</p> -<p> -And they went forward together to meet the motor from which M. de -Claviers and Landri were alighting. The two confederates had not uttered -a word which placed them at each other's mercy, and yet the real basis -of this interview was one of those villainous piratical "deals" of which -the international traffic in antiquities has made more than one of late -years in France and elsewhere, involving the relics of historic -fortunes. The "good Chaffin" was simply an unfaithful steward who had -wallowed at his ease for ten or twelve years in the careless prodigality -of his lord, and he was preparing to retire, pocketing a handsome -percentage of a sum offered by a syndicate of dealers in curios for the -treasures preserved intact at Grandchamp by the heroism of the -grandmother. Louis de Bressieux, for his part, had got wind of the -dealings of the wicked servitor with the second-hand trade, and had -succeeded in assuring himself a broker's commission by interesting in -the affair the two most famous American dealers in antiquities. It was -quite true that such a sale, effected at that moment, might save the -rest of the property, and that pretext was the ostensible cloak of a -transaction which the two managers of the unclean intrigue were craftily -carrying forward, unknown to the alleged beneficiary thereof. This -silence convicted them. Such is the commanding prestige of a certain -quality in man, that the felonious manager and the profit-sharing friend -felt a vague remorse that embarrassed them with respect to each other -when the marquis said to them with a cordial, loyal laugh:— -</p> -<p> -"It's of no use for you to try to debauch me, Chaffin and Bressieux. -While I live, nothing in the château shall be touched; when I am dead, -I hope that it will be the same," he added, laying his hand on his son's -shoulder. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>"Being bound simply to observe here that it is folly to -think that any of our kings ever bore frogs. On the contrary, what has -been written to that effect came from the enemies of French honor, and -in derision of the fact that they are descended from the Paluds -meotides."</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_2_1" id="Footnote_2_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_1"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>Within these shady woods and forests Are wild boars and -shy, timid hinds, And shoats, and young of hinds and does, And antlered -stags, to woodsmen known; In brief, all pleasure, solace and delight -That huntsman may in woodland fair enjoy.</p></div> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_3_1" id="Footnote_3_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_1"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>There is but one honor, there are many mistresses.</p></div> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap03"></a></p> - -<h4>III -<br /><br /> -THE TRAGIC UNDERSIDE OF A GRAND EXISTENCE -</h4> - -<p> -"Nothing in the château shall be touched!" repeated Chaffin half an -hour later. He was climbing the grand staircase on his way to the -apartment that Landri occupied when he came to Grandchamp,—the -apartment of the eldest son. It was twelve years already since the -last-born, become the only son, had been installed -therein.—"Everything shall be touched, monsieur le marquis!" And -the disloyal steward's face expressed the hatred that wicked servants -feel for their betrayed masters while he looked at the Beauvais panels -on the walls, one of the glories of the château, the complete set of -tapestries representing Chinese scenes after Fontenay, Vernensaal and -Dumont. Princes, in rich Asiatic costumes, were seated on Persian -carpets. Princesses, arrayed in white stuffs embellished with precious -stones, rode in palanquins. Servants carried parasols. Negro boys -offered fruits under canopies enwreathed with foliage. -</p> -<p> -It was long, long ago that Chaffin had first climbed those stairs and -marvelled, with the stupefaction of a petty bourgeois suddenly -transported into a scene of fashionable life, at all that magnificence -befitting the "Thousand and One Nights!" He was then a poor professor, -unattached, married, with a family of children. He had just been -introduced into the château by the chaplain, as tutor to the youngest -son. The priest, who had educated the older sons, was too old to -undertake another task of the sort. He dreaded the presence of another -ecclesiastic. Being instructed by the marquis to find some one, he -remembered an instructor whom he had met in a religious boarding-school -in Paris. He, on being appealed to, suggested his colleague Chaffin. -</p> -<p> -In consenting, as he had done, to entrust Landri's education to a chance -tutor, M. de Claviers had conformed once more to the classic type of the -<i>Grand Seigneur</i>. One is amazed at the extraordinary facility with -which, in all times, people who bear the greatest names abandon their -children to uncertain influences. Even princes are no more painstaking -in this respect. A youth upon whom the future of an empire depends will -sometimes have been educated by a withered fruit of the University, -comparable for refinement to the Regent's Dubois! Luckily for Landri, -Chaffin still had, at that time, the habits of a father of a family, if -not genuine virtues. Married and having children of his own, his -guaranties of honorable conduct were real. But, as he had passed his -fortieth year without succeeding in anything, he was already embittered -and very near looking upon humble toilers of his own sort as social -dupes. The atmosphere of great luxury, which he had entered thus without -preparation, spoiled him. It was agreed that he should live with his -pupil. This arrangement, separating him from his home and his former -life, had made him helpless against his new environment. Thereupon -Chaffin had undergone the secret, gradual process of corruption -inevitably forced upon the poor plebeian, when he is essentially vulgar, -by the discovery of the hidden immoralities of the nobly born and the -wealthy. It is a genuine apprenticeship in depravity, is this official -pessimism, compounded of secret envy and mean espionage. -</p> -<p> -When the marquis—his son's education being completed—had -offered him the post of secretary-manager, Chaffin was ripe for the -rôle of intendant "after the old manner." M. de Claviers' expression is -only too appropriate here. This appointment was for the châtelain of -Grandchamp an heroic resolution: tired of the constant waste, he had -determined to administer his fortune himself. That is generally the -moment at which, with persons of his rank, the final ruin begins. After -three months the so-called secretary settled the accounts alone, and -before the end of the first year the peculations had begun. They had -multiplied from settling-day to settling-day, to reach their climax in -the detestable conspiracy already mentioned, which a group of usurious -dealers in curios was about to execute upon the treasures of Grandchamp, -with his assistance. -</p> -<p> -By what steps had the conscience of the former professor descended to -that degree of dishonesty? The change in his features during the last -years told the story. The arrogant unrest of the thief, always on the -brink of detection, distorted his face, sharpened his eyes, imparted -uncertainty to his movements. But we cease to look at the persons whom -we see every day. The marquis had not observed those tell-tale -indications, nor had Landri. Moreover, the moment that the knave was in -their presence, he kept watch upon himself with a circumspection that -became more rigid as his villainies multiplied. So it was, that, when he -had reached the top of the staircase and stood before the door behind -which he knew that he should find the young man, he did not knock until -he had paused a moment, long enough to compose his features; and when he -entered, upon the response from within to his knock, the harsh and -sneering cynic had disappeared. There was only the humble and faithful -retainer of the family, deeply moved but self-restrained, upon whom his -devotion enjoins the most painful of measures. He hesitates no longer. -His secret chokes him. He must cry out. This rôle was all the easier to -maintain under the circumstances because Chaffin was hardly going to -lie. His plan, formidable in its very simplicity, by which he expected -to ensure himself for all time against any suspicion of complicity, -consisted in setting before the marquis's heir the true situation of the -house of Claviers-Grandchamp in the year of grace 1906. He proposed to -be silent only concerning his own peculations and his understanding with -the leaders of the final assault. -</p> -<p> -"What is it, my good Chaffin?" inquired the young man. To receive his -visitor, he had risen from the lounging chair in which he had passed -some terrible moments, since he had left his father, in going over again -and again the details, so cruel to him, of their conversation. "What has -happened? You frighten me." -</p> -<p> -At sight of his former tutor's discomposed countenance the thought of an -accident suddenly flashed through his mind—that the marquis had had a -stroke. -</p> -<p> -"No, nothing has happened," replied Chaffin, "nothing as yet! But I -cannot bear to be silent any longer. If you had not come to Grandchamp -to-day, I should have gone to Saint-Mihiel. Things cannot go on so. I -should go mad. I should kill myself.—Landri, Monsieur de Claviers -won't let me speak to him. I have the title of secretary, which means -that I am the manager of the property. Well! if things go on as they are -going, Landri, I shall be manager of nothing. There will be no property, -do you hear, no property, nothing, nothing—" -</p> -<p> -"You say that my father won't let you speak to him," Landri interrupted. -"You surprise me beyond measure. He is giving much thought himself to -the situation of affairs. He complained to me to-day of the heaviness of -his burdens. Come, calm yourself, my dear master;" and he added these -words, so absolute was his confidence in that man who represented to him -his early youth: "Your affection for us makes very trivial difficulties -seem tragic, I am sure. Tell me what they are." -</p> -<p> -"I will give you the figures," rejoined Chaffin simply, "and you can -judge whether I exaggerate. Do you know how much Monsieur le Marquis -owes on his real estate—Grandchamp, the house on Rue du -Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, your houses in Plaine Monceau, and the villas at -Cabourg—all told? Two million five hundred and fifty thousand francs, -divided as follows: seventeen hundred and fifty thousand francs to the -Credit Foncier, and eight hundred thousand to another creditor. We have -on this account more than a hundred and fifty thousand francs of -interest a year to pay, before any other outlay." -</p> -<p> -"If it were anybody else but you I should think that I was dreaming," -said Landri, after a pause. He repeated: "Two million five hundred and -fifty thousand francs? And my father has an income of more than four -hundred thousand! Is it possible? He doesn't gamble. His life is beyond -reproach. He has no racing stable. Where has all that money gone?" -</p> -<p> -"You shall know in a moment," replied the implacable Chaffin. "First let -us finish with the debts. There are others. Besides the mortgages there -are the unsecured notes. Under this head he owes more than two millions -more,—I mean for sums borrowed on his signature. I say nothing of -overdue accounts with tradespeople, wages in arrears, and all the rest. -That's another million perhaps, but it's a floating debt with which I -deal as best I can. It's a daily battle. I fight it and win it! With -these negotiable notes, I can do nothing. Look you, Landri. When I have -told you everything you will share my desperation. The two millions, as -you can imagine, are not a single debt. There are ten, fifteen, twenty -different debts. There were, I should say. For to-day—But let me go -into details. You are going to learn how these debts have reached such -fantastic figures by the brutal piling-up of interest, very simply, and -why I used the past tense. There was, for instance, a Gruet debt. I -select it for it is typical, and because in connection with it the bomb -has burst. In 1903 we were absolutely in need of three hundred thousand -francs. Maître Métivier, our notary, obtained them for us through one -Monsieur Gruet, an honest broker,—for there are such; there is this -one, for instance, as you can judge,—with an office on Rue Lafayette. -The loan fell due July 15, 1905. We were not ready. Gruet himself tells -me of a money-lender, not overgrasping, one Madame Müller, who keeps a -second-hand shop on Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin. I go there on the -chance. To my great surprise she consents. She reimburses Gruet and the -notes are assigned to her before a notary. Nothing more correct, as you -see. But on July 15 last the three hundred thousand Gruet francs had -become three hundred and forty-six thousand five hundred Müller francs: -two years' interest to the date of maturity in 1905, thirty thousand, -plus sixteen thousand five hundred for 1905-1906. Let us follow it out. -On this 15th of July the like inability to pay. Appeals to Madame -Müller, entreaties,—it was I who made them. I would submit to much -worse things for Monsieur le Marquis! A little time was given me, and -one fine day this Gruet debt, which had become a Müller debt, has -become an Altona debt. The first notice is served on us. I conceal the -fact from Monsieur le Marquis, understand, and I go at once to this -Altona. I find a man installed in a magnificent mansion on Place -Vendôme, with the air of a <i>grand seigneur</i> I should say, if I did not -know Monsieur le Marquis and you, Landri—and beautiful antiques all -about him. It was a stock in trade arranged as a collection—a museum -for sale at retail. This Altona receives me with the manners of a -prince, and composedly, calmly, he informs me that the Müller claim is -not the only one he has bought. A quantity of our other notes are in his -hands or in those of his men of straw. Not all of them, but almost all. -He has them to the amount of more than fourteen hundred thousand francs. -He has accumulated all that he could. With no less composure he declares -that he is acting for a syndicate of his brethren. There is a large -number of them who have had their eyes for years on the treasures -preserved at Grandchamp. How did they obtain their information -concerning Monsieur le Marquis's embarrassment? How did they succeed in -learning the names of the money-lenders to whom we had to apply? How did -they negotiate with them? I can not tell you. I know nothing about it. -This much is certain, that that first bailiff's notice was the shot that -opened the engagement. In short, they are in a position to proceed -against us and to have us sold up by process of law. Altona did not -conceal from me his purpose to proceed mercilessly unless—" -</p> -<p> -"Unless what?" demanded Landri, as the other paused. "Finish your -sentence." -</p> -<p> -"Unless we accept the offer he made me on behalf of his partners—that -is evidently the <i>coup</i> they have prepared. 'We have calculated,' he -said, still with his perfect courtesy, 'the risks of a public sale. We -may gain by it, we may lose. Certain pieces which we can place -advantageously at once may escape us. We prefer to make you a -proposition to buy the whole in one lump. We will give you four millions -cash for the lot, that is, for all the articles enumerated in the -<i>pièce justificative</i> No. 44, in the appendix of the book on the -"History of the House of Grandchamp." Both you and we will do a good -stroke of business. You too avoid the possible loss of an auction. You -have your debts paid and more than two millions in cash to put you on -your feet again. As for us, our profit is assured. We have with us two -Americans who will give fifteen hundred thousand francs for the -tapestries alone. You have a fortnight to decide.'—I repeat what he -said, word for word.—A fortnight! It was six days ago that I had the -interview with this Altona, and I haven't yet found the courage to -inform Monsieur le Marquis! And you expect me not to feel as if my brain -was going." -</p> -<p> -"I am the one to tell him," cried the young man, "and instantly. You -have lost six days, Chaffin, six days out of fourteen! You have failed -seriously in your duty. Let us go to him." -</p> -<p> -"And tell him what?" queried the secretary, placing himself before the -door toward which Landri had already taken a step. -</p> -<p> -"Why, the facts, just as they are." -</p> -<p> -"And with what result? With the result that he'll refuse to believe you, -against all the evidence, and say: 'Touch Grandchamp!—they'll not -dare!'—Or else he'll use the week in looking for money, enough to -pay the Altona gang. It may be that he'll find it, for, after all, the -tapestries and furniture and pictures and bronzes are here, and we know -they're worth at least four millions, as the other man offers that. -Well, then, Monsieur le Marquis finds the money. At what price? He -borrows at twenty, thirty, perhaps fifty per cent. And in a year we're -just where we are now, with this difference, that our two millions due -on those notes will have become two millions three hundred thousand, to -say nothing of getting four or five hundred thousand francs more to -continue during that year a sort of life that must at any price be -changed. You hear, Landri—it <i>must</i>! You have reproached me -for neglecting my duty. It is true that I haven't been able to say to -your father those horrible words: <i>you must</i>. Consider that all -this wreck of his vast fortune is due to the fact that he would never -consent to say to himself those two little words: <i>I must</i>. You ask -me where that fortune has gone. Why, in living at the rate of five -hundred thousand francs a year, when he and Madame la Marquise had four -hundred thousand—as you said just now—when they married. -With a pencil and paper and two columns, one of income, one of outgo, I -will show you the whole thing in a nutshell. The marquis was determined -to keep up the same establishment at Grandchamp that his father did with -almost twice his income, and his grandfather with three times as much. -Madame your aunt and madame your great-aunt carried the rest with them -to the Nançays and the Vardes. Monsieur le Marquis is always cursing -the Civil Code, and he is quite right. But it is the Civil Code, and -it's stronger than we are and than he is. He has kept up the château as -if he were your grandfather and great-grandfather. Do you know what that -means? In the first place, a hundred thousand francs for the park, -gardens and conservatories, plus sixty thousand for the hounds, forty -thousand for the shooting, thirty-five thousand for the stables. We have -got to two hundred and thirty-five thousand at once. And so with the -rest. The table? We have forty people at dinner to-night, and the -marquis would consider himself disgraced if his chef were not cited as -one of the best in Paris! The servants? You know how many there are, and -you know too that Monsieur le Marquis never dreams of parting with an -old retainer without giving him a pension. We had a discussion only -yesterday about young Mauchaussée. Twelve hundred francs to the father, -and a house; twelve hundred francs to the son. There are more than -thirty others taken care of in the same way. That makes forty thousand -francs. And there are demands all day to which Monsieur le Marquis makes -but one reply: 'Give.' And we give—for brotherhoods and -sisterhoods, for hospitals and churches, for schools, and for the -elections. Without counting the private alms, which don't pass through -my hands. A hundred thousand francs put in Monsieur de Lautrec's hand, -without a receipt, just when we are so straightened, to settle a -gambling debt! I have the proof of it. I spoke to Monsieur le Marquis -about it. I had the courage.—'If we don't help one another,' was -his reply, 'who will help us?'—That he should do such things the -first or second year, in '66 and '67, even down to the war, was natural. -But when he saw the income of the property decreasing, the mortgages -growing bigger, the unpaid bills piling up, that he did not try to stop -is extraordinary. But it's the fact. I understand it so well. Every -economy was a degradation of the house of Grandchamp, and degradation of -a concrete sort, which he could have seen with his eyes and touched with -his hands. Economies, do I say? There were the hedges trimmed every -three years,—but in the interval? the avenues not so well -kept,—but after the rains?—Fewer flowers in the beds, fewer -horses in the stable, stag-hunting with fewer dogs and fewer -whippers-in! His heart was nearly broken. He went back the next year. -The debt increased. It whirled him off in its eddies. And then, he has -always hoped; yesterday, it was a fortunate investment,—Monsieur -Jaubourg had put him on the track of a good thing. He gained a hundred -and twenty thousand francs. A drop of water in the desert! Day, before -yesterday, one of your cousins. Monsieur de Nançay, died and left him a -hundred thousand francs. Another drop of water. These unexpected -windfalls misled him with a mirage which harmonized only too well with -his hereditary instinct. It would be easier for him to break off his -habits altogether, than to change—that is the conclusion at which -I have arrived. On that account, Landri, I look upon this offer of -Altona's as providential, you understand. Monsieur le Marquis must -accept it. Grandchamp once emptied of its furnishings, which are sacred -reliques to him, he will never want to come here again. No more gardens -<i>à la française</i>. At all events we will reduce the cost of -keeping them. No more stag-hunting, no more open house. With what is -left he will still have enough to live very handsomely. We will let the -shooting, the château perhaps. Then we will begin to redeem the -mortgages. The house of Claviers-Grandchamp will be shorn of its -splendor for a few years. But it will live up to its motto: <i>E -tenebris inclarescent</i>. It will not go down forever." -</p> -<p> -Engrossed by the heat of his demonstration, Chaffin had made a false -step. He had changed his tone as he dwelt upon the figures,—a -terrible commentary on the harangue delivered by the marquis to his son -in the forest two hours earlier, on the splendor of the name! To be -sure, the heartless jubilation of the ascent of the staircase no longer -gleamed threateningly in his yellow eyes; but his despicable sentiments -toward his imprudent and magnanimous employer made themselves manifest -in the pitiless clearness with which he thought and spoke of the -disaster. He thought that he knew Landri well, knowing him to be -eminently impressionable, and having formerly contributed, by dint of -surreptitious criticism, to detach him from his <i>milieu</i>. He had -seen how he stood out against the marquis on the subject of Saint-Cyr. -Moreover, was it not now a question of the swallowing-up of his future -inheritance? He was aware neither of the extent of the young man's -unselfishness nor how deeply the genuine poesy of M. de Claviers' -character stirred the chords of that tender heart. That poesy the brutal -draftsman of the balance-sheet of ruin did not even suspect. His picture -of the marquis's life, so foolishly ill-ordered but so generous, his -indictment rather, wherein he had emphasized the <i>grand seigneur's</i> -craze for appearances, without sufficiently setting forth his idealism -and his charity, was strangely at variance with the attitude of a -faithful and growling watch-dog which he ordinarily affected. Landri -felt the difference, by instinct only. The revelation of the impending -catastrophe impressed him much too painfully. It was enough, however, -for him to feel an unconquerable longing to identify himself with his -father, and he replied:— -</p> -<p> -"What? You entertain that idea, you, Chaffin? The furniture of -Grandchamp sold? The treasures that our grandmother rescued so -heroically in '93, dispersed? My father driven from his house by that -vile crew? Never! I would rather sacrifice my own fortune!" -</p> -<p> -"Well!" insinuated Chaffin, "ask him for it." -</p> -<p> -"Don't tell me that it is swallowed up, like—" exclaimed the young -man. He did not finish the sentence, but said emphatically: "I know that's -not true!" -</p> -<p> -"It isn't true, in fact," rejoined the secretary. "Monsieur le Marquis -still has a capital much larger than the fifteen hundred thousand francs -that you inherited from Madame de Claviers. After he rendered his -accounts as guardian, you gave him a general power of attorney which -included the right to sell and to mortgage. You did it because he -inherited a fourth of your mother's property, say five hundred thousand -francs. That property consisted in part of houses. You insisted that it -should remain undivided. It is sufficient, therefore, for him to be all -straight with you, that he should turn over to you the fifteen hundred -thousand francs, the income of which he has always paid you in full; he -can do it, but on one condition, and that is a <i>sine qua non</i>: he must -sell the personal property at Grandchamp,—the only thing that he can -realize on. The lands and buildings are so loaded down with mortgages -and so hard to turn into cash,—we need not talk of that. How long -should you have to wait, do you suppose? And you would not be a -privileged creditor. You have come of yourself to the point to which I -was trying to bring you. That is the whole motive of my action, Landri. -You can get Monsieur de Claviers out of this cul-de-sac, you and nobody -else, and you can do it by demanding your fortune." -</p> -<p> -"I? of him?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, you, and by withdrawing your power of attorney. He will not -choose, that you should for a second suspect him of having misused it. -He won't have any peace until he has restored it all to you, on the -spot. If Altona's four million is offered him at that moment, he'll -accept it. Grandchamp stripped of its treasures is horrible to think of, -I agree. But one can refurnish a dismantled château. One can not -reconstruct a squandered fortune, and with five years more of this life -yours is gone, forever. I owed you the truth. I have told it to you. -Make up your mind." -</p> -<p> -While Chaffin was formulating these suggestions Landri looked at him in -such a way that the other had to avert his eyes. For the first time the -former pupil of the dishonest steward asked himself this question: "Is -this really the same man?" In the flare of a sudden intuition he caught -a glimpse of the dangerous plot woven about the ancient estate, one of -the artisans of which was this man who advised him—to do what? To -commit moral parricide, in view of M. de Claviers' character. But it was -only a gleam. This cruel advice might, after all, have been suggested to -the steward, at his wits' end, by the desperation born of one of those -crises in affairs in which humanity vanishes before the implacability of -figures. However that might be, Landri had been wounded too deeply in -his instinctive delicacy, and a restrained indignation trembled in his -reply. -</p> -<p> -"I will not do that," he said. "I prefer anything to losing his heart. -My first impulse was the true one. I must tell him everything, and -instantly. The future of the family is at stake, and he is its head. It -is for him to decide, not me. Let us go." -</p> -<p> -"I have done all that I can," said Chaffin. "You refuse. Let us go." -</p> -<p> -He opened the door, and instantly the two men found themselves face to -face with Landri's valet. The man was waiting in the corridor, ready to -go in as soon as his master should be free. -</p> -<p> -"Was he listening?" said Chaffin to himself. "Bah! they've known it all -for a long while." -</p> -<p> -He slandered the man, who was the son of one of the old lamp-men of the -château. Grandchamp was lighted throughout by oil, and it required three -men specially assigned for that service!—This valet had a message -to deliver, the mysterious nature of which disturbed him. Such was the -exceedingly simple explanation of his standing sentry. -</p> -<p> -"A person wishes to speak with Monsieur le Comte at once. It is very -urgent and very important, but it's only for a word. The person is -waiting in Monsieur le Comte's bedroom." -</p> -<p> -"If it's only for a word," said Landri, himself astonished, even in his -trouble, by that message and the messenger's insistence, "I will go. I -will return in a moment, Chaffin, wait for me. Do you, Jean, go and find -where Monsieur le Marquis is just now." -</p> -<p> -"Landri will tell Monsieur de Claviers nothing," repeated the former -tutor when he was left alone. That meeting of their glances, a few -moments before, had revealed to him an unsuspected energy and -perspicacity in his pupil. He had accepted without further remonstrance -the proposition to tell the marquis the truth, for fear of arousing -suspicion. He answered it in anticipation, mentally: "But then, let him -tell him all. What does it matter to me? My accounts are all straight. I -have never acted without written authority.—No. He won't tell him -anything. No one can speak to that man. Landri will think better of it. -He's going to Paris to-morrow. He'll take advice. Advice? From whom? -Jaubourg perhaps. No, he doesn't like him, and he loves, yes, adores, -the marquis! The voice of the blood is like their wonderful Race; what -an excellent joke!" Chaffin sneered. In thought he insulted his master -twice over, in his person and in his ideas. "Landri will go and see -Métivier, the notary, it's more likely. Yes, that's the better way. -Métivier will send for me. When he knows the situation of affairs, -he'll agree with me. This Altona offer means, at one per cent, forty -thousand francs for me. By the same token, for them it means salvation." -</p> -<p> -The cunning calculator hardly suspected that if, resorting to the -degrading practice of which he had instantly accused the valet, he had -placed his ear against the door of the next room, he would have heard -arrangements made for one of the very interviews that he had imagined. -The "person"—as Jean discreetly said—who was awaiting Landri -was the maître d'hôtel of the invalid on Rue de Solferino, who had come all -the way from Paris to say to the young man:— -</p> -<p> -"When Monsieur Jaubourg learned that Monsieur le Comte had called to -inquire for him without going upstairs, he was very much put out—more -than put out, distressed. I must needs take the first train for -Clermont. He is absolutely determined to see Monsieur le Comte. I am to -insist that Monsieur le Comte come to-morrow if he passes through Paris -again.—Monsieur Jaubourg is so ill, Monsieur le Comte! If he lasts -two or three days, the skies will fall! He was very particular to tell me -not to show myself, so that Monsieur le Marquis should not know of my -coming. He was afraid of disturbing him too much. However, here I am." -</p> -<p> -"Tell Monsieur Jaubourg I will come to-morrow at eleven o'clock," -replied Landri. The care taken by a dying man to spare his old friend a -pang touched him. He felt the delicacy of it all the more keenly because -his heart was frozen, as it were, by the deferential brutality of formal -respect, so cruel in reality, of his former tutor. At any other time, -the peculiarity of the proceeding, sending this servant a two hours' -journey by railway, would have puzzled him; but a too genuine and too -present anxiety suspended in him all morbid labor of the imagination, -and while he was going down the stairs with Chaffin, it mattered little -to him what Jaubourg's reasons were for desiring so earnestly to see -him, or whether it was or was not for the purpose of insisting on his -marriage to Marie de Charlus. -</p> -<p> -Jean had returned to say that M. de Claviers-Grandchamp was in the -dining-room. And it was there that the son and the secretary found the -improvident owner of the treasures coveted by the Altona band. The -<i>grand seigneur</i> still wore his hunting costume. He had not had a -quarter of an hour to himself since his return. He was engaged now with -his major-domo—another example of his grand manner—in arranging -the seats around the enormous table, which was all laid and ready. -Innumerable lighted candles already shone upon the silver plate engraved -by Roëttiers. The flat dishes displayed their edges of interlaced -ribbons on the brilliant whiteness of the cloth, around the central -épergne, a masterpiece signed by Germain. It represented the abduction -of Europa, on a large <i>rocaille pedestal</i>. Wainscoting rebuilt in the -eighteenth century, in the style of Gabriel, covered the walls of the -octagonal room. Eight pillars at the eight angles, fluted, and topped by -Corinthian capitals, imparted a majestic aspect, which was enlivened by -four high Gobelin tapestries, of Oudry's hunting series, alternating -with mirrors. On occasions like this these panels prolonged on the walls -the day's amusement, as did the hunting-horns surrounded by -laurel-branches, chefs-d'œuvre of Gonthière, which could be -distinguished in the decorations. The cream-white tone of the woodwork -harmonized with that of the cane-seated dining-chairs, and with the -reflection of the central chandelier, of Venetian glass,—a caprice of -one of the châtelaines of former days, the wife of the restorer of -Grandchamp, whose portrait by Parrocel was set into the wall over the -white marble chimneypiece. He was on horseback and wore the uniform of a -lieutenant-general,—which he had earned by being wounded at -Fontenoy,—the cuirass under the light blue coat, the white scarf, the -red ribbon, and held in his hand the baton of a general. -</p> -<p> -This ensemble, with the soft and vivid hues of the flowers, blended with -the glistening of the glasses, imparted a touch of grace amid all the -magnificence, which suddenly assumed a tragic aspect in the young man's -eyes. The figures set forth by Chaffin appeared on the walls as -distinctly as the Mene-Tekel-Upharsin of the Biblical feast; and as -suddenly he was conscious of that impossibility which the other had -foreseen—the impossibility of inflicting the pain of a similar vision -upon the impoverished and superb "Émigré," whose last joy this -sumptuous entertainment might prove to be—a childish joy, but -heartfelt and earnest in its bountiful outflow. -</p> -<p> -"Forty!" he cried as soon as he saw his son: "there will surely be forty -of us. An Academy!—I made up the number by inviting our neighbors the -Sicards, and some friends they have with them, the Saint-Larys. Two -charming couples! I will indulge my old eyes with their youthful -happiness.—Well, Chaffin, was I right in ordering dinner for forty? -You won't accuse me of wastefulness again." And he laughed his frank, -hearty laugh. "Look at our Parrocel, Landri. Hasn't he a look of the place? -To think that I shall never see you dressed like that, even if you're a -general some day and I am still in this world! Ah! the fine bright -uniforms of the old days! And the spruce young officers who went into -battle as to a fête, in those colors! Everything is sad with us, even -heroism. But you must help me. I was seating my company. First of all I had -placed Madame de Férussac opposite me, and you over here, beside—" -He showed his son a card on which was written the name of Mademoiselle -de Charlus. "I am putting them all awry. You are the one to sit opposite -me." -</p> -<p> -"Why, no, father," said Landri hastily, "I beg you to leave me where you -had put me. I assure you that I prefer that." -</p> -<p> -"Really? do you mean it?" said M. de Claviers. There was so much artless -gratitude in his expression, that preoccupation about a change of seats -at the table disclosed such a loving regard for the susceptibilities of -the young man's heart, that the tears came to his eyelids, and when his -father asked him,— -</p> -<p> -"Well, what is it? Why were you looking for me?" -</p> -<p> -"To ask you if I shall see you to-morrow before I go," he replied. -Already he was preparing to postpone the revelation which he had -insisted should be made instantly. -</p> -<p> -"I think not," replied the marquis. "You take the train at Clermont, -don't you? At ten o'clock? In that case, surely not."—And Landri did -not protest!—"You passed the night on the railway, and you are -travelling again to-morrow. You must have a good rest. And I have to go -and see one of my farmers, a long way off, who is asking for some -repairs. You know, Chaffin, Père Chabory. He won't get them, I promise -you. I will be immovable. There's no claim in his case. I shall take -advantage of the errand to try my new roan a bit. A splendid beast that -Régie Ardrahan sent me from Dublin—another Toby. But the English have -never learned to teach a horse to trot. I shall start at half after -seven, so as to have returned when my guests wake.—No, we shall not -see each other again. And this evening doesn't count! We will make up for -it at your next visit. I was going up to your room to urge you to call at -Jaubourg's when you go through Paris, and to see him yourself, if you -can. You can telegraph me how you found him." -</p> -<p> -"Landri will do as he pleases," Chaffin interjected, "but I have a -despatch already—from my son—received just now, and which I -came to tell you of. Monsieur Jaubourg is better, much better." -</p> -<p> -"Ah! that's good news!" exclaimed M. de Claviers. "You take a weight off -my heart, Chaffin. The fête will be perfect then. This morning a -ten-branched stag"; and he hummed the refrain:— -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">"Un dix cors jeunement.</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Qui débûche à l'instant.</span> -</div></div> - -<p> -"And to-night a dinner of the sort that Lardin knows how to -serve."—Lardin was his cook.—He hummed another hunting-song, La -Bourbon:— -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">"La chasse, la vin, et les belles</span><br /> -<span class="i2">C'était le refrain de Bourbon.</span> -</div></div> - -<p> -"But we must go and dress, my dear Landri, so that we may be on hand -when they arrive, these 'belles'!" -</p> -<p> -"You see," said Chaffin to Landri in an undertone, as they left the -dining-room behind the marquis, "you didn't speak to him, you couldn't. -To-morrow you won't be able to any better. You felt it. I was sure you -would. Look the situation in the face. You will do what I have advised. -It's the only way. I shall wait forty-eight hours more before I tell -him." -</p> -<p> -He walked away in the direction of his office before Landri had found a -word to reply. He felt humiliated by the consciousness that he had -justified, by his own attitude, the silence for which he had warmly -rebuked his former tutor. He realized fully, however, that the motive of -passionate affection to which he yielded in postponing the awakening -from that blissful dream on the brink of an abyss had nothing in common -with the obscure schemes of a decidedly double-faced personage. Landri -had received this impression anew when the other spoke of the despatch -alleged to have been sent during the day by his son. The message that he -had himself received a half hour before contradicted this improvement, -which was clearly fabricated by Chaffin. For what purpose? As a chance -shot, and to diminish the probabilities of a consultation with the -shrewd Jaubourg concerning the course to be pursued. The young man was -unable to divine this reason. But it was equally true that he could no -longer tell himself in good faith that it was "to spare my father -anxiety." The first shock of surprise was past. His new-born reflections -revealed too many riddles in the performance, and first of all this -persistent abandonment of the contest, this acceptance of an event which -should have been the outcome of nothing less than a desperate -resistance. But in that case Chaffin was not loyal? This supposition -opened horizons so dark that Landri rejected it. His memories of -childhood and youth cried out against it. "He has warned me," he said to -himself. "What forced him to do it? My God! how I wish I knew the truth, -and above all things what my duty is!" -</p> -<p> -What was his duty? He had no sooner propounded that question than it -occupied the whole field of his thought. How gladly he would have asked -advice of some one! But of whom? As he passed through his library again, -after he had dressed, on his way down to the salons on the ground floor, -his glance fell upon a portrait of his mother, and he stopped to gaze at -it, as if the face of the dead might take on life to sustain him, to -give him a hint. Alas! to no purpose would his filial piety have -questioned for days and days the delicate and deceitful features which -had been those of the beautiful Madame de Claviers. He would have -derived nothing but doubts concerning her, had the denunciator carried -to the end his confidences concerning the secret sorrows of the family. -That portrait was of 1878. Landri was just born, and Madame de Claviers -was thirty years old. She was painted sitting down, in a red velvet -evening gown, which left bare her lovely arms, her supple shoulders, her -neck, a trifle long, about which gleamed a row of enormous pearls. She -had a very small head, with an abundance of chestnut hair, a mouth of -sinuous shape, upon which flickered a smile, but impersonal and -seemingly forced. The eyes, whose expression was at once dreamy and -observing, passionate and guarded, contradicted the artificial -banality of that smile. It was the image of a woman, very sweet -and very simple at first glance, very complex at the second, and quite -unintelligible,—a happy woman, but whose happiness was of that -deep-seated and perturbed sort that never comes to fruition, being -condemned, by sin, to remain concealed. -</p> -<p> -Landri, without quite understanding why, had never cared overmuch for -that canvas, which he preserved as a relique. His mother had bequeathed -it to him expressly, in a will made during the last days of the terrible -illness of which she died. Obsessed by the anxiety which consumed him, -he suddenly detested that picture, and hurriedly walked away from it. -That <i>grande dame</i>, in her festival costume, who had reigned over that -life of extravagance while bearing her part in it, had no moral aid to -offer him! Nor had the grandfathers and grandmothers, whose old-time -faces covered all the walls of the salons once inhabited by them -according to the same principle of unbridled expenditure. The marquis's -guests were beginning to crowd the rooms, and the young man contemplated -those family portraits over their heads: young women and old women of -bygone centuries, lords and prelates, ambassadors and field-marshals, -commanders of the Saint-Esprit and Grand Crosses of Saint-Louis. Those -faces, by their presence alone, seemed to entreat the inheritor of their -name to labor to spare them that last great outrage—to be carried -away from the ancestral dwelling, to become simply a Rigaud or a -Largillière, a Nattier or a Tocqué, a Drouet or a Vigée-Lebrun, in some -random collection. To spare them that outrage—but how? And Landri -felt that his uncertainty increased.—Yes, what was his duty? But what -if Chaffin were sincere, if his outlook were just, if, in order to save -his father from a final crash, it were necessary, man-fashion, to -sacrifice those portraits and everything else,—the Gobelins and that -series by Boucher, the <i>Noble Pastorale</i>, and Natoire's Mark Antony, -and the Beauvais tapestries, and the gilded wainscotings of Foliot and -Cagny, and the carpets from La Savonnerie, and the bronzes, and the -hangings, and all that array of beautiful objects, whose frivolous -magnificence inevitably demanded such assemblages as that of this -evening? -</p> -<p> -Passing from inanimate things to people, Landri studied one after -another, first in the salons, afterward in the dining-hall, the familiar -faces of M. de Claviers' guests and of M. de Claviers himself. On the -day when those Férussacs and Hautchemins and Traverses and Sicards and -Saint-Larys and all the rest, and Louis de Bressieux and Florimund de -Charlus, should learn of their host's downfall, would they pity him much -more than his secretary did? Their egoisms, their fickleness, their -indifference seemed to become visible to the son's grief-stricken -imagination. -</p> -<p> -Meanwhile the dinner had begun. The servants in the Claviers-Grandchamp -livery were passing to and fro behind the guests. The light fabrics of -the décolleté gowns alternated with the black coats, eyes shone, lips -laughed, the dishes succeeded one another, wine filled the glasses, and -the marquis, at the centre of his table, contemplated the fête with -eyes sparkling with life. It was as if all the Claviers-Grandchamps were -entertaining in his person, superbly. Hardly more than a suspicion of -dissatisfaction veiled his eyes, when, turning in his son's direction, -he observed his evident preoccupation. "Poor Landri is thinking of his -Madame Olier!" he said to himself; and his magnanimous old heart felt a -vague remorse which he banished by raising his head and gazing at the -portrait of the lieutenant-general, wounded at Fontenoy. -</p> -<p> -The voices rose higher and higher. The laughter became more and more -uproarious. Complexions tingling with the country air assumed a ruddier -hue in the atmosphere of the dining-hall. Landri's suffering became more -and more acute. Was it possible that this fête was really the last? But -what was he to do? What was he to do? He could scarcely force himself to -talk of indifferent subjects with his two neighbors in turn, one of -whom, at his left, was the pretty, fair-haired and insignificant Madame -de Férussac. The other, clever Marie de Charlus, carried her jovial -humor to ever greater lengths as the dinner proceeded. She realized that -she did not exist, so far as Landri was concerned, and she yielded to -the instinct that has ruined the happiness of so many love-lorn women: -to make an impression at any cost on the man they love, and to disgust -him rather than not be noticed at all by him. Ascribing her conduct to -the atmosphere, she began to run through a long list of satirical -sobriquets, such as it was the fashion in Paris, last winter, to -distribute at random. -</p> -<p> -"And Bressieux," she said at one moment, "do you know what they call -Bressieux? Monsieur le Vicomte de la Rochebrocante. And poor Jaubourg, -on account of his swell associates among us? Jaubourg-Saint-Germain. For -my part, I call it very amusing!" -</p> -<p> -"Jaubourg-Saint-Germain?" said Sicard, the spiteful damsel's right-hand -neighbor. "I don't know him. True, it is amusing!" -</p> -<p> -The most amusing part of it was that the Sicard couple had their own -nick-name—unknown to the parties concerned, of course:—"The -three halves." This wretched pun signified that the very diminutive Madame -de Sicard, married to the very diminutive M. de Sicard, was supposed to -have a tender penchant for the very diminutive M. de Travers. The -historian of contemporary manners would apologize for noting, even -cursorily, such trifles, were it not that they have a slight documentary -value. This innocent fooling of a society so threatened measured the -degree of its heedlessness. -</p> -<p> -Ordinarily these idiocies of the prevailing mode annoyed Landri de -Claviers. That refined and intelligent youth lacked, it must be -confessed, the precious gift of smiling, which the marquis had, and -which the English call by an untranslatable phrase, "the sense of -humor." He took everything alike too much <i>au sérieux</i>. However, he -did not think at that moment of taking offence at Marie's wretched taste. -The epigram concerning Bressieux had suddenly reminded him that his -father and himself had surprised the gentleman-broker in conversation -with Chaffin. He looked at him across the table and saw that the other -was looking at him. Was Bressieux mixed up in the schemes of the Altona -gang? Was that possible, too?—Oh! what to do? what to do? And, above -all, how to learn the truth? -</p> -<p> -The second of the sobriquets mentioned by Mademoiselle de Charlus -started Landri's mind upon another scent.—Jaubourg? But he was to see -Jaubourg to-morrow. Suppose Jaubourg, who knew everybody in their -circle, as that absurd name indicated, suppose that Jaubourg, too, knew -that imminent peril menaced their house? Suppose that was what he wanted -to speak about to his friend's son, being unable to induce that friend -himself to listen? And in the event that he knew nothing, why should not -Landri tell him the truth, in order to obtain the advice for which his -longing became more and more intense? Jaubourg was really fond of M. de -Claviers-Grandchamp. The young man's mind fastened upon this idea, which -he did nothing but turn over and over all the evening. -</p> -<p> -How long it seemed to him before the last carriage, rumbling over the -pavement of the courtyard, had borne away the last guest! And no less -long the beginning of the night, when, having gone up to his room, and -being left to himself, he tried to formulate an appeal to the experience -and affection of a man with whom he had never felt at his ease! He had -too often encountered M. Jaubourg's interference, always concealed, in -matters that concerned only M. de Claviers and himself. He had never -learned anything of it except by chance. So it was to-day with this -Charlus project. And with it all, Jaubourg had never manifested to -Landri that good-humored affection which is the privilege of old family -friends who have seen us grow up. He had kept the child, and, later, the -young man, at a distance, by an attitude of constant criticism, -courteous and scornful at the same time. There had always been an -atmosphere of constraint between them. Chaffin's prevision was accurate -on this first point. Nor had he gone astray upon the second. The more -Landri dwelt on the idea of relying upon Jaubourg, the more the wonted -antipathy revived. "Besides," he concluded, "sick as he is, incapable of -taking any active step, ignorant of the Code, of what assistance can he -be to me, if there's a conspiracy to be foiled and legal precautions to -be taken?" -</p> -<p> -Then it was, as the thought of possible litigation came to his mind, -that he remembered Métivier, the notary. "Where were my wits?" he -thought. "Métivier's the man I must see. One can appeal from a -judgment. One can resist. A notary knows how to do it. He knows the ways -to borrow money. My fortune is still intact. Chaffin admitted as much. -Métivier will tell me if I can use it to save Grandchamp, and how to go -about it." -</p> -<p> -He reflected that, as he was to pass only half a day in Paris, he had -not time to make an appointment with Maître Métivier, a very busy man, -who, perhaps, would not be at his office. He did not go to bed until he -had written a long and very succinct letter, which he proposed to leave -at the notary's in case of his absence. He set forth in detail the whole -story that Chaffin had told him, giving the names of Madame Müller and -Altona, the figures given to him, the advice insinuated by his former -tutor, his determination to sacrifice his personal interests absolutely -in order that the château might be kept intact. He added that, being -obliged to return to Saint-Mihiel, he would arrange to be at Paris as -soon as his presence was necessary. -</p> -<p> -As he read the letter over he was amazed to notice how easy it seemed to -him, now, to apply to his colonel for another leave, which had seemed to -him impossible that morning, in view of the prospective inventories. -Chaffin's revelation had changed the whole course of his thought. Other -revelations, more tragical, were about to supervene, and to lead him in -still another direction. He had no more suspicion of them than he had -had of these the night before, when he deemed himself so unfortunate, -and when the whole drama of his life seemed to him to be comprised in -those two desires: not to quit his profession as a soldier, and not to -lose the woman he loved. He had not, however, forgotten her, that friend -who was so dear to him. As he fell asleep, at the close of that day so -full of events, which preceded another day of even more cruel trial, he -reverted mentally to his conversation of the morning in the little salon -on Rue Monsieur. He marvelled at the unexpected détours of life, which -keeps such surprises in store for us, and he reproached himself, like a -true lover, for having given Valentine no place in his thoughts during -the last few hours. -</p> -<p> -"But it is for her, too, that I shall go to see Métivier to-morrow," he -said to himself. "This disaster to my father, which should part me from -her, will draw me nearer to her, if I prove to him how devoted I am to -him. Let me save Grandchamp, and he will no longer oppose my marriage. -If we are ruined, Mademoiselle de Charlus's great fortune will become an -argument.—And even if he should persist in saying no, my conscience -would be at rest, having sacrificed myself to him, as I wish, as I am -determined to do." -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap04"></a></p> - -<h4>IV -<br /><br /> -THE TRAGIC UNDERSIDE OF A GRAND EXISTENCE<br /> -(<i>Concluded</i>) -</h4> - -<p> -This sweet and tender image of the adorable woman upon whom Landri had -formed the pious habit of letting his thoughts rest every night, for -years past, before closing his eyes, was there again when he woke. Such -is the sorcery of a passionate love in youth. To be sure, he was much -engrossed by the step he was arranging to take with respect to Maître -Métivier; the confusion in their financial affairs disclosed by Chaffin -was most serious, and brought with it threatening consequences in the -future. Moreover, none of the obstacles against which he had bruised -himself the night before had disappeared. He was still likely to -receive, before the end of the week, an order to proceed to take one of -the two church inventories announced as about to be taken in the -neighborhood of Saint-Mihiel. He knew too well, despite the sophistical -reasoning of his desire, that his father's opposition to a mésalliance -would not readily give way. But he was to see Valentine Olier at two -o'clock, and in spite of everything, an intimate joy had possession of -him. While he was dressing and breakfasting, he constantly interrupted -himself to gaze admiringly at the depths of the blue sky, at the forest -bronzed by the autumn, at the garden <i>à la française</i> spreading -beneath his windows, and at the statues, whose white lines stood out -against the dense dark foliage of the yews, trimmed in the shape of -balls and pyramids. -</p> -<p> -That same blue sky enveloped the château as with an aureole when he -turned to look at it once more, in the carriage that was taking him to -the Clermont station. He had had the good fortune not to fall in with -Chaffin as he was leaving,—he had dreaded such a meeting a -little,—and he had the additional good fortune to meet his father -in person at a turn in the road, mounted, as he had said, on his new -horse. -</p> -<p> -"I was determined to introduce him to you," cried the old nobleman as -soon as his son was within earshot, "and also to bid you good-morning. -Did you rest well? Good!—My farmer has hoodwinked me—he was -sure to. He'll have his repairs. Chaffin will scold me.—As for -this old fellow," and he patted the arched neck of the powerful Irish -horse which was dancing nervously, "he tried hard to unseat his new -rider.—Whoa! whoa! I am not in favor of divorce, my boy.—I -have taken him down a little all the same, by giving him a chance to -gallop. As for the trot, we shall not say anything about that for some -time. But I'll show you what he can do." -</p> -<p> -Riding at a ditch near-by, he raised the beast, which leaped readily to -the other side. There was a low stone wall a short distance away, at -which M. de Claviers drove the roan straight, with no less daring and -grace than if he had been five-and-twenty instead of five-and-sixty. The -horse leaped the obstacle. The marquis waved his hat triumphantly. -</p> -<p> -"A second Toby!" he cried exultantly to his son. "And he's shrewd too, -the beast! Oh, he is!—Adieu, my son, and don't forget Jaubourg. A -despatch at once!" -</p> -<p> -He disappeared. How often Landri was destined to see again in memory -that horseman, so proud of mien, riding away across the fields! "Adieu, -father!" he cried in response; and it was indeed an adieu that they -exchanged,—although they were to meet again,—adieu of the -father to the son, of the son to the father. And neither knew it! -</p> -<p> -"He is too anxious about his friend," said Landri to himself as he left -the train, an hour later, on the platform of the Gare du Nord. "I will -go there first. Then to Métivier's. Place de la Madeleine—that's on -my way to luncheon at the club. My father will have his telegram all the -earlier. Mon Dieu! if only I have no terrible news to send him!" -</p> -<p> -As so often happens, the unhappy youth dreaded the very thing that he -ought most earnestly to have desired. He had a slight sense of relief -when he noticed, on reaching Rue de Solferino, that the straw was still -spread in front of the house. M. de Claviers' friend was still alive. -But the bulletin, posted in the concierge's lodge, contained one line, -more ominous than that of the preceding day: "A very restless night. -Increasing weakness." Beside it was a register on which were inscribed -long columns of signatures "with currents of air," as the -free-mason-colonel was wont to say in his coarse and picturesque -"<i>fichards</i>'" slang. Our death-beds and our burials sum up, in a -synopsis, as it were, our whole social individuality. -</p> -<p> -"Jaubourg-Saint-Germain" was taking his departure as if he really -deserved that biting epigram. Who, pray, in Paris is sufficiently -interested in the real motives of our actions to seek them beyond our -gestures? The son of a stock-broker, Jaubourg had frequented a circle -very different from that of his birth, for reasons which were not -vanity. All his shrewdness had exerted itself to dissemble them. -Moreover, if he had been a great lover he had been this also,—the -social status makes itself felt even in the tender passion,—a wealthy -bourgeois training among patricians. All sorts of little indications -adjusted themselves to that rôle in his case. He had chosen for his -abode the first floor of an old parliamentary house, spared when -Boulevard Saint-Germain was laid out. The immeasurably high-studded -rooms presented a seignorial aspect, in harmony with the very beautiful -furniture and the tapestries that Charles Jaubourg had collected -therein,—as at Grandchamp. But the furniture and tapestries did not -constitute a true ensemble. The aristocratic stage-setting, which was so -alive in the château de Claviers, took on here the factitious aspect of -a museum. It was the work of a man who had employed the leisure acquired -by the toil of his parents in not resembling them. He proceeded thus -from the small to the great. -</p> -<p> -The servant who opened the door to Landri was the old maître-d'hôtel -who had carried the dying man's message the night before. Jaubourg's -relations with him were very analogous to those of M. de Claviers with -the Mauchaussées and their like. But the châtelain knew his men "plant -and root," to use again one of his favorite expressions. They were of -the soil, of the neighborhood of Grandchamp; their fathers and mothers -doffed their caps on the road to the defunct marquis, as they called -Landri's grandfather; whereas Joseph, Jaubourg's servant, had entered -his service by chance, on the recommendation of the secretary of a club. -He had become attached to his master, however, with the affection that -shrewd servants conceive for bachelors. He had made himself a home -there. His devotion was genuine, but to a master whom he could not -replace. This sentiment, composed largely of selfishness, bore no -resemblance whatever to the familiar and hereditarily feudal deference -with which the marquis's retainers enveloped him. There was something of -the confederate in Joseph, of the safe witness, who has entered into a -tacit contract of discreet silence with a rich and independent Parisian. -</p> -<p> -Jaubourg had never said a word or made a motion which authorized any -person whomsoever, especially his servant, even to suspect the nature of -the interest that Landri aroused in him; and yet it was with a -semi-reproachful air that the wily and zealous Joseph greeted the young -man. He had anticipated the ringing of the bell, a sign that he was -watching for his arrival. -</p> -<p> -"Ah! how much Monsieur would have liked to see Monsieur le Comte -yesterday! To-day—" He compressed his lips and touched his forehead. -"Will Monsieur le Comte allow me to ask him not to contradict Monsieur -in anything? Monsieur was so sick last night! The head! the head! I was -afraid he'd go mad! He's better since morning. But if Monsieur le Comte -would like to speak with Monsieur le Docteur Chaffin, while I go to -prepare Monsieur for his visit—" -</p> -<p> -The son of the ex-tutor, who had been since the conversation of the -preceding evening an object of such suspicion to Landri, occupied the -room that Jaubourg, a gentleman of leisure, used for a study. A library -of some size justified that title. It exhibited on its shelves the backs -of rare volumes, which the collector had bought for the editions and for -the bindings, and seldom opened. Pierre Chaffin had seated himself in -front of a magnificent Riesener desk. The morocco top of that regal -piece had certainly never before been used for such tasks as those in -which he was engaged. He was correcting the proofs of a medical -pamphlet, in order not to waste his time in the interval between his -sittings by the bedside of the invalid, who, for his part, had written -nothing at that desk, for many years, except notes accepting or -declining invitations to dinner! -</p> -<p> -Between the doctor and Landri de Claviers-Grandchamp the relations had -always been rather peculiar. As children they played together. Then the -difference in their ranks had separated them. Old Chaffin's surly -temperament—which he turned to account as knaves do their failings, -by exaggerating it—reappeared in Pierre, without artifice or hidden -motive. Very intelligent and energetic, taking life by its only good -side, work, the head of the clinical staff affected the rough manner of -the pure professional who is incessantly irritated by incompetence and -pretentiousness. In his eyes all the people in society—and Landri was -included in that category—were useless and incapable. Strange as such -an anomaly may seem, many physicians, albeit very shrewd observers in -respect to physiological symptoms, form such judgments of matters -relating to the life of the mind, with the simplicity of primary-school -children. Literally, they do not see it. Never had Pierre Chaffin -suspected the inward drama through which the young noble was passing, -torn asunder between his caste and his epoch. As his proud uncourtliness -kept him away from the luxury and the festivities of Grandchamp, he was -wholly ignorant of the reverse side of a society of which his father -never spoke except in phrases of the most conventional and the most -hypocritical respect. He was equally ignorant that he inspired in Landri -a deep interest blended with generous envy. Yes, ever since their youth, -the heir of the Claviers-Grandchamps had envied the student his -independence in the struggle of life, and the reality of his activity. -Unknown to his playmate, he had followed him through the successes of -his service as intern, recommending him again and again to the -illustrious Professor Louvet, his family physician. To these advances, -to that regard which goes forth to meet friendship half-way, Pierre -Chaffin never responded save by a stubborn coldness, in which there was -some embarrassment, a defence, at once brutal and alarmed, against a -sympathy of which he could not fathom the cause. There entered into it -also a little of another, less generous, sort of envy,—that of the -son of a salaried employee for the son of the employer, of the plebeian for -the aristocrat. -</p> -<p> -He displayed no more amenity than usual on this occasion, in -acknowledging Landri's greeting and his questions concerning Jaubourg's -illness. -</p> -<p> -"It's acute pneumonia in its classic form," he said, raising from his -proofs his broad face, surrounded by a reddish beard, to which a pair of -gold-bowed spectacles imparted the expression of a German scholar. "A -cold contracted by imprudence, fatigue for several days, lame back, -headache. Then the peculiar chill, so characteristic of the disease, -that cry of agony of the whole organism attacked, and, immediately -after, thirty-nine degrees of fever. That's the first day. The second, a -hundred and ten pulsations a minute, and forty respirations, instead of -fourteen or eighteen. Last night, delirium. This evening or to-morrow, -judgment will be pronounced on the pneumonia, and I fear it will be very -harsh, considering the patient's age." -</p> -<p> -"Do you think that he will still know me?" asked Landri. "Joseph used -the word madness." -</p> -<p> -"Joseph doesn't know what that word means," interposed the physician -abruptly, with a shrug of the shoulders which was not far from -signifying, "Nor you, either."—"I myself," he continued, "used -almost the same word, which one should never do. It was not delirium -that Monsieur Jaubourg had last night, it was subdelirium. The upper -parts of the brain were under the influence of toxins, and the others, -the unconscious parts, were free and wandering. It's a sort of poisoning -peculiar to pneumonia, and which sometimes indicates its coming. It is -very analogous to alcoholic poisoning. It manifests itself by a dream -which expresses itself in speech and is incoherent to us. Probably, if -we knew the past life of a person intoxicated in this way, we should -discover that his incoherence is logical and true. Most frequently, he -lives over past events. It's a phenomenon that has been carefully -observed. We have given it one of those names of which society folk make -sport, I know, I know. Since Molière's time we are used to such -sarcasms. We call it an <i>ecmnésique</i> state, when the depths of the -memory come to the surface, as we call this delirious dream -<i>onirique</i>. Why does a certain microbe produce this effect when it -attacks the meninges? This problem would lead us on to define what the -mind is, and it is probable that you and I would not agree!—But -let us drop this, which is scarcely interesting to you. I wanted simply -to explain to you that Monsieur Jaubourg has never been mad, and that he -has all his wits this morning. You can see him. Not for very long, and -don't tire him." -</p> -<p> -Once more, in the persistently technical tone of this dry and unfeeling -speech, Landri detected that instinctive hostility, unintelligible to -him, which he had always encountered in Pierre. The physician had -lectured in order to avoid having to talk. And not a word of inquiry as -to his own father, when they had not met for more than a year! Not a -word about M. de Claviers-Grandchamp, who had always been so kind to -him! Pierre Chaffin had an excuse—the ill-humor in which his -master, Professor Louvet, had put him by asking him not to leave Rue de -Solferino. The head of the clinic obeyed his "grand pontiff,"—the -students irreverently give that title to the masters on whom their -futures depend,—and he relieved himself by being ungracious to one -who, more than all others, represented that fashionable society to the -prestige of which his chief sacrificed him. There was not the slightest -failure of professional duty. A physician must not cavil at -his science,—with the friends of a patient. That was -nothing—that theory concerning the dreams of delirium—except -a slightly pedantic excursus. It was sufficient to cause the words -extorted from Jaubourg by the intoxication of his disease, if the crisis -should come on in Landri's presence, to assume an entirely different -meaning in the young man's mind. Alas! he had no need of that scientific -"key." Unaided he would have deciphered only too easily the dying man's -words! They carried their terrifying clearness with them. Nevertheless, -the hypothesis of a death-bed insanity would have left room for a doubt -which the scientist's lucid diagnosis had made untenable. -</p> -<p> -When Madame de Claviers' son entered his chamber, the dying man seemed -to be exhausted by the high fever of the night, and to be more calm. He -lay on a bed in the middle of the room, himself a curiosity for -exhibition, like all the articles of furniture of that room, brought -together during many years, with the painstaking zeal of a collector. -This elegance of stage-setting rendered more painful the last hours of -the old man, whose appearance shocked Landri, warned though he had been. -The cheeks were burning, the whole face hyperæmic; the eyes shone with -the unnatural brilliancy of suffering, and the hurried, almost -spasmodic, dilatation of the nostrils told of the struggle against -suffocation. -</p> -<p> -In his lifetime—it was already permissible to speak thus of -him—Jaubourg had been the typical society man, who does not -surrender; the worldling whose courageous courtesy spares others the -contact and the spectacle of his degeneration. That degeneration was -complete to-day, ominously undeniable and irreparable. But as a matter -of habit the Parisian had mustered energy to make a last toilet. His -face was washed and shaved, his sparse gray locks brushed, his hands -cared for. He had put on a dressing-jacket of soft silk. Puerile yet -pathetic details, which indicated his desire not to leave a too -perverted image of himself in the memory of his visitor, the only one -whom he had admitted during the last half-week. He had expressly -forbidden Joseph to notify the few relations—very distant they -were—that he still possessed. He had trembled lest they should -suspect a condition of affairs which he had made it a point of honor to -conceal for twenty-nine years. Yes, every effort of his life had had but -one aim: to leave his fortune to the son he had had by another man's -wife, without causing the world or that other man to wonder. The -world—he had succeeded in hoodwinking it almost absolutely by such -prodigies of diplomacy! The stories told by two or three members of his -family, such as Madame Privat, had not gone outside a very small circle, -and intimates with the perspicacity of a Bressieux are rare. The -friendship which Jaubourg had manifested for M. de Claviers since his -widowhood, and which, by a strange but very human anomaly, was sincere, -would have put that noble-minded man's suspicions to sleep, if he had -conceived any. But that great heart did not know what it was to -distrust! It was he whom Jaubourg by his will had made his sole legatee, -without informing him or anyone else. His reflections had led him to -this roundabout method of assuring to Landri his three millions at -least. He had, as we have seen, carried his scrupulosity to the point of -being persistently cold in his treatment of the young man, who, like -everybody else, must never know the truth. -</p> -<p> -The adulterine father had anticipated everything, everything except the -death-agony among the hallucinations of memory! On his death-bed he was -to destroy this masterpiece of his prudence, and, we must add, of a -chivalry instigated perhaps by a tacit rivalry with the magnanimous -friend whom his passion had caused him to betray. He had failed therein, -for the first time, in yielding to the unspeakable craving to see once -more, before taking his departure forever, that son who bore another's -name and who was so dear to him. -</p> -<p> -Few men have the strength to die absolutely alone. Jaubourg had alleged -to himself the pretext of talking to the young man of the project of -marriage with Mademoiselle de Charlus, to which he attached very great -importance. He had not foreseen the loss of energy under the attacks of -his malady, or the animal cry of nature in rebellion. -</p> -<p> -"You have come, my friend," he said in a short, jerky voice, in which -there was already a hint of the death-rattle. "You have come," he -repeated; "thanks." And he pressed the hand that the other held out, in -a passionate grasp. What a contrast to the guarded and quickly withdrawn -clasp that he had always given him, as if unwillingly and with the ends -of his fingers! This had been one of the most painful to the sensitive -Landri of all the indications of his antipathy. "I wanted to speak to -you—before I die—For I am going to die." And, as the other -protested: "What's the use of lying? I feel death coming. I haven't much -strength. Every word tears me apart." He pointed to both sides of his -chest. "I must speak quickly—I wanted to talk to you," he -insisted,—"about your marriage—" -</p> -<p> -"To Mademoiselle de Charlus?" rejoined the young man. He had noticed -that Jaubourg, like Chaffin a moment earlier, did not mention M. de -Claviers. "He doesn't really care for him, either," he thought, -recalling the last words that the marquis had shouted after him as they -parted. "It's the disease," he reflected further. "And I had thought of -consulting him about the tricks of our creditors—and I find him in -this state!"—He added, aloud: "My father told me how deeply you had -interested yourself for me in that matter, and I thank you heartily, you -understand,—heartily." -</p> -<p> -"Claviers mentioned it to you?" rejoined the dying man; and added, with -feverish anxiety, "and you replied?" -</p> -<p> -"That I shall never marry a woman I do not love, and that I do not love -Mademoiselle de Charlus." -</p> -<p> -"I was sure of it!" groaned Jaubourg, leaning forward sorrowfully. A -hoarse cough shook him, which he tried to check with his handkerchief, -upon which spots like rust appeared. "Don't call," he summoned strength -to say to Landri, who was putting out his hand to touch the button of -the electric bell. In face of the manifest terror of that appeal, he -remembered the doctor's recommendations. He obeyed. The invalid, -exhausted by the paroxysm of coughing, smoothed his hand to signify his -gratitude. He had thrown himself back, with his eyes closed. He reopened -them, to resume: "But <i>she</i> loves <i>you</i>! And she is charming! -And then, there's the future—I don't know what you will find when -Claviers is no longer there. I have never been able to make him talk -about his money matters. He doesn't know where he stands himself. Ah! I -tremble for you. I have done what I could. But this Charlus -marriage—everything would be straightened out, everything. This -Chaffin, in whom he has such blind confidence, what is he? I have never -been able to find out that, either. Oh! my poor, poor Landri!" -</p> -<p> -His excitement increased. The young man did not yet interpret in their -true meaning words which, however, clothed with a new aspect that -strange nature; did they not betray a preoccupation wholly intent upon -him, in a man whom he regarded as a friend of his father exclusively? On -the other hand these words of distrust in connection with Chaffin -corresponded too nearly with the feeling aroused in his own mind for him -not to follow them up. -</p> -<p> -"Do you, too, look upon Chaffin with suspicion?" -</p> -<p> -"For a very long time," Jaubourg replied. "You will ask me: 'In that -case, why do you place yourself in his son's care?' Louvet forced him on -me. I did not refuse. I didn't think that I was so seriously ill! And -then, the son isn't the same sort as the father. But you don't know what -it is, to feel at times that you are going off, that you are speaking, -that you have spoken. And then you don't remember what you have -said—not a word. Everything is black before the mind. How I -suffered from that impression last night! Joseph swore that I -didn't say anything. You can believe him. He is reliable, perfectly -reliable.—My God! that feeling is coming back!—My -head!—it aches. Oh! how it aches! It's as if I had a pain in my -mind!"—He took his head in his hands and pressed it. Another -paroxysm of coughing bent him double; he came out of it repeating: "No! -no! no! no!" Then, as if that almost convulsive denial had renewed his -strength, he added, speaking more jerkily than ever: "I know why you -won't marry this girl, who is so rich, who would rescue you if Claviers -has squandered everything! I know why. You still love the other." -</p> -<p> -"What other?" queried Landri. The overmastering compassion that he felt -for the invalid's evident agony did not prevent him from starting at -that direct allusion. One fact stood out in his memory: Valentine -imploring him not to go up to Jaubourg's room, not to see him. Were they -acquainted, then? His surprise was so great that he insisted almost -harshly: "What other, I say? Whom are you referring to?" -</p> -<p> -"To that Madame Olier," said Jaubourg. "Oh! Landri, not those eyes, not -that voice! I can't stand that!—Look you,—I say nothing -against her. I know that no one ever spoke ill of her. But at -Saint-Mihiel you saw her constantly—I know that. She is a widow. I -know that too, and where she lives. I should have found a way to know -her, if it had been necessary. I know everything that concerns you, you -see. I have always found a way to know it, day by day, ever since you -were born. You mustn't think of marrying her. If she loves you for -yourself, she ought not to think of it, either. In the first place, -Claviers will never consent. And secondly you must be rich. I want you -to be rich—I want it.—You don't understand. You must not -understand.—Ah! I have always loved you so dearly, you know, -Landri, and I have never been able to show it. It was my duty not to. -It's my duty now.—My head is getting confused again, like -yesterday.—But I don't want—I don't want—No. No. No. I -won't say anything.—Go away, Joseph. Go away, Chaffin. They're -looking at me. They shall not know. They shall not know.—My -Landri! my own Landri!" -</p> -<p> -"Neither Joseph nor Chaffin is here," said the young man. "Calm -yourself, Jaubourg. Calm yourself." -</p> -<p> -He made him lie down again, very gently. Those few sentences from the -dying man's lips had moved him to the inmost depths of his being. With -what a passionate interest the man must have followed him in order to -have obtained such detailed information concerning incidents of so -private a nature! M. de Claviers did not even suspect Madame Olier's -existence before their conversation in the forest, and Jaubourg knew -everything about her! He knew everything about him, he had said, "day by -day, ever since he was born." What did those enigmatic words mean, and -uttered, too, in such a tone? And those other words: "I have always -loved you so dearly! I have never been able to show it. <i>It was my duty -not to</i>!" -</p> -<p> -And, already disturbed even to anguish, Landri repeated: "They are not -here. I am alone with you, all alone;" and, almost in a tone of -entreaty: "Before me you can say anything; speak, if that will calm you. -For you must calm yourself. You must." -</p> -<p> -"I have nothing to say," Jaubourg replied, "to anyone. To anyone." He -had recovered his self-control once more. "I am quite calm. But my head -gets so confused! Kiss me, Landri. Bid me adieu. I wanted to see you for -that.—Oh! Just once, let me kiss you once as I love you. Oh! my -child! my child!" -</p> -<p> -Tears gushed from his eyes, and rolled down amid the sweat with which -his face was bathed. He rested his moist face on the young man's hands. -He pressed him to his heart. He touched his hair and his shoulders; and -Landri, aghast at the horrible thing that was being disclosed to him, -listened as he continued:— -</p> -<p> -"You have gone back to your kind voice.—Your voice! That was my -only joy in you. When you were a little child, at Grandchamp, I used to -go into the library to listen to you as you played in the garden under -the windows."—He had raised himself to a sitting posture. The -dream described by the doctor was beginning.—"You don't see me, -nor anyone else. I am looking at you.—You run about, your curly -hair floats in the wind—your mother's hair.—She comes to -you, along the path, against the yews. The air has colored her cheeks. -How lovely she is!—She knows I am there. She smiles at me over our -child's head.—Where has she gone?" His eyes had changed their -expression. They were fixed on other scenes.—"How tiny she looks -in that great bed! She insisted on dressing up. Her pearls sink into the -folds in the skin of her neck!—Ah! how she suffers at the thought -of death! So young, and that frightful disease!—I am going. You -know that if I could stay I would not leave you, Geneviève—tell -me that you know it.—I love you! I love you!—They are taking -her away.—Look! I do not weep. You can look at me, I shall not -betray her.—Geoffroy,—he is weeping. I do not weep. I still -have our child. He shall have everything, everything. I have found a -way—You sha'n't prevent that! You sha'n't prevent it!" -</p> -<p> -A terrifying vision had suddenly succeeded the pictures among which -Landri had recognized—with ever-increasing horror!—the -amusements of his childhood, his sick mother, and the minute detail of -the pearl necklace about her fleshless neck; that mother's -burial—and the rest! The invalid had raised himself in his bed. He -was gazing at the young man, with a stupefied expression in his eyes, -evidently mingling the altogether confused impression aroused by his -presence with the nightmare that had possession of him. -</p> -<p> -"You say that he's my son! You have no right to think that," he groaned, -"you don't know—Don't say it—I forbid you to say it!" -</p> -<p> -Then, as the illusion assumed a more definite and more alarming form, he -uttered a loud shriek and jumped out of his bed. -</p> -<p> -This outcry was heard through the partition. It reached the ears of the -servant and the doctor, both of whom rushed into the chamber at the same -moment, just in time to stop the invalid, who had darted toward the -window to escape from the voices that he heard. -</p> -<p> -"Leave us alone," said the doctor to Landri, who was so horrorstruck by -the scene, that he had not even gone to the assistance of the victim of -hallucination. "Joseph and I can take care of him." -</p> -<p> -He pushed the young man into the study, where he remained quarter of an -hour, half an hour, completely crushed, as if he himself were in the -clutches of a nightmare which paralyzed him with terror. At last the -doctor reappeared. His face bore the marks of extraordinary -preoccupation. -</p> -<p> -"I have just given him an injection of morphine, to subdue him," he -said. "He will doze now, till the end. But such a paroxysm! That of last -night was a mere outline.—Above all things pay no attention to what -he may have said to you. It was absolute mental confusion,—madness." -He repeated: "madness." -</p> -<p> -He looked his companion squarely in the face—too squarely—as he -emitted that phrase which contradicted so utterly his earlier formulas: -"He lives over past events.—The depths of his memory come to the -surface." He himself realized, no doubt, the terrible bearing of the -antithesis between this second assertion and the former one, for he -could not help blushing. What words had Jaubourg uttered, then, in his -delirium, that were even more explicit? Had he pronounced, before those -witnesses, the horrifying sentence: "I was Madame de Claviers' lover, -and Landri is my son?" At all events, that was the ghastly fact that -Chaffin had grasped amid the sick man's divagations, as Landri himself -had done; and, at this additional evidence, he felt an icy chill run -through his whole body. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -When a man is suddenly brought face to face with a fact of supremely -tragic importance to him, which he cannot honestly doubt, and of which -he had no previous suspicion, an interval of semi-stupefaction succeeds, -of brief duration, during which he could not himself say what his -sensations are. It is not grief, for the man does not comprehend what he -has just learned. He does not realize it. Nor is it hesitation. Later he -will be able to argue, he will attempt, rather, to argue, against the -evidence. For the moment the fact has entered into him, with its -irresistible force, as a steel point enters the flesh that it passes -through, and there ensues, in the most secret depths of his being, that -total upheaval of nature to which the hymn in the liturgy refers: -<i>Stupebit et natura</i>. However, life goes on about this man who has -been stricken to death and knows it not. It even goes on within him, and he -seconds it, and he obeys its behests with an automatism resembling that -of an evil suggestion. In this state Landri descended the stairs from -Jaubourg's apartment, re-entered the cab he had left at the door, and -gave the cabman Maître Métivier's address, almost without being -conscious of it. The clock, wound before the terrible shock, performed -its functions mechanically. -</p> -<p> -The notary was not at his office. Of what consequence now to the young -man were those financial difficulties which had seemed so formidable to -him? What were they in presence of this other horrible thing? He left -his letter, and went on, on foot, toward the club on Rue Scribe where he -had determined to lunch. A telegraph office that he passed reminded him -of his promise to send M. de Claviers a despatch. He went in; and there, -as he rested his elbow on the desk of blackened wood, before the printed -form, and dipped his pen into the ink, this species of somnambulism -suddenly ceased. His consciousness returned, acute and heart-rending. -That ghastly hour that he had just lived through was a reality. Jaubourg -was really dying. He had really said to him those words which still -filled his ears and which had rooted in his mind the most cruel, the -most ineradicable of ideas. A sudden evocation showed him M. de Claviers -entering that same room, and the dying man, in the throes of the same -delirium, uttering the same words. -</p> -<p> -"That shall not be!" he said, and he crumpled the paper, on which he had -not even begun to write the address, with a convulsive gesture of -dismay. Feverishly he wrote on another sheet: "Marquis de -Claviers-Grandchamp. Château de Grandchamp, Oise.—Don't be alarmed. A -decided improvement;" and signed it. Then he handed the untruthful -despatch through the wicket. -</p> -<p> -He was within two steps of the club. The sight of one of the members -going in at the door, who, fortunately, did not see him, made him stop -short and walk away, almost run, in the opposite direction. That member -of the club knew Charles Jaubourg, as all the others did. He would ask -him for news of him. The friendship between the sick man and M. de -Claviers was legendary.—Friendship!—Suddenly Landri said to -himself: "They all know. Such scandals as this the world always knows; it -hawks them about and laughs at them. The whole club knows. All Paris knows. -There were only two people who didn't know." -</p> -<p> -He walked on and on,—how long he could not have told,—flying -from those witnesses of the family disgrace, flying from himself. He -mechanically entered a restaurant for luncheon, but had hardly begun to -eat when he rose. Another image sprang up in his mind,—that of -Valentine Olier. She too knew. That was the meaning of the exclamation -that rushed from her lips: "Monsieur Jaubourg dying? I hope he won't see -you"; of her entreaty not to see the sick man. She knew! With a bound as -brutally instinctive as the contraction of his fingers on the white -telegraphic form just before, Landri left the restaurant. He hailed -another cab, to fly to her. -</p> -<p> -In his unreasoning excitement he had walked heedlessly, from street to -street, as far as the network that encompasses the Department of the -Interior. He was quite near Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where the -town mansion of the Claviers-Grandchamps is situated. There his mother -had died. There he had lived ever since with—By what name should he -call henceforth the man whom he loved and should always love as a son -loves his father, and who was nothing at all to him, nothing more than a -great-souled honorable man, outraged by the most terrible of affronts, -by those of the flesh of which his flesh was the offspring? The thought -of seeing that house again was abhorrent to the wretched youth. He had -given the cabman Madame Olier's address. As he was preparing to turn -into Rue des Saussaies, Landri knocked on the glass as if he would break -it. He ordered the man to go by way of Rue de Suresnes, Boulevard -Malesherbes, and Rue Royale. The mere aspect of the quarter in which he -had passed his childhood was, physically, intolerable to him. He closed -his eyes that he might recognize nothing. But in that crisis of his life -what impression could he receive that would not make him cry out in -pain? -</p> -<p> -And now he was going to Valentine. To tell her what? To ask her -what?—The cab had crossed Place de la Concorde, passed through Rue de -Bourgogne and Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, and was rumbling over the pavement of -Rue Monsieur; and he was still asking himself that question, without -finding any reply thereto. To have conceived that ghastly suspicion, -that certainty, alas! concerning Madame de Claviers and his own birth, -was such a disgrace to begin with! To put that idea in words, even to -Valentine, especially to Valentine, would be a crime! The affection of a -son for his mother bears so sacred a character, all the loving energies -of our being combine so powerfully to make her a creature apart from all -others, purer, more irreproachable, more venerable! Was Landri to -overstep the bounds of that respect which he alone could never cease to -feel for Madame de Claviers, whatever she might have done? Should he -repeat, voluntarily, knowingly, those terrible words torn from a dying -man by the approach of the death-agony,—words by which he himself, as -soon as he had heard them, was, as it were, stunned, ay, struck dead? -</p> -<p> -And yet it was absolutely necessary that he should find out whether -Valentine knew and what she knew. The nervous shock had been too -violent. All power of inhibition was momentarily suspended in him. His -thought was certain to become an act the instant that it bore any -relation to the overwhelming revelation that he had had to undergo. So -that it was impossible for him not to cross the courtyard, not to ring -at Madame Olier's door, not to ask if she would receive him. It had not -even occurred to him that it was barely half-past twelve, that their -appointment was for two o'clock, and that the simple fact of his -arriving unexpectedly indicated some extraordinary occurrence. Did he so -much as remember the reason that he and the young woman had made the -appointment, and the passionate and painful interview of yesterday -concerning their marriage? There is a peculiar characteristic of such -uncontrollably excited mental states into which we are cast by a too -abrupt and too violent shock: our mental equilibrium is temporarily -upset. Our most cherished sentiments are arrested as it were, and our -power of prevision as well. We seem to be looking on at the throwing out -of gear of certain all-powerful sensations which lead us where they -choose. -</p> -<p> -The bell had no sooner rung than Landri would have been glad to flee -again as he had been fleeing. He remained. -</p> -<p> -"Either later, or now," he said to himself, "I must see her. I prefer -now, and to know at once the whole extent of this dishonor." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -When the servant announced that Monsieur le Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp -desired to speak with her, and at once, Valentine was at table, had just -finished taking luncheon with her little boy. During the twenty-four -hours since the young man had left her upon her promise of a final -answer to his offer of marriage, she had been constantly in the throes -of the last convulsions of the struggle that had been waged for three -years between her love and her duty first, her good sense next. That -exclamation with which their interview had ended, that "now I am all -his," had been followed by a supreme effort to resist. The serious -objections that she had urged had presented themselves anew with a force -which Landri's disclosures concerning the secret difficulties of his -relations with his father had not lessened—quite the contrary. One -thing had grown less: her authority over her friend. By consenting to -reconsider her first refusal, she had proved too plainly her weakness -before the young man's passion. She realized that, and she was alarmed -to observe how sweet the sensation of yielding to that force was to her. -Irresistible inward intoxication of the woman who begins to give -herself! To give herself! A phrase so simple, yet of such deep meaning, -which sums up in itself the whole miracle of love, because it is love! -To cease to be one's self, to transform one's self into the ideas, the -wishes of another, to become whatsoever he wills, contrary to -self-interest, to prudence, sometimes to honor—so that he may be -happy! And the man whom Valentine loved wanted nothing from her which she -had not the right to give him without remorse. -</p> -<p> -"What answer shall I give him?" she had asked herself a score of times, -without ever arriving at a decision of which she was really, radically -sure in her own mind. "How can I persuade him to wait longer? Wait, and -for what? Assuming that I impose this further postponement upon him, and -he agrees to it, what will our relations be then? If I don't say yes, -and instantly, I shall be obliged, after the explanation we had -yesterday, to close my door to him. To receive him under such conditions -would be mere coquetry, in the worst of all forms. A woman who has let a -man tell her that he loves her should never see him again, or should -belong to him. Not see him again? Not know what he thinks, what he -feels? I should suffer too much. To say yes to him, if ill luck wills -that he shall be mixed up in one of these horrible church-burglaries, is -to dig still deeper the gulf between him and his father. If I could only -make my consent depend on the condition that he should resign rather -than obey an order of that sort! No; that would be wrong. He has a -conscience of his own which I have no right to exert pressure upon in -the name of his love! Ah! how I wish I could be sure that I am deciding -only for his real good, and not because I love him and for my own -happiness!" -</p> -<p> -A little incident had added to her uncertainty: a long letter from -Saint-Mihiel, written by one of the friends she had retained there, the -wife of one of the late Captain Olier's fellow officers. It was all -about the uneasiness that prevailed among all the officers on account of -the imminence of the two inventories—at Hugueville and Montmartin. -The young widow's correspondent related at great length a conversation she -had had with her husband, and how she had insisted that he should resign -rather than comply with certain orders. -</p> -<p> -"She is his wife," Valentine had said to herself. "A wife has the right -to take part in the most important resolutions of her husband's life. -Would she have the right to leave him if he should decide against her -advice? That is the sort of pressure I should try to exert if I should -demand a promise from Landri as the price of my hand. I will not do it!" -</p> -<p> -Such were the thoughts that she was turning over in her mind when the -bell rang. "Monsieur le Comte de Claviers-Grandchamp?" she could not -help asking the servant who transmitted the young man's request; and she -made her repeat the name, her surprise was so great. What was the -meaning of this call at half after twelve instead of two? Evidently, -that Landri had spoken to his father. To make him anticipate their -appointment thus, he must have good news to tell her! Would M. de -Claviers consent to their marriage? It was mad to hope for such a thing, -and yet Valentine's heart was beating fast with that hope when she went -into the small salon where the young man was awaiting her. -</p> -<p> -He had not uttered a word, and already she knew that she was mistaken. -And the door had hardly opened, and already he realized that he had come -to ask that woman a question which it was impossible for him even to -frame in his mind. Just as, a little while before, the trivial, -altogether material, necessity of writing a telegram, had roused him -from his stupor, so now the necessity of stating in explicit words the -ghastly thought roused him from his fit of frenzy. He saw it as clearly -as he saw Valentine coming toward him, that to seek to learn the extent -of the dishonor, as he had said, was to make himself an accomplice in -it, to aggravate it. Whatever Madame Olier might have learned, she had -learned it by hearsay only, and with doubts as to its truth. To speak to -her would change those doubts into certainty. -</p> -<p> -Landri suddenly recovered all the energy he had had before the -revelation. The mere presence of some one to talk to had caused the -tortured youth to realize with crushing force the sacredness of the -obligation to hold his peace, to conceal his martyrdom. Such a mighty -struggle with himself, and so instantaneous in its conclusion, did not -take place without a contraction of the whole being, betrayed by the -tension of the motionless features, by the wavering of the glance, by -the "white voice"—an admirably expressive popular phrase! What a -contrast to the exalted glance, the impassioned lips of -yesterday—those glowing eyes, that ardent voice! What had -happened? Still engrossed by the anxiety revived by her friend's letter, -Valentine thought at once of the ominous tale of inventories to be made. -</p> -<p> -"You have come at noon instead of two o'clock, Landri," she said, -speaking her thought aloud. "I understand. You have to return to -Saint-Mihiel by the next train. Have you had a telegram from the -colonel?" -</p> -<p> -"No," he answered in amazement. He was so far away from these -professional anxieties that he did not even understand the allusion. -</p> -<p> -"Then, if it isn't the inventories—" She did not finish the sentence. -The question that she had on the end of her lips did not pass them. The -perspicacity of a woman who loves made her divine that she must not even -ask it. To give herself countenance and to avoid the appearance of -interrupting herself, she continued: "The fact is that I have been -worried again this morning on your account. I have had a letter on the -subject from Julie Despois, the major's wife. In fact, I put it aside to -show it to you. Here it is." -</p> -<p> -She had espied the letter on her writing-table,—it was placed there, -in fact, with that purpose. She handed it to Landri, who began to read it, -or to pretend to do so. Valentine saw that his eyes followed the lines -but that their sense did not reach him. He did not really see the words. -When he had finished the fourth page, he refolded the letter and handed -it to Madame Olier, who refused it. -</p> -<p> -"Keep it. I want you to keep it. Read it again when you're back at -Saint-Mihiel. She says so well what I said to you so badly." -</p> -<p> -The meaning of these words did not reach the young man, either. He -obeyed, however, and with a mechanical movement slipped the envelope -into his coat pocket. They sat for several seconds without speaking. -This sort of absence in presence terrified Valentine now. Something had -happened, something tragical it must have been to affect him so -profoundly. With that occurrence she had nothing to do,—she felt it, -she saw it. It was not a question of their marriage, nor of the answer -that M. de Claviers might have made. He looked at her no more than he -had looked at the letter just now. Something had happened! And had -happened since the day before. Since the moment that Landri left that -little salon.—Where did he go? To Grandchamp. But he had taken Rue de -Solferino on his way. Madame Olier shuddered at the remembrance of the -dread that had suddenly seized her when Landri had told her of his -purpose. Suppose that, despite the promise she had exacted from him, he -had been compelled to go upstairs? Suppose—And overwhelmed by the -possibilities of which she caught a glimpse, she asked:— -</p> -<p> -"Did you get to Grandchamp in good season yesterday?" -</p> -<p> -"Why, very good," he replied; "in less than two hours." -</p> -<p> -"And your father wasn't angry? That little détour that you had to take -didn't make you too late?" -</p> -<p> -"No," he said, "I was there at the finish." -</p> -<p> -As he pronounced the word "no" his voice hardened a little. His eyelids -drooped over his eyes, in which she read distress. He waited, stiffening -himself, in order not to shriek, for an allusion which she did not make. -A great surgeon probing a wound displays no more skill in holding back -the steel instrument at the moment when it would make the patient cry -out, than a loving woman has in suspending a painful interrogatory -before she has touched the sore spot. But was there need for Valentine -to question him now in order to assure herself that the wound was there? -Madame Privat was right. Jaubourg had loved Madame de Claviers. And so -what she, Valentine, dreaded had really happened. Words had escaped the -dying man which had aroused in the son's mind doubts concerning his -mother's honor! And she waited, suffocated with emotion, for Landri to -go on. -</p> -<p> -He tried to speak, he did not wish to remain silent, to go away until he -had explained his unexpected call. But he could not. He could find only -phrases whose very insignificance emphasized their falsity. -</p> -<p> -"They gave me a great many commissions at the château," he said, "and -they'll take the whole afternoon. They disposed of my time without -consulting me, and as I wanted to see you again, I came a little -earlier." -</p> -<p> -"If you hadn't come," she replied, "and had sent me no word, I should -have been quite sure that it was not your fault. You well know that I -have entire faith in your affection, and that I shall never, never, take -offence at anything." Then, impelled by immeasurable pity for that too -cruelly stricken heart, if in truth a friend of his father, in the -delirium of the death-agony, had dishonored his mother's image forever, -she added: "I blame myself, Landri, for not having told you plainly -enough yesterday how dear you are to me. I didn't show it enough. For -you are dear to me, very dear," she repeated. It was as if she were -trying to tame with words that pain which she divined to be so savage, -so concentrated in itself, to caress it and soothe it. "Say that to -yourself sometimes, when I am not present, whatever may happen." And as -she saw that face, but now so gloomy, relax, and those veiled eyes look -at her once more and see her, the overflow of her affection extorted -from her the confession that she had always refused to make: "For you -see, Landri, I, too—I love you." -</p> -<p> -"You love me!" ejaculated the young man. Obeying the instinct of true -love, whose double vision borders on the marvellous, she had pronounced -the only words capable of pouring balm upon his wound, but causing him -to realize its full extent. That confession that he had so ardently -craved and begged for, he was suffering too intensely to enjoy. That -love which she at last manifested openly, and which, two hours earlier, -would have intoxicated him with a very ecstasy of joy, he could no -longer rush upon, absorb himself in, engulf himself in—himself and -the horrible thing! That thing was there, in his thought, torturing him even -at that moment, not to be forgotten even in the radiance of that noble -heart, which was his at last! A wave of emotion swept over him, so -despairing and so passionate at once, that he was alarmed by it. He -trembled lest the hideous disclosure should burst from his too deeply -moved heart. But did he need to make it now? Had she not divined -everything? And that also touched him, as a more convincing proof of -love than the most impassioned words, and overwhelmed him utterly. -</p> -<p> -"Thanks," he stammered. "But at this -moment—surprise—emotion—Leave me." -</p> -<p> -And motioning to her that his voice failed him, he hid his face in his -hands. He passed ten minutes thus, not sobbing, not weeping, not -sighing, nor did Valentine attempt to question him or to comfort him. -The only assuagement that his sick heart could receive without bleeding -from it was the feeling that she existed, that she was by his side, all -his. She gazed at him, even holding her breath, to spare him any -sensation. There was, in the silent convulsive immobility of that man -who was undergoing the most violent inward tempest and who gave no sign -of it except that gesture of mute agony, a wild upspringing of energy -for which she esteemed and admired him. Never during those three years -had they been so near each other in heart as in that silence, which he -broke at last. He raised his head. He was deathly pale; but the paroxysm -was conquered. He rose, took Madame Olier's hand, and said to her, in a -deep voice:— -</p> -<p> -"Yes. You love me. You have just proved it more clearly than you will -ever do again. I believe it. I feel it, and I feel also that I love you, -ah! much more dearly than I knew. I am going to leave you. I must. But -not until I have asked you again what I asked you yesterday. Valentine, -will you be my wife?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes," she replied, in the same tone. -</p> -<p> -An inexpressible emotion flashed in Landri's eyes as he drew her to him. -Chaste and ardent kiss of betrothal, in which his lips were wet with the -tears that she was shedding, now, for his misery, who did not weep! And -as those tears disturbed him anew to his inmost depths, he tore himself -from her embrace, saying:— -</p> -<p> -"Don't take away my courage. I need it sorely." -</p> -<p> -With these words they parted. She did not make a movement, she did not -say a word to detain him. She felt that he was hers, as she was his, -wholeheartedly, absolutely, and that she could do nothing else for him -than let him go, until he should have worn out, alone, that grief for -which she pitied him so profoundly. How much greater would her pity have -been if she had known the whole truth! She believed that at Jaubourg's -death-bed the young man had surprised some denunciatory words, had -perhaps found letters which had made him suspect his mother. The proofs -that he would soon have to face were far more cruel, and amid them all -he must needs find out the path of honor. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap05"></a></p> - -<h4>V -<br /><br /> -IN UNIFORM -</h4> - -<p> -"I still have her," said Landri to himself, as he left Rue Monsieur. As -before, he walked straight ahead, with the automatic, hurried step which -indicates, in certain diseases, the beginning of a disturbance of the -nerve-centres. But does not a moral shock, of such violence as the one -that he had just received, act upon the organism after the fashion of a -genuine stroke? Do not people often die of such shocks? Do they not come -out from them paralyzed and mentally unhinged? The young man's reason -had been very near giving way during the terrible, nervous paroxysm with -which he had been attacked in Valentine's presence, and which resulted -in the renewed entreaty that she would bind herself to him forever. -</p> -<p> -"I still have her," he repeated, "and only her!" -</p> -<p> -That was the ghastly sensation that he had struggled against during -those ten minutes of dumb agony—the sudden, the indescribable -crash of everything about him.—His mother? The pious memory of her -that he had always retained, tarnished forever!—His father? He had -no father from the moment that he could no longer give that name to the -only man whom he loved with filial affection, to the noble-hearted, the -magnanimous Marquis de Claviers. For the other he had had, from -childhood, only antipathetic sentiments which his sinister disclosure -had suddenly transformed into abhorrence, mingled with remorse and -pity.—His name? He no longer had a name. The name that he bore was -not his. It was a living lie.—His home? He no longer had a home. -In the mansion on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, as at Grandchamp, he -was an intruder, a usurper. He had no right to be there. A few words -uttered by a dying man had sufficed to make his previous existence -nothing save a heap of ruins. Of the truth of those words he had no -doubt. They had come to him with the tragic sanction of death, against -which nothing can prevail. But suppose that it was only the sudden -outburst of a madness caused by the fever of the disease? No. Was -Jaubourg mad when he sent that message to him at Grandchamp the day -before, so that he might embrace him before he died? Was he mad when he -followed Landri as a child, and afterward as a young man, with such -passionately vigilant watchfulness, carefully concealing his interest? -No. Nor was he mad when he pressed him to his heart in that embrace all -a-quiver with the grief-stricken fervor of his paternal love. He was not -mad in those visions of the past, in that "spoken dream," as the doctor -had said, which fitted into their whole life with terrifying exactitude. -</p> -<p> -All these ideas had rushed at once into the young man's over-excited -mind during those very brief moments, as clear and distinct as memories -of the past in the mind of a drowning man. He had lost everything, -everything, except the sweet, pure woman yonder, who loved him, -understood him, pitied him, and did not tell him so—in order to spare -him! The unreasoned impulse, by virtue of which, in the throes of that -rayless distress, he had asked his only friend to unite their destinies, -was also, to follow out a too exact comparison, like the instinctive -movement with which the drowning man, whirled away by the current, -seizes in a desperate clutch the helping hand extended over the gunwale. -How happy Landri would have been to pass that long afternoon with her, -at her feet, his head on her knees; to feel descend upon him the only -charity that despairing souls welcome—sympathy without words! He had -been mortally afraid that he should himself speak if he stayed; and so -he had gone away to wrestle anew with the painful going and coming of -his thoughts, which tossed him to and fro once more in their resistless -surge. One by one the dying man's words repeated themselves in his mind, -from the sadly affectionate "You have come" of his first greeting, to -the outcries at the end, the imperative "You say that he's my son!"—a -supreme confession of the death-agony, followed by a supreme protest -which corroborated its truth. It proved the intense determination with -which the man had guarded his secret so long as his strength permitted -him to do so. -</p> -<p> -"Jaubourg's son!" Landri exclaimed. "I am Jaubourg's son!" The pitiless -revelation regarding his birth was beginning to appear to him in its -concrete reality. The social atmosphere in which he had lived nearly -thirty years gave to that vision a unique character. He had heard the -people of his circle, from the best—a Marquis de Claviers—to -the mediocre and the worst,—a Charlus, a Bressieux,—talk so -much of "race"; and it was in his race that he found himself suddenly -stricken. The blood that flowed in his veins—and he looked -tremulously at his hands—was the blood of Jaubourg. The vital -force that enabled him to move, to breathe, as he was doing at that -moment, came to him from Jaubourg. His very flesh came from that man. In -imagination he saw him once more, no longer a pitiable, wasted creature, -as he lay stricken with pneumonia on his bed, but young and handsome, as -his childish recollections recalled him,—on horseback, following -the hunt; in morning costume, walking in the avenues of their park at -Grandchamp; in evening dress, seated at their table. These images -brought the man before him, physically. The relationship of their faces -became, so to speak, visible, palpable, to him, and it gave him a -sensation of disgust, of revolt at himself—a detestation of his -own body, as it were. -</p> -<p> -The secret and hidden resemblances which he suddenly discovered between -himself and his mother's lover—he was dismayed to find that he dared -utter the words—confounded him. How had he failed to detect them? How -happened it that all those about him, and the marquis first of all, had -not remarked that similarity of temperament and the striking contrast -between the offspring of the Parisian bourgeois, distinguished it is -true, but in a mediocre way, and the feudal line of the Claviers? Landri -was slender, like Jaubourg, refined like him, but with a superficial, -almost stunted refinement, compared with the magnificence of those -splendidly robust noblemen. They all had light blue eyes. He had -Jaubourg's eyes, brown and dark. After so many years he could hear his -mother say: "Landri has my eyes." Why? So that no one might recognize -the eyes of the other. But he had those eyes, just as he had the -chestnut hair, and the lighter, almost tawny, mustache. -</p> -<p> -From his mother he inherited other features: the straight nose, the -haughty mouth, the dimpled chin. These points of resemblance had -justified Madame de Claviers in asserting that he was her living -portrait—to those who were not aware! Landri was aware now, and he -shuddered at the thought that the intimate guests at Grandchamp had -certainly detected in him the unmistakable tokens of his descent. He was -humiliated in the most secret depths of his being. He had prided -himself, throughout his young manhood, upon not being the prisoner of -his caste. He had treated as delusions at least, if not as prejudices, -the uncompromising convictions of the head of the house of Grandchamp -concerning the nobility; and he had a strange sensation of degradation -in facing the alloyage of his origin, the blending of other inherited -characteristics with the purely aristocratic maternal inheritance. This -feeling was most illogical. Had he not proposed, did he not propose, to -marry a woman even less aristocratic than a Charles Jaubourg? But does -logic ever govern the spontaneous reactions of our pride? -</p> -<p> -This indescribable impression of essential degradation was intensified -by another, more profound and more generous: the affection and -admiration that he had always entertained for M. de Claviers made it -almost unendurable to think that the sacred bond of parentage between -him and that loving, loyal, superior man was broken. Even while -struggling against his father's despotism, he had always been so proud -that he was his father! And he was not his father! What a heart-breaking -thing! It was as if, the very root of his being having suddenly been -laid bare, he were bleeding in every fibre that attaches the soul to the -body. -</p> -<p> -And he walked on and on, aimlessly, forgetting the time, regardless of -his surroundings, until, at the end of the afternoon, he found himself a -long way from his starting-point, at the far end of the Ménilmontant -quarter, beyond the cemetery of Père La Chaise. The approaching -twilight warned him at last that the day was passing. He looked at a -street sign and saw that he was at the corner of Boulevard Mortier and -Rue Saint-Fargeau. He consulted his watch. It was almost five o'clock. -The train he was to take started at a quarter past five. His servant was -waiting for him at the Gare de l'Est. He had just enough time to make -it, in a cab. -</p> -<p> -What mysterious and discomposing impulse of his perturbed heart did he -obey in leaving the station at his right and directing his steps towards -the Seine, and, from the river, to Rue de Solferino again? The -explanation is that, amid the tumult of his chaotic emotions, one image -had incessantly besieged his mind—that of the dying man, whose hands, -wet with sweat, he seemed still to feel wandering over his face, whose -short breath, tearing cough and spasmodic voice he could hear through -space. That man had done him a great wrong, but how large a place he -filled all of a sudden among his obsessions! That sinful paternity, so -brutally disclosed, agitated him without touching him. And yet it was -paternity none the less. His flesh quivered at the memory of those -farewell caresses. He felt a pang of remorse to think of leaving the -city where the unhappy man was breathing his last, without having -inquired for him, without having tried to see him once more. -</p> -<p> -He crossed Pont Royal, walked the length of Quai d'Orsay, and turned -into that ill-omened street. This time, men were engaged in taking away -the straw from before the house; it was useless now and would deaden no -more the loud rumbling of the carriages. Landri's heart contracted, then -beat fast again, when, having entered the lodge to ask for details, he -was informed by the concierge, with the stilted manner of a man of the -people who announces bad news, feeling that he has a share in its -importance:— -</p> -<p> -"Monsieur Jaubourg died about one o'clock, almost immediately after -Monsieur le Comte went away. It seems that he did not suffer. He knew -nothing at all afterward. His head had gone. To think of that being -possible—such an intelligent gentleman! If Monsieur le Comte cares to -go up, he will find Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers there." -</p> -<p> -"My father?" exclaimed the young man. One does not unlearn in a few -moments a habit contracted at the awakening of one's earliest -affections. He heard himself utter that exclamation, and shuddered, -while the other continued:— -</p> -<p> -"Monsieur le Marquis arrived half an hour ago. He knew nothing. It was I -who informed him of the unfortunate event. He was like one -thunderstruck. He could not believe it. 'If I had come this morning,' he -said, 'I should have seen him. I could have bade him adieu.'—Oh! he -was terribly grieved. It will do him good to see Monsieur le Comte." -</p> -<p> -This perfunctory mourner's chatter might have gone on for a long while. -Landri was not listening. He was looking at the foot of the monumental -staircase, and at the broad stone stairs which he could no more avoid -ascending than a condemned man those of the scaffold. This man who -informed him of M. Jaubourg's death knew M. de Claviers and himself too -well. The half-familiarity of his speech proved it. To fail to join the -marquis at once, under such circumstances and under the watchful eyes of -that liveried witness, would be cowardly. It would have been less -cowardly to pour his distress into Valentine's ear! On the other hand, -would he have the courage to meet M. de Claviers at that moment and in -that place, especially if any suspicion had shaken his long-abused -confidence? It was a most improbable supposition, but had not Landri -himself had his eyes opened by an overwhelming and absolutely unexpected -revelation? What was the meaning of this sudden appearance of the -châtelain of Grandchamp, after the telegram announcing an improvement -in the invalid's condition? -</p> -<p> -The young man asked himself that question, another source of anxiety -added to all the rest, as he climbed the stairs. How he wished that -there were more of them!—He was on the landing. He rang. He passed -through the reception room and the library. He entered that bedroom -where, a few hours earlier, the terrible scene was enacted. On the bed -where he had left Jaubourg writhing in pain and uttering unforgettable -words, lay a motionless form, prepared for the coffin. The dead man, in -evening dress, with white cravat, silk socks, and low shoes, had resumed -the conventional mask which the paroxysms of the death-agony had torn -from his face in his last moments—and before whom! Mademoiselle de -Charlus's epigram was justified by the presence of the crucifix between -those hands, joined even then by no prayer, no repentance. The delicate, -sad face, with its closed eyes and lips, its yellow forehead, and its -cheeks of a waxy pallor, as if smoothed of their wrinkles, no longer -told aught of the mystery so many years hidden. -</p> -<p> -Nor did the impassive countenance of Joseph, the maître-d'hôtel, who -was walking about the room on tip-toe, betray any of the secrets that he -might have surprised. He was engaged in overlooking the final -arrangement of the sick-room, which was to be transformed into a salon -for the last visits to be paid to Jaubourg-Saint-Germain, by his "fine -friends," before he was laid in the ground. -</p> -<p> -Pierre Chaffin, whose glance would have been so painful to Landri, was -no longer there. The son might have believed that he had dreamed it all, -that an hallucination had deceived his eyes and his ears, that he had -never seen what he had seen, never heard what he had heard, had it not -been for his trembling when he saw another human figure, kneeling at the -bedside, and alive. It was the Marquis de Claviers, a truly touching -figure in his sincere grief and his childlike faith. He was praying, -with all the strength of his old Christian heart, for his -friend—for him whom he deemed his friend! His absorption was so -complete that he knelt there several minutes without observing the -presence of his son—of him whom he deemed his son. And he, one of -the two beneficiaries of that magnanimous delusion, stood as if -paralyzed by an embarrassment bordering closely on remorse, as if, by -keeping silent, he made himself an accomplice in the insult inflicted on -that proud man. -</p> -<p> -At last the marquis raised his head. He showed his imposing face, -whereon the tears had left their trace. He rose to his feet, to his full -great height, and enveloped in a last glance the dead man, over whom his -hand drew the sign of the Cross.—What a gesture from him to that -other! When his loyal fingers touched that brow, Landri could have cried -out. M. de Claviers espied the young man, and, with another movement no -less pathetic, put his arm about his neck, as if to lean upon him in that -bitter hour. They passed thus into the study, where the betrayed friend -began to speak in an undertone, with the respect which even the most -indifferent assume in the presence of death. In his case it was not a -pose. He reproached himself for having, on the previous day and again -that morning, postponed a last visit to the dying man in favor of his -passionate fondness for hunting. -</p> -<p> -"It was your despatch that made me come," he said. "I divined that you -didn't telegraph the truth—from what? From one little detail. It -began: 'Don't be alarmed.' I thought: 'My poor Landri is disturbed. He -thinks of his old father's grief first of all. Jaubourg is -worse.'—And then I wasn't content with myself. I was angry with -myself for having enjoyed myself too much yesterday, and again this -morning, riding that fine horse and shooting partridges. It is almost -criminal, at my age, to love life so dearly!—However, Charlus and -Bressieux took the train at Clermont at three o'clock. I had taken them -to the station. I jumped into the carriage with them. It was too -late.—I should have been so happy to speak to him again!—But -you saw him. Did he know you? What did he say?" -</p> -<p> -"He had already lost his reason," Landri replied, averting his eyes. He -had believed that afternoon that he had touched the bottom of the -deepest depths of suffering. He had not foreseen this tête-à-tête, -nor these confidences, fraught with such heart-rending significance to -him now. Each of them was destined to add a new chapter to the shocking -tale of deceit. The lover's son recognized therein everything—the -heedless, but lofty-minded security of the nobleman; the loyalty which, -having placed his honor in the hands of his wife and his friend, -had distrusted neither; the wiles of the wife, and the seductive -charm of the friend; and, too, the explanation, if not the excuse -of their sin. That life of parade and magnificence, in which the -"Émigré" had swallowed up his fortune that the glory of the name of -Claviers-Grandchamp might not fade, he had not been able to lead without -an accompaniment of idle associates. Love is the engrossing occupation -of such coteries of luxury and pomp and pleasure. Madame de Claviers was -very pretty. She was romantic, too. The stern and manly poesy of the -marquis's nature did not satisfy a sentimentalism to which a nature more -complex, more subtle, more corrupt perhaps, had appealed more strongly. -And Landri was born of that sin, inevitable and deplorable. But what a -crying shame that a man of so noble and rare a soul should have been -made a mock of at his own fireside! -</p> -<p> -"So it is true," he continued, "that he did not know that he was dying? -Ah! Landri, may the good Lord preserve us from ending so, without being -able to make our last sacrifice! I dread but one form of death—that -is, sudden death. Jaubourg did not deserve it. But Charlus was quite -right—he was not religious. Still, if I had been here, I would have -sent for a priest; but Joseph did not dare to go beyond his orders. I -should have paid no heed to that, and who can say if God would not have -granted him the privilege of recovering consciousness for a moment! But -God is the nobleman of heaven, as somebody said, I don't know who. I -imagine that the amplitude of his indulgence surpasses our poor feeble -judgments. He pardons much to one who has always been sincere and kind; -and Jaubourg was so kind! How many times your mother has told me of -secret charitable deeds of his, and of his considerate words! And she -was rather prejudiced against him.—My dear Landri, it does me good to -have you here! I understand, you came back on my account. You wanted to -be posted, so that you could prepare me for the worst at need. I know -that you and Charles didn't always understand each other. However, I -assure you that he was very fond of you. But he was of another -generation, and he didn't enjoy himself much with the newcomers. 'It -makes me feel too old,' he used to say to me.—'It makes me younger,' -I always said.—He was never reconciled to being more than thirty -years old. You see, he had been such a pretty fellow, such a dandy, and so -fashionable! And it didn't spoil him. I can see him now, in '73, when I -made his acquaintance. It was at the Élysée, in the poor Marshal's -day. That was yesterday, and it was the time of promise. We hoped for so -many things that have never come to pass, and we hoped for them -joyously, too joyously perhaps.—Too joyously," he repeated, and -added: "And now look." -</p> -<p> -He pointed to the bedroom door, then put his hand over his eyes. But in -a moment, manfully shaking his head as if determined not to abandon -himself to these melancholy recollections, he continued:— -</p> -<p> -"I return to Grandchamp by the ten o'clock train. You take the nine -o'clock. Our stations are not far apart, and I'll see you on board. We -will dine on the way.—Let us walk a little, to recover our -equilibrium,—what do you say? How many times I have called for -Charles at this time in the afternoon, when chance brought me to this -quarter! Why, only last Wednesday he spoke to me about this project of -marriage with the Charlus girl. It was in this room that he said to me: -'I am entrusted with a message to you. It's about Landri.'—But let -us go. Joseph will let me know the precise hour of the funeral ceremony. -It will depend on the distant cousins he has left. You must ask for -leave of absence. I must have you with me." -</p> -<p> -"I don't know whether I can get it," Landri replied. The prospect of -that fresh trial, of following that funeral procession under the eyes of -so many people who would surely know the truth, made his flesh creep. At -all events he had a pretext for avoiding it. "Our new colonel isn't very -obliging in that respect. And then, you know, he's of the Left, very -strong, and not very well disposed to us." -</p> -<p> -"When shall you make up your mind to shut the door in the face of those -rascals?" asked M. de Claviers. They were going downstairs, he first, so -that he could not see the intensity of distress depicted on his -companion's face while he persisted: "I am not disturbed; they'll drive -you to it, and, it may be, before very long. On the train Bressieux -showed me a newspaper in which something was said about resuming the -taking of inventories in the Saint-Mihiel region.—'What will -Landri do, if he gets into that?' he asked me.—'What you would -do,' I replied.—I confess that I should be happy to see you take -your leave with a fine gesture. Besides it's high time that a gentleman -should say something that hasn't yet been said. Among the officers who -have resigned as a protest against shameful orders there have been -several of noble birth. They have all talked about their consciences, -their religious principles.—Conscience? I don't care much for that -word. It has served too often as a solemn label for -anarchy.—Religious principles? That's better. That's an appeal to -a discipline that does not adapt itself to people's whims. But for the -noble there's still another duty, that of not disregarding the call of -honor. And one does disregard it when one acts in opposition to the will -of the ancestors from whom he is descended, of those deceased ancestors -who in their lifetime served a Catholic France. We, their progeny, owe -it to them to serve the same France. France without the Church is not -the France of which our houses are a part. For a noble to serve this -France is to renounce his nobility. Such renunciations are the suicide -of honor, of that honor which a great bishop called the safeguard of -justice, the glorious supplement of the laws. That is what I would like -to hear proclaimed to the faces of those curs, by a -Claviers-Grandchamp." -</p> -<p> -They were in the street now. The marquis gazed at his supposititious son -with those piercing blue eyes which were no longer dimmed by a tear. It -was the very climax of tragedy,—of the internal tragedy which life -evolves simply by the interplay of its secret contrasts,—this -quasi-feudal profession of faith, enounced upon that threshold, before -the child born of treachery, by the bitterly outraged nobleman who knew -nothing of the outrage. -</p> -<p> -The arrival of one of their club friends, who came to inscribe his name -at Jaubourg's, and who stopped a moment on the sidewalk to exchange a -few words of condolence with them, enabled Landri to avoid replying. -When, three hours later, he at last found himself alone in his -compartment of the Saint-Mihiel train, he was sorely exhausted, terribly -broken by that murderous day, the hardest of his whole life. Before, -during and after the dinner, which they ate tête-à-tête, M. de -Claviers had said many other things the unconscious cruelty of which had -kept the young man on the rack. But as he lay back in the carriage, -lulled by the monotonous clamor of the train, which translated itself -into distinct syllables, it was those declarations on the stairway, -those words concerning the inventories, which recurred to his mind, -endlessly. In them were combined his melancholy premonitions of the -hours preceding the terrible crisis and the drama which was already -resulting from that crisis itself. -</p> -<p> -"But wherein has anything changed in my situation, so far as that -possibility is concerned?" he asked himself. "Didn't I know how he felt -on that point, and that he would be immovable? But yes, there is a -difference. Before I learned what I have learned, his theory of the duty -of the noble had some meaning to me. It has none now. I am not a -Claviers-Grandchamp, I am not a noble. The things that are valuable to -them have no value to the son of a Jaubourg! He talked to me about -honor! Honor! To me! But what I ought most of all to long for, is to be -mixed up in one of these affairs, to have to execute an order contrary -to all his ideas, and to act as I had made up my mind to act—before. -He will curse me? So much the better! So much the better! We shall never -meet again? So much the better! I could not stand such conversations as -that of this evening. I should betray myself. Indeed, this one went -beyond my strength. I love him too dearly! And who wouldn't love him? He -is so worthy of being loved!" -</p> -<p> -The physical and moral personality of the marquis was reproduced before -his mind with the accuracy and distinctness which long-continued -familiar intercourse produces. Handsome, intellectual, generous, -affectionate, entertaining, so kindly-natured and so perfect a type of -the <i>grand seigneur</i>, the "Émigré" had prestige, he had charm, and he -had been subjected to the atrocious outrage! That infamous deed provoked -an outburst of revolt from the son of the culprit. -</p> -<p> -"How could any one betray such a man? And prefer to him—whom? O -mother! mother!" -</p> -<p> -Landri was alone now. He could give free vent to the emotion that was -suffocating him. Lying prone on the cushions of the carriage, he wept at -last, and for a long, long while. All the tears that he had not shed -during the day he shed now,—those that he had forced back in -Valentine's presence, by an heroic effort of his will; those that he had -forbade himself to display to the indifferent curiosity of the -passers-by during his mad rush across Paris, and those that he had not -let fall when he was talking with M. de Claviers, within two yards of -the death-bed and later at the restaurant. And at the same time that his -heart found relief in tears a reaction took place in his mind. For the -first time since the dying man had begun to speak to him, he tried to -doubt. -</p> -<p> -"But she is my mother!" he sobbed. "And I believed that of her -instantly! Instantly, without inquiry, without proof!" -</p> -<p> -Inquiry! Alas! is there need of inquiry to make one believe what is -visible, what is before one's eyes?—Proof?—But a fact is -itself a proof, and the dying man was that evidence, that proof, that -fact. His face, his movements, his voice returned to Landri's memory. As -plainly as he saw the cushions of that commonplace compartment in their -gray coverings, the lamp in the ceiling, and the nocturnal landscape -flitting past the windows, he had seen a father die, bidding his son a -despairing farewell. He had seen a woman's lover haunted, possessed, -deluded by the memory of that woman. The dying man's outcries were not -evidence: they were reality, unquestionable, undeniable,—the fact, -the indestructible fact.—Doubt? No, Landri could not doubt. One by -one he reviewed the details of that scene, which had been so -short—as short as the time required to swallow a glass of poison, -which, once it has passed into the veins, freezes the very well-spring -of life. -</p> -<p> -Among these details there was one, the threatening nature of which had -not made itself manifest to him until that moment, adding a new terror -to his agony. "The child shall have everything, everything," the sick -man had groaned; and, addressing his imaginary enemies: "You sha'n't -prevent that. I have found a way." Did these words mean that Jaubourg -had left Landri his whole fortune by his will? It was not possible that -that man, prudent as he was, and so intent upon concealing his paternity -that he had forbidden himself ever to embrace his son, should have -contradicted the whole tenor of his life, in cold blood, by such a step! -Was the way that he had found, a gift through a third person? -</p> -<p> -"Whatever it may be," said the young man to himself, "I shall refuse it, -that's all. I, too, shall know how to find a way to avoid touching that -money. It's quite enough that I am obliged to share in their falsehood, -in spite of myself, quite enough to inflict on a man I love and admire -and revere this daily affront. I take his name, his affection, when I am -not entitled to either. It is this sort of rebound that makes certain -forms of treachery so culpable. They fall too heavily on the innocent. -For, after all, I am innocent of this sin, and now it strikes at me -after thirty years. And I must deceive as they did, renew and prolong -their perfidy, conceal the truth from their victim, even at the price of -my blood!" -</p> -<p> -And as the names of the stations succeeded one another in the darkness, -interrupting with their unfeeling summons this inward -lamentation—Châlons—Vitry—Bar-le-Duc:—"How -unfortunate I deemed myself when I travelled over this road day before -yesterday!" he reflected. "And I should be so happy to go back to that -night! One would say that I had a presentiment of the catastrophe toward -which I was going, when I tried so hard to concentrate all my thoughts, -all my reasons for living, upon those two ideas: Valentine and the Army, -the Army and Valentine. I did not foresee, however, that I should so -very soon have nothing else, really, to live for. Now is the time when I -could honestly say to her: 'You and my profession, my profession and -you.'—To her, at least, I am bound, from this day, forever. We -have exchanged promises. We should be no more firmly bound to each other -if we were married.—The Army is my refuge. If I should leave it -now, where should I go?" -</p> -<p> -His refuge! That word, which represented the only succor that he could -expect from life at that moment, returned to the poor fellow's lips, -when, at the end of that sorrowful night, he saw through the carriage -windows about five o'clock the dark and mist-enfolded mass of the houses -of Saint-Mihiel against a sky in which the stars shone feebly. They were -crowded about the ancient abbey church, where, in the baptismal chapel, -may be seen the two children playing with skulls, the chef-d'œuvre -wherein Ligier Richier has represented, by that simple symbolism, the -whole destiny of man. The flame of the lamps barely lighted the waters -of the Meuse, winding rapidly through the damp shadows. The platform of -the station, when the young man alighted, was deserted and gloomy. So of -the streets through which passed the rickety, jolting vehicle found at -the station. But for him there issued from those shuttered houses the -sensation which is produced in us by the return to a round of daily -habits after a violent moral shock. -</p> -<p> -As his cab turned into Rue du Rempart he recognized the wall of the -garden where, on one of the paths, he had told Madame Olier of his love -three years before. His heart, exhausted by excess of grief, was amazed -to feel a sort of painful relaxation of its tension at sight of those -streets where he had so often fed upon his lover's dreams, had performed -for so many months his military duties. So he had guessed aright. He -could live—a hard and bitter life, it is true—by fastening -himself upon, by clinging desperately to those two last resources, hope -and activity, which fate had left to him; and it was with an impatience, -not happy surely but very manful, that, having donned his uniform, he -awaited the hour to go to headquarters and resume his daily occupations. -</p> -<p> -Although he had hardly slept during the night, his step was brisk as he -walked toward the barracks. If he was no longer conscious of what he had -called in his conversation with Valentine the joy of the -uniform,—that word joy would have no meaning to him for a long, -long time!—he felt its manly courage. He gazed at the high gateway -with a strange excitement in his eyes, ringed by tears and -sleeplessness. -</p> -<p> -"I still have this, too," he said, using precisely the same form of -words as on the day before, when he left his dear friend on Rue -Monsieur; and as if in haste to resume the actual contact with that -stern but healthy and manly life, he quickened his pace, to enter the -courtyard the sooner. -</p> -<p> -It was barely eight o'clock. Gusts of a cold wind, the bitter northeast -wind that constantly sweeps the high plateaus between the Meuse and the -Moselle, lashed the white caps of the men engaged in grooming horses -before the stable doors. Subaltern officers, wrapped in their cloaks, -were overlooking them. In a corner, at the door of the kitchen, other -men, sheltered under an awning, were peeling potatoes. Others were -marching off in a squad to perform some task. Everything spoke of the -energetic and organized activity which makes a well-ordered barracks a -very noble human thing. -</p> -<p> -There, Landri was no longer, as at Grandchamp, the sole heir of a -nobleman on parade, himself a nobleman. He was Lieutenant de Claviers, -who was obeyed, but who obeyed. It will be remembered that he had called -that sensation too a joy. In what fashion he exerted his authority, the -glances of the men who saluted him according to rule, touching the vizor -with the open hand, told clearly enough. And he looked at them with the -watchful and kindly eye of the leader to whom every detail has its -importance. He noticed one whose slightly unhealthy pallor indicated -recent illness. -</p> -<p> -"So you have come back to duty, Teilhard? Since when?" -</p> -<p> -"Since yesterday, lieutenant." -</p> -<p> -"You are quite sure it was not too soon? Are you entirely cured of your -bronchitis?" -</p> -<p> -"Entirely cured, lieutenant." -</p> -<p> -"And your father? Did you spend your furlough with him?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, lieutenant. In fact, I meant to come to see you, to tell you that -his business has picked up. He expects to pay a little of his debt next -month." -</p> -<p> -"Write him that there's no hurry, my good Teilhard," replied Landri -affectionately, motioning to the dragoon to move on. He saw a captain in -undress uniform approaching—no other than Despois, the husband of -Madame Olier's friend. -</p> -<p> -"So you were talking with your miraculous work?" said Despois laughingly -to his subordinate. "Why, yes—why, yes—it's a genuine -miracle. To have made a good soldier out of a blockhead like that -animal. Don't blame any one but yourself if I entrust the desperate -cases to you. I have taken advantage of your absence to turn over -Baudoin to you. He still rides badly. I commend him to your very -particular attention." -</p> -<p> -"I will attend to him at once," said Landri. "I'll take him alone before -my drill." And when the captain had passed on, he said to the -quartermaster, who was waiting at the door of the riding-school with -several men and horses: "Saddle Panther for me, and call Baudoin." -</p> -<p> -Ten minutes later the mare he had asked for arrived, all saddled, with a -simple snaffle in her mouth which she was already champing nervously, -and led by the head by a youth of unkempt aspect with very black eyes -glowing like coals in a grayish face. Simply from the way in which he -wore his képi on one side, one divined in him the insolent vagabond; -and from the brusque movement with which he put his hand to it to salute -the officer, the smouldering revolt, the mere brute all ready to sing or -think the obscene quatrain which we must never weary of citing to the -smug optimists who refuse to recognize the ferocities hidden beneath the -humanitarian mirage of socialism—those forerunners of a Terror which -will be worse than the other, being better organized, and more degraded, -being the work of a more degenerate race:— -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">À faire de nous des héros,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Ils saurent bientôt que nos balles</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Sont pour nos propres généraux.<a name="FNanchor_4_1" id="FNanchor_4_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_1" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></span> -</div></div> - -<p> -The beautiful beast led by that creature with the face of an Apache of -the faubourgs presented a striking contrast to him by virtue of the -dainty grace of her whole frame. She had the elevated tail, the short -and supple loins, the long shoulder, legs like a stag's, and a small -head. She had been in the regiment five days. The dealer, to improve her -appearance for purposes of sale, had clipped her. The hair on her legs -and that which showed under the flaps of the saddle was of a brown-bay -color; the rest of her body, recently clipped, seemed to be iron-gray. -As soon as she entered the riding-school she began to paw the ground -impatiently. -</p> -<p> -"Well, mount her, Baudoin," said the officer; "let's see if she'll -behave any better than she did the first day. I kept her for a good -rider; and I know that you're one." -</p> -<p> -Baudoin, apparently insensible to this compliment, mounted Panther, who -started off at the restrained trot of a beast who does not abdicate her -free will. It was evident that she obeyed neither the pressure of the -heel nor that of the rein. In this way she made the circuit of the ring -four times, turning her head from side to side, making little attempts -to escape when she came near the closed door—a ravishingly beautiful -object in that vast empty space where she seemed to wander almost at -will. -</p> -<p> -"She doesn't try any tricks," said Landri. "Let's try her at a -gallop.—She won't, eh?—A touch of the whip." -</p> -<p> -Despite Baudoin's efforts Panther did not even condescend to quicken her -trot. The quartermaster, who had the whip in his hand, begun to run, -shaking it at the mare. Instead of breaking into a gallop she, taking -fright, executed a series of violent sheep-like bounds, in rapid -succession, which unhorsed her rider. He tried to remount. The mare, -sure of her means of defence, started off again at a trot, then repeated -her leaps at a second threat of the lash. Again the man fell. He -remounted. A third fall. This time he was thrown against the wall rather -hard. Anger turned his face green. A brutal exclamation escaped him, and -he said savagely:— -</p> -<p> -"I don't mount again. I won't ride her any more. I've had enough of -breaking my bones so that the officers can have well-trained horses." -</p> -<p> -He cast an evil glance at the lieutenant, with his hands in his pockets, -his clothes all covered with sawdust; and he did not brush himself, or -pick up his képi, or follow the mare, who had gone on at a walk, then -stopped. She was nibbling, with the ends of her teeth, a tall post, with -holes bored in it, intended to hold the jumping-bar. -</p> -<p> -"Well," said Landri pleasantly, as if he had not heard that outburst of -insubordination, "I'll ride her now. You can take her again afterward." -</p> -<p> -Time to adjust the stirrups to his height, and he was astride the beast, -whom he launched at a trot first, then at a gallop. She tried hard to -unseat him by leaps and bounds even more out of rule than those which -had succeeded so well just before. But Landri had been put in the saddle -at the age of six by M. de Claviers, and he too was of the school of -those who do not recognize divorce, as the marquis would say jocosely. -He held his seat. Panther, the well-named, tried another device. She set -off at a gallop, then turned abruptly, end for end. Landri still held -his seat. More leaps. Another abrupt turn. The rider did not fall. Weary -of the struggle, the mare trots; she gallops; she begins to obey the -leg; she obeys the hand. -</p> -<p> -"Take her again, Baudoin," said the officer, jumping to the ground. "She -hasn't broken my bones and she won't break yours." -</p> -<p> -The dragoon flushed. He looked at the lieutenant, who looked him -squarely in the eye, calmly and coolly. Self-esteem aiding, this hint -was efficacious with the rebel. He remounted and the session ended -without further incident. The conquered beast behaved as well with her -new rider as with the other. -</p> -<p> -"Now," said Landri to the quartermaster, "bring in the others." -</p> -<p> -"You were in luck," said the quartermaster to Baudoin a few moments -later. "With another man, you'd have had a curry-combing, and a good -one." -</p> -<p> -"And the other man, too, perhaps," retorted Baudoin with a leer. "But -this one didn't put a gag in my mouth, that's true enough." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -"I have not wasted my morning," Landri reflected, as he left the -riding-school. Awaiting the hour for the foot-drill, he entered the -small room used by the officers as a library and gathering-place. It was -very simply furnished, with a divan, a few easy-chairs, and a large -table, all covered with coarse blue stuff with a red border. On two -sides were book-shelves. On the other walls were engravings, some of -which represented the early days of the 32nd Dragoons. First, there was -a Cavalier de Lévis, with the date 1703, in three-cornered hat and -white tunic, with red lapels and trimmings. Another Cavalier de Lévis, -in a very similar uniform, bore this inscription: 1724. Then came two -troopers of the Royal-Normandie, dated 1768 and 1784. They wore blue -tunics with amaranth-colored lapels, and white cockades in their hats. A -trooper of the 19th Cavalry, in a blue coat <i>à la française</i>, with a -tri-colored plume in his shako, marked the beginning of modern times. -</p> -<p> -It needed no more than a glance at those engravings for Landri's -comparative tranquillity of the last hour to come to an abrupt end. The -sight of those uniforms of the old régime recalled the scene of two -days before, M. de Claviers pointing to the portrait of the -lieutenant-general, and his exclamation about the uniforms and the -dandyfied heroism of bygone days. The thought of the marquis recalled -the old gentleman's other outbreak, only the night before, concerning -the inventories, just as the memory of the Parrocel portrait revived the -sensations born of the hideous falsehood of his birth. The associations -of these various ideas resulted in a new idea which, when it had once -entered his mind, could no more be expelled from it than could the -hateful fact with which it was connected. It was only the continuation, -the smoothing-off as it were in the lucid portions of the love-child's -consciousness, of a course of reasoning that he had been working out, -unknowingly, for twelve hours past. -</p> -<p> -"But have I the right, from this time on, bearing a name that is not my -own, and knowing it, to act with that name as if it were my own?" -</p> -<p> -On the table lay a newspaper rolled about its stick. The young man took -it up mechanically, and, from more habit, looked for the rubric, -"Military Affairs." Another wave of ideas swept over him. If the -inventories at Hugueville-en-Plaine and Montmartin should be taken, and -if he should have to direct one of them to the point of breaking into -the church, the account would certainly appear under that heading, -printed in that same type. His name would be there, at the top of a -paragraph describing his act. His name? A name is an inheritance, it is -a piece of property, personal and collective at once. It belongs to him -who bears it and to those who have borne and will bear it. All of their -interests are united in him. Against this mutual responsibility Landri -had contended throughout his youth, and no longer ago than the day -before yesterday, when he proclaimed before Madame Olier, and again to -the marquis's face, the right of the heirs of a great name to lead their -individual lives. -</p> -<p> -It seemed—he himself had thought so at first—that the grievous -discovery of the secret of his birth had finally snapped the -chain, already so worn, of a hateful solidarity between the -Claviers-Grandchamps and himself. True, if he had laid aside their name, -if, realizing that he was not of their family, he had ceased to call -himself by their name. But such an open rupture was impossible. Even if -Landri had not loved the marquis too dearly ever to deal him such a -blow, there was his mother's memory, which forbade him to dishonor her. -But in that case, if he kept the name of Claviers, he was in their debt. -He was no longer a free agent. When people should read, in that -newspaper and in many others, that a Claviers-Grandchamp had dared to do -something so absolutely opposed to all the traditions of the family, -what would his conscience say to him? That he had done his duty? Nay, -since it was not from any thought of duty that he had resolved, if -occasion should require, to execute a task which he himself had called -revolting. His companions had discussed too often in his presence that -question of the limits of discipline, which functionaries no less insane -than criminal have gratuitously raised of late years. He had reflected -upon it too seriously himself not to understand that passive obedience -is a phrase devised by enemies of that great school of praiseworthy -energy that the army really is. He had meditated upon the wise and -judicious terms of the officer's oath, which excludes every degrading -order: "You will obey him in everything that he shall command you to do, -for the good of the service and to carry out the military regulations." -He knew that this problem of obedience to requisitions from the civil -authorities, as it had presented itself in the recent religious -disputes, is of the sort that become tragic in the most upright -consciences. Excellent soldiers have solved it in one way. Excellent -soldiers have solved it in another way. It is a crime, we repeat, on the -part of a government, to place men of spirit in such dilemmas,—a -crime against those who did not enter the army to perform certain -tasks,—a crime against the fatherland, which is by this means robbed -of some of its best leaders. -</p> -<p> -Landri, as we have seen, had solved the problem in a manner entirely -personal to himself. He had said: "To obey is to remain in the service. -To refuse to obey is to resign. I want to remain in the service. I shall -obey." But now a new element had intervened: the evidence of a felony -committed against the lineage of the Claviers, in which his mere -existence made him an accomplice. His mother's sin had given him a place -in that lineage. What became of his personal convenience when put in the -scale with such usurpation? Did it not bind him on his honor—for he -still had such a thing whatever he may have said in the first shock of -the revelation—never to do any act for which that lineage, now -incarnate in the marquis, could reproach him from its standpoint? The -conclusion was inescapable. At an incident of his military life so -public, so certain to make a noise in the world, as obedience to an -order to proceed against a church, it was not his own opinion that he -should follow, but that of the head of that house in which he himself -occupied a stolen place. This indisputable obligation suddenly imposed -itself on Landri with irresistible force, and for the first time he -recoiled in spirit from the prospect of an occurrence which would place -before him the alternative of making up his mind against the will, so -clearly expressed, of the Marquis de Claviers, or of sacrificing the -profession to which he was at that moment more attached than ever. His -whole thought was bent upon rejecting the probability of that test. He -could not bear to face it now. -</p> -<p> -"I am crazy. If they employ the dragoons for one of these inventories, -they'll send more than one platoon. A lieutenant won't be in command, -but a captain. I shall be second in command. If there's a door to be -broken in, and the civil authorities don't furnish any men to do it, the -captain will have to give the order, not I." -</p> -<p> -He harangued himself thus, pacing to and fro in the main courtyard while -the instructors drilled the new recruits, under his superintendence. But -upon whom would that responsibility fall, if Landri's supposition should -be realized? In the absence of the captain commanding the squadron, to -the captain next in seniority, who happened to be that very Despois with -whom he had exchanged so hearty a greeting that morning. Landri at once -remembered the letter written by that officer's wife, which Madame Olier -had given to him. He had read the letter at the time—without reading -it. He remembered nothing about it except Valentine's remark: "She says -so well what I should say so badly." But then Captain Despois, if such -an order should be given to him, would refuse to comply with it? As had -happened before, the command would then devolve upon the officer next -below him, in this case upon Landri! Such was now the young man's -apprehension in respect to an emergency which was still only possible, -and which he had hitherto faced with such firm determination. -</p> -<p> -He cut the drill short in order to return to his quarters the sooner and -really read Madame Despois' letter. His hands trembled a little as they -unfolded the sheet, which was badly crumpled from its sojourn in his -pocket while he was rolling about in despair on the cushions of the -railway carriage. He found there, near the end, after the narrative of a -really touching interview between the captain and his wife, these lines, -which, although they lessened one element of his anxiety, only -intensified another, alas! -</p> -<p> -"So my husband has made up his mind," wrote Julie Despois. "He ended the -conversation by repeating poor Captain Magniez' noble declaration: 'I -prefer to be shot rather than commit sacrilege.'—If this thing -happens to us, we shall be very poor, my dear friend. The education of -our three sons will be seriously endangered. But I could do nothing but -say to him: 'You are right. We are Christian folk. We have founded a -Christian family. God help us!'—And you will recognize my dear -Despois in this. His only anxiety is for his officers. He doesn't want -to see the hecatomb at Saint-Servan repeated.—'If they call on me -for sappers to break in the church doors, I shall refuse. I sha'n't give -the civil authorities time to telegraph for further orders. I shall -order all my men to remount, and return to Saint-Mihiel. In this way I -shall be sure of being the only one to be disciplined.'—You see, -Valentine, what a sad time we are passing through, so that we can't turn -our minds to any other subject! In all the officers' families, nothing -else is thought of. We shouldn't talk about anything else if we didn't -know that to-day an orderly may be an informer listened to at -headquarters. We are all wondering when these two inventories will be -taken, and to whom they will be entrusted. Will anything happen or not? -God grant that we are imagining chimæras, and that everything will go -off peacefully, as it has in so many places! Whatever happens, I am -writing down these conversations with my husband so that my sons may -have them some day, when he and I are no more. They will see what sort -of man their father was, and that their mother understood him." -</p> -<p> -Landri read the last sentence again and again. The captain's magnanimous -determination made it possible for him to have no fear of consequences -if Despois were in command.—But what followed? How could he fail -to make a comparison between that simple-hearted helpmate of a gallant -officer, devoted to her husband, so proud to esteem and admire -him,—and another woman? Between those children who found at their -humble fireside no reason for aught save respect,—and another -child? Why had not his own mother understood the man whose name she -bore? Why had she betrayed him? Why was a son born of that treachery? -And why was not that son, who knew nothing of that horror for so many -years, left in ignorance forever? Upon what trivial chances our -destinies depend! Suppose that the train from Clermont had reached Paris -an hour late yesterday? Doubtless Landri would have found the invalid of -Rue de Solferino unconscious. The physician would not have let him in. -He would have known nothing. He would not have had to undergo this -inward agony which everything renewed—and when would it end? Oh, -never! never! -</p> -<p> -"I am amusing myself with absurd scruples," he said to himself -twenty-four hours later. It was afternoon. He was riding along the -Meuse. He had received a despatch from the marquis to the effect that -Jaubourg's funeral would take place on the following Friday at nine -o'clock, and he had answered, by telegraph, that he could not be there. -He had understood what the selection of that early hour in the morning -meant, as well as a note in the newspapers stating that the deceased had -desired a very simple ceremony, without invitations, and without flowers -or wreaths. This insistence upon effacement after death avoided comments -upon M. de Claviers-Grandchamp's presence behind the bier of his wife's -lover. Therein Landri saw a new proof of the ominous secret. He would -have been no less irritated by a showy funeral. His irritation -manifested itself in a recurrence of the blind and almost savage revolt -of the first moments. This feeling imparted its sombre hue to his -renewed reflections on the possibility of his responsible participation in -one of the inventories—the sole object, as Madame Despois had said, -of the silent meditations of all the officers of the garrison. Three of -his comrades, who were as sure of him as he was of them, had spoken to -him about it in confidence that morning. He had evaded a reply, and he -reproached himself bitterly for it. -</p> -<p> -"Yes, absurd! With respect to <i>him</i>"—he was still unable to -name M. de Claviers in his heart, as he was to name the other -elsewhere,—"with respect to him, I cannot have any duty. The mere -fact that I am breathing is an insult so dishonoring to him that I can -never add anything to it. All that I can do is to avoid contact between -us. He will follow the body to-morrow. I shall not be there. Nobody -shall see us walking side by side. Hereafter it must be so in life. My -impulse yesterday was the best, the wisest one. Yes, if I am ordered to -take part in the expedition to Hugueville or Montmartin, so much the -better! If I have to break into one of those two churches, so much the -better! That will be irreparable. The name of Claviers-Grandchamp will -be dishonored because a soldier has made every other sentiment yield to -discipline. That theory can be supported, too. A proof of it is that -Despois hesitated, and he's a professed Christian. Even Valentine, who -is very religious, but who knows what our profession is, accepts the -idea!—He will condemn me. But he won't be able to despise me, in -his heart. And it will be all over, all over, all over! He will suffer, -suffer terribly. And shall I not suffer when I no longer have him to -call 'father,' when I can no longer live with him in that heart-to-heart -intimacy which was complete,—I realize it now!—despite the -differences in our ideas! I understand them now, those differences which -used to surprise me—they were Race. He is right. There is such a -thing as Race. I hadn't the instincts of a true noble. Nor have I those -of a true bourgeois, either. What a terrible word that is, to which I -never gave a thought—adultery! And how just it is! It is the -stranger at the hearth. It is a forged Race. It is the creation of a -hybrid personality like mine. That is the secret of the vacillations of -my nature, of the contradictions that I never could explain: why I have -never loved in my inmost heart any of the women of my caste, and why, -even to-day, I cannot bring myself to a simple and definite decision. I -shall come to it. My relations with him are impossible. That is the one -fact to which I must cling, firmly, irrevocably. Let the occasion come -to dig the abyss, and I will dig it!" -</p> -<p> -This second line of reasoning corresponded too nearly with the actual -situation not to prevail in the young man's mind. He retained, none the -less, deep down in his heart, a hope, almost a certainty, that he would -not be required to adapt his conduct to it. One need not have in his -veins blood imbued with contradictory inherited characteristics, to be -subject to such incoherences. It is enough to be passionately attached -to some one from whom one deems it necessary to part forever. So that he -felt a shock that was most painful to him, as he was returning from his -ride, upon meeting, in one of the streets of the town, the colonel of -his regiment, on foot,—the one who did not like "names with -currents of air." He was the son of a petty government official who had -reached his present rank by a combination of energy and -shrewdness,—a good officer with fundamentally false ideas, in -whose heart were fermenting those extraordinary anticlerical and -anti-noble passions of which sincere Jacobinism is made. -</p> -<p> -The expression of his superior, by whom he knew that he was detested, -froze Landri's blood, it betrayed such ironical and fiendish delight. He -did not mistake its meaning. The supposition hitherto treated as -imaginary was coming true. It began to take shape. The hostile colonel's -face expressed the satisfied hatred of one who knows with certainty that -misfortune is about to befall his enemy. The affair of the inventories -was about to be solved, and he, Landri, was involved in it in some way -or other. -</p> -<p> -Five minutes later this presentiment became an established fact. As he -dismounted, his orderly handed him a note from Captain Despois, begging -him to come to his quarters about an important matter connected with the -service. -</p> -<p> -"That's what it is," said Landri to himself. "We are to go." -</p> -<p> -He found the devout officer, whose most secret thoughts he knew, so -intimate was their confidence, busily writing, in the exceedingly modest -salon that he used as an office. Despois was a man of forty-five, very -tall, with a bony, tanned face, his temples worn smooth by the rubbing -of the helmet, hair already almost white, reddish mustache, and light -greenish-gray eyes. The eyes were clouded with so sad an expression that -Landri was deceived. -</p> -<p> -"It is he who is ordered to command us," he thought. He remembered the -letter he had read the day before. His heart swelled with pity for that -father who was evidently making ready to sacrifice his military future -to his faith. But from his first words Landri understood that he himself -aroused a like pity on the part of that excellent man, who said as he -handed him two sheets of paper the official size of which betrayed their -source:— -</p> -<p> -"Will you run your eye over this, my dear Claviers?" -</p> -<p> -The first of the two documents had at its head:—"General orders -relating to the assistance to be furnished by the troops in making -inventories of church property"; and the second: "Supplementary -instructions for the lieutenant commanding the 1st and 2nd platoons of -the third squadron of the 32nd Cavalry, who is to sustain the action of -the police and gendarmerie during the operation of taking the inventory -of the church property at Hugueville-en-Plaine." The "general orders" -stated that both inventories would be taken on Friday, November 16, at -nine o'clock in the morning. The "supplementary instructions" added that -the duty of the officer despatched to Hugueville would consist in these -three points: "to form barriers across the different streets leading to -the church, according to the general scheme of the annexed sketch"; "to -support the action of the police and gendarmerie, in maintaining order, -dispersing the crowds, and looking to the evacuation of the church if -necessary"; and thirdly, "to enable the official recorder to perform his -duties." -</p> -<p> -Prepared as Landri should have been, by his reflections of the past week -and of that very afternoon, for the possibility of this event, he turned -pale as he read the words. He did not hesitate a second, however, but -replied:— -</p> -<p> -"Very good, captain; I will obey orders." -</p> -<p> -"Did you read it carefully?" said Despois, pointing to one sentence in -the first paper: "Six sappers supplied with the necessary tools to -perform, in the absence of civilian workmen, such work of demolition as -there may be occasion to do."—"In the absence of civilian workmen," -he repeated. "You will take the greatest pains, therefore, to assure -yourself that civilian workmen cannot be found; <i>cannot be found</i>," -he insisted. -</p> -<p> -Evidently he was anticipating the case of the lieutenant refusing to -execute the commissioner's orders, and was preparing to shield him, if -necessary, before the court-martial. -</p> -<p> -"I will make sure of it, captain." And, in a firm voice, "I hope that we -shall not come to that point, but if we do my sappers will do the work." -</p> -<p> -Not a muscle moved in the Catholic Despois' impassive face. If Landri -had not been acquainted with his real thought, he might have believed -that the peculiarly painful character of this expedition was a matter of -indifference to the old trooper, who began at once to give him detailed -orders concerning the equipment of the men. It was not until they rose, -after half an hour of professional conversation, that he let certain -words escape him which proved how his heart was beating under his -undecorated tunic. It was unhoped-for good fortune, that he was not -given the command of the detachment on this occasion. But as he was -incapable of selfish exultation, so he gave no thought to his own -interests. His expression had grown even more gloomy since the other had -made that declaration which left no room for doubt. As he accompanied -his visitor to the door, he detained him in front of a mediocre -engraving, the Last Cartridge. He was neither a collector with the taste -of an Altona, nor a connoisseur of art like a Bressieux, was poor -Captain Despois. He was something higher in the scale of human -culture,—a good soldier. All the martyrdom of the army, of the army -forced by shameless politicians into such tragedies of the conscience, -quivered in the tone in which, calling his lieutenant's attention to -that wretched lithograph of a scene of disaster, but of an heroic -disaster and face to face with the enemy, he repeated simply the famous -line:— -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">"Heureux ceux-là qui mouraient dans ces fêtes!"</span> -</div></div> - -<p><br /></p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_1" id="Footnote_4_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_1"><span class="label">[4]</span></a></p> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">If they persist, these cannibals,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">In making heroes of us,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">They'll soon learn that our bullets</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Are for our own generals.</span> -</div></div></div> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap06"></a></p> - -<h4>VI -<br /><br /> -THE WILL -</h4> - -<p> -It was not quite eight o'clock the next morning when Landri and his -dragoons came in sight of Hugueville-en-Plaine, so named to distinguish -it from Hugueville-en-Montagne. It is a large village, three leagues -from Saint-Mihiel on the map and as the crow flies. The network of roads -in those ramparts of the Forest of Argonne stretches the twelve -kilometres to seventeen. An extensive wood bounds the village on the -east, so that the sixty men of the little detachment were able to -approach unseen. -</p> -<p> -It was another typical day of early autumn, with a pale blue sky, veiled -by transparent clouds, like the preceding Monday, when Valentine Olier's -lover stopped his automobile at the door of Saint-François-Xavier, to -pay a surreptitious visit to his friend. In his black overcoat, with his -helmet on his head, the officer, who had led his two platoons for the -last two hours through clumps of elms and aspens at first, and then, as -the ground rose higher and higher, through thickets of oak and beech, -recalled with poignant sadness that other day, so near—only four -times twenty-four hours—which seemed to him so far away! He had -lived more in those four days than in his twenty-nine years of -childhood, adolescence and youth. -</p> -<p> -The march was accomplished in a silence which demonstrated the troopers' -lack of enthusiasm for the expedition in which they were taking part. -Even the anarchistic Baudoin, still sheepish over the lesson of the day -before, had not tried to proselytize his comrades. They rode in fours, -closely wrapped, because of the nipping air of that rugged country, in -their ample blue cloaks, against which gleamed the barrels of their -carbines. The sappers were distinguishable by the axes hanging from the -saddle-bows. Another lieutenant brought up the rear. There was no sound -save that of the horses' shoes on the frozen ground and the clinking of -the sabres against the stirrups. -</p> -<p> -Those sounds would not have sufficed to announce their approach. The -people of Hugueville-en-Plaine and the neighboring villages had been -warned, no doubt, by the swift and inexplicable circulation of news in -the country districts, the most amazing example of which was the -contagious terror of the summer of 1789, which spread in a few days from -one end of France to the other. In the patois of the Centre it is still -spoken of as "the great <i>pourasse</i>." -</p> -<p> -"Aha!" said Landri, between his teeth, "we are expected." -</p> -<p> -In truth, some three hundred people were on the lookout at the entrance -to the main street, and they ran off at once toward the centre of the -village, shouting: "The dragoons! The dragoons!" They were only the -rearguard of a crowd assembled around the church on the square, a sketch -of which was annexed to the "supplementary instructions." There were -more than twelve hundred peasants there, men and women, who opposed a -living barrier to the horses. It took the troopers nearly fifteen -minutes to reach the square, forcing back the enthusiasts with the -cautious consideration which was expressly enjoined upon them. Their -greatest difficulty was to control their horses, excited as they were by -that great crowd singing with its thousand voices the well-known chant: -"Nous voulons Dieu!" Another quarter of an hour was required to execute -the same operation in front of the church and to establish the lines as -ordered. -</p> -<p> -About half-past eight the little square had the aspect of a veritable -halt in war-time. The horses were collected in the centre, held by the -troopers, each of whom had charge of two. The rest of the men formed -barriers at the ends of the streets. Behind them one could see the heads -of the peasants, close together and constantly moving. The steps leading -to the church, which stood on a sort of platform of earth, were still -filled with kneeling women, who had begun to recite, at the tops of -their voices, the litanies of the Blessed Virgin. There was something at -once heart-rending and grotesque, brutally ugly and no less idiotic, in -that display of military force to subdue the possible resistance of -those humble creatures who cast upon the peaceful air of the lovely -morning such pious appeals as "Refuge of sinners! Consoler of the -afflicted! Salvation of the infirm!" And the crowd replied, from the -lanes barred by dragoons: "Pray for us!" -</p> -<p> -"Upon my word they've given us a dirty job to do," said Vigouroux, the -other lieutenant, in an undertone to Landri, having joined him on the -square. After stationing their men, they were walking back and forth in -the space left clear. "It's a hard mouthful to swallow." -</p> -<p> -"All the same, it must be done," rejoined Landri. -</p> -<p> -"Is it you who say that, Claviers?" exclaimed Vigouroux in evident -amazement. -</p> -<p> -"A soldier knows only his orders," replied the other sharply. -</p> -<p> -"Oh, well! I'm not the one to blame you!" said Vigouroux. "It suits me, -as you know, to have you think that way." -</p> -<p> -They continued to walk side by side without further speech. In declaring -to his comrade, as he had done to his captain the evening before, his -determination to go on to the end, Landri was perfectly sincere. He was -keeping himself up to the mark by declarations which did not, however, -make it any the less true that he had had but a single thought that day -and that not of his orders! By virtue of a contradiction only too -natural in a heart so deeply wounded, the nearer he approached to the -moment when he might be called upon to take the decisive step after -which he would have broken either with the army or with M. de Claviers, -the image haunted him, ever more distinct and more touching, of that man -who had not ceased to love him as his son, and whom he loved so dearly! -That image was there, between Vigouroux and himself, gazing at him, and -saying with those limpid blue eyes the words of the victim to his -murderer: "And thou, too, my child!" -</p> -<p> -Landri did not yield to that entreaty, he was determined not to yield. -It was to banish it from his mind that he had spoken so to Vigouroux. -Moreover, it seemed that affairs were not likely to assume a very tragic -aspect, judging from the disposition of the crowd, evidently due to -orders from the curé. Those peasants were protestants, they were not -rebels. -</p> -<p> -But the affair assumed a very different aspect on the arrival of a -landau, preceded by gendarmes, from which three persons alighted: one in -a uniform embroidered with silver, another with a scarf across his -breast, the third in a frock coat. They were the sub-prefect, the -special commissioner, and the recording clerk. -</p> -<p> -No sooner had they set foot to the ground, than the responses of the -litany were succeeded by threatening cries of "Down with the robbers!" -which attracted from the house adjoining the church a fourth personage, -the curé of Hugueville himself. He was a handsome old man, bare-headed -despite the cold. Two other priests accompanied him. He came forward as -far as the porch of his church, the keys of which he could not, upon his -soul and his conscience, surrender. He was very pale. He, too, was -assuming a terrible responsibility. Blood might be shed. He raised his -aged arms which had so many times exhibited the monstrance to his flock, -and which at that moment implored rather than commanded respect for his -wishes. The gesture was instantly understood, so unbounded was his -authority, readily explained by the aspect alone of that ascetic -apostle. The insulting outcries were not repeated, and a vast silence -overspread the multitude, while the newcomers ascended the steps, among -the women who made way for them with visible terror. -</p> -<p> -Abbé Valentin—that was the curé's name—stepped forward, and -there ensued between the priest, whose face had lost its pallor, and the -officials, a conversation the words of which did not reach any of the -others. They noted its expressive pantomime: the curé shaking his -venerable head so that his white hair fluttered in the wind, as one who -meets urgent insistence with a categorical refusal, the sub-prefect -almost imploring, the commissioner threatening, the recording clerk -exhibiting papers. At last Abbé Valentin withdrew and the three civil -functionaries, having taken counsel together, descended the steps, while -the crowd, interpreting this retreat as a victory for the priest, -shouted his name and began the chant:— -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">"Je suis chrétien, voilà ma gloire!"</span> -</div></div> - -<p> -"I fancy that's settled," said Vigouroux, "and that we have no further -business here." -</p> -<p> -"On the contrary, it's just beginning," said Landri. "They have gone to -fetch the workmen." -</p> -<p> -A half-hour passed, during which the crowd ceased its singing to engage -in excited conversation. The constant repetition of the words, "a -locksmith," proved that the officer had guessed aright. At last the -three functionaries reappeared, followed by a man visibly livid with -fright; he was the public drummer of Hugueville, with his drum hanging -from his neck. A prolonged howl greeted him, then abruptly ceased, to be -succeeded by breathless curiosity. The commissioner, instead of -ascending the steps as before, passed through the cordon of soldiers and -went up to Landri. -</p> -<p> -"I have not found any workmen in Hugueville, lieutenant," he said, "to -break in the door. They have all left their workshops, to avoid doing -it. Their curé has made fanatics of them. I am going to ask you to give -me your assistance. Here is my requisition." -</p> -<p> -And he handed the lieutenant a paper which he ran through with his eyes. -The spectators of this tragic episode—one more incident in the -lamentable tale of the most criminal of religious wars—saw only the -helmet bending over the document, which the constantly increasing wind -seemed to try to tear from the hand that held it. -</p> -<p> -"I have brought the drummer to make the announcement," added the -commissioner. -</p> -<p> -"Very good," said Landri, in a voice choked with emotion, "let him do -so." -</p> -<p> -In the same hollow voice he ordered the six sappers to take their axes -and follow him. He began to mount the steps, while the three rolls of -the drum announced the imminence of the catastrophe. They were followed -by several minutes of painful anticipation. Landri, standing now on the -platform, had halted, and he said no word. As he ascended the steps, he -had looked up at the great clock over the portal of the church. It -marked almost nine o'clock. At that moment the Marquis de Claviers was -on Rue de Solferino. They were about to remove the bier of the man for -whom he wept as a friend, as a brother. Tears were streaming down his -noble face. His great heart was torn with grief. -</p> -<p> -That vision had arisen before the lieutenant with a distinctness which -brought him abruptly to a standstill. He, the son of the Judas, was on -the point of making that heart bleed from another wound! -</p> -<p> -"Well, lieutenant!" said the commissioner. "I believe the time has -come." -</p> -<p> -"No," replied Landri, rousing himself forcibly from his abstraction and -speaking now in a firm voice, "no, I refuse." -</p> -<p> -"You refuse?" said the sub-prefect, coming forward. "But have you duly -considered the consequences, monsieur—Article 234 of the Penal Code?" -</p> -<p> -"I refuse," reiterated the young man; and with a military salute to the -three officials, who were motionless with amazement, he ran rapidly down -the steps which he had climbed so slowly, followed by the sappers. -</p> -<p> -"To horse!" he cried, when he reached the foot; and in the next breath, -"By fours, march!" Five minutes later there was not a single dragoon on -the square, but an enthusiastic crowd followed on the heels of the -officials as they returned to their landau, with shouts of "Vive -l'armée! Vive le lieutenant!" -</p> -<p> -"I can't understand it at all," said the commissioner, as the carriage -moved away; "I'd have sworn that that officer would obey. As you saw, he -didn't argue, as they usually do, about the text of the requisition." -</p> -<p> -"I thought as you did," replied the recording clerk; "I said to myself: -'We sha'n't have to come to this port again,' and I was mighty glad. If -it hadn't been for the curé those beasts would have done us a bad -turn." -</p> -<p> -"Do you know what his name is?" queried the sub-prefect. -</p> -<p> -"Wait," said the commissioner, looking through his papers. "Lieutenant -de Claviers-Grandchamp." -</p> -<p> -"A noble!" cried the sub-prefect; "that explains everything. He was -evidently very desirous to obey orders, and then, at the last moment, he -balked. Why? I'll tell you; but first listen to a little story."—He -was an old <i>boulevardier</i> and fond of telling stories.— -</p> -<p> -"Under the Empire there was a journalist of the opposition who wrote -very violent articles in a 'red' newspaper. One fine day some one -discovers that he writes, under a false name, others just as violent but -on the other side, in a government sheet. 'There's nothing left for me -but to disappear,' he groaned, and he talked about blowing out his -brains.—'Bah!' said one of his friends, 'you'll get clear of it by -changing your café.'—He was not wrong. Everything can be arranged in -life, so long as one can change his café. But the nobles, they can't do -it. There's the whole story of your lieutenant. He thought he wouldn't -be well received at the Jockey Club. That's what comes of having too -swell a café." -</p> -<p> -While the jovial-minded servants of a régime in which people have, in -truth, changed their cafés a good deal, were laughing carelessly at the -philosophic sub-prefect's outbreak, that short-lived tragedy, which -lacked not even the requisite irony, came to an end with the dispersion -of the actors. The protesting peasants rushed into the church, which was -opened at last, and the hoof-beats of the horses, mingled with the -jangling of the scabbards, died away in the yellowing woods that lie -between Hugueville and Saint-Mihiel. -</p> -<p> -The detachment rode more rapidly. The sun, shining clear at last, warmed -the air. It shone on the metal of the helmets and the gleaming flanks of -the horses, which tossed their heads impatiently, scenting the road to -the stables. Having given his orders, Landri had taken his place at the -head of the column, with so savage an expression that his men, -indifferent as they were to the moral crisis through which their leader -had passed, were impressed by it. Vigouroux in fact had more definite -reason than the commissioner for surprise at a volte-face which -absolutely gave the lie to the words they had exchanged a few moments -earlier. But upon him, too, his comrade's face made too deep an -impression for him to try to speak to him. He rode along in the rear, -secretly well pleased, in spite of himself, at the thought that -paragraph 9 of Article 2 of the fifth part of the Military Annual was -about to undergo a slight modification. He would advance one step on the -seniority list of lieutenants of cavalry. But the artless wish to have a -third <i>galon</i> on one's cap a little sooner does not debar excellence -of heart, and he was quite sincere when he pressed Landri's hand in the -courtyard of the barracks, at the end of the march. -</p> -<p> -"I thank you, Claviers," he said. "If you hadn't remounted us, the -sub-prefect would have telegraphed. The command would have been turned -over to me, and I don't know whether I should have had your courage, on -which I congratulate you." -</p> -<p> -"One doesn't congratulate an officer on having broken his sword," -retorted the other with a brusqueness which disconcerted Vigouroux. -</p> -<p> -"If that's how he feels," he thought, as he watched Landri walk away -from the barracks at the rapid pace of one who would be alone, "why did -he do what he did? He rarely goes to mass. He adores the profession. He -has no political opinions.—It's inconceivable! There must be a -petticoat underneath it all.—Aha! I have it. He seemed to be very -much in love down here with poor Olier's little wife, who's a finished -bigot. She wants to get married, parbleu! She's in Paris. She must have -heard of the thing from her friend Julie Despois, and have made a -bargain with my poor Claviers.—Decidedly, Lieutenant Vigouroux, -the best thing for us is not to care too much for pretty women." -</p> -<p> -With this aphorism of practical sagacity, this other, more inoffensive, -philosopher, bent his steps, no less hurriedly, toward the mess. He had -eight hours of horseback in his limbs, and he was of those fortunate -folk whom excitement makes hollow. -</p> -<p> -This judgment of an exceedingly honest but exceedingly commonplace youth -supplemented that of the jovial prefect. Thus it is that the painful -dramas of our lives are enacted before the unintelligent eyes of -half-informed witnesses. There are cases in which the sufferer prefers -that sort. They assure him of secrecy at least, and it was secrecy that -Landri craved, it was lack of comprehension. But who could have divined -the real explanation of a sudden change of purpose at which he was -himself confounded—that irresistible and passionate movement of the -heart toward the most generous of men. -</p> -<p> -And now, seated, crouching rather, on one of the easy chairs in his -apartment, he waited. As if he had already resigned, instead of making -the report to his captain, called for by the regulations, he had written -a note to the colonel in person to inform him of the manner in which his -mission had ended. In what shape would he be dealt with? Withdrawn from -active service, dismissed on half-pay, cashiered—so many synonyms to -his mind of a single phrase, with which he had replied so bitterly to -Vigouroux's warm and inopportune grasp of the hand: he had broken his -sword. He no longer belonged to the army except for the purpose of -undergoing the last rigors of a discipline which he had knowingly -violated. -</p> -<p> -They were announced to him in a letter which arrived almost immediately, -in reply to his, and which ordered him to consider himself strictly -under arrest, "until a decision should be reached on the subject of the -provisions of law concerning his case." Below this threatening line the -colonel had written his name, "Charbonnier." The ferocious curl of the -C, and the vigor of the concluding flourish proved that the plebeian -officer, entrusted by the hierarchy with the right to punish the -aristocratic officer, was hardly putting in practice the sage -recommendation of the regulation concerning internal government: -"Calmness on the part of the superior officer shows that in inflicting -punishment he is animated only by the good of the service and by a -realization of his duty." -</p> -<p> -What did Landri care for such a trifle? Having read this laconic and -imperious message, he looked at the clock on the mantel-piece, as he had -looked at the clock on the front of the church at Hugueville. The hands -pointed to one o'clock. His mind reverted to the melancholy ceremony, -the vision of which, suddenly evoked, had effected that abrupt change in -his resolution. It was all over long ago. Doubtless M. de Claviers had -returned to Grandchamp. The dead man was laid to rest in the grave which -the workmen would have filled by evening. -</p> -<p> -"This is my 'Here lies,' this paper," thought the young man, pushing -away the colonel's letter, "the 'Here lies' of the soldier." This -coincidence between the burial of his real father and the event that put -an end to his career as an officer, tore his heart. "At all events," he -added, "before I go before the court-martial, I shall have a little -solitude." -</p> -<p> -He looked about him, to allay his soreness of heart in the security of -his prison. How many hours he had passed in that salon-library in the -last three years, reading and writing—and dreaming of Valentine! He -took from his table drawer a case containing a portrait, the only one -that he had of her. It was a head only, which he had cut from a group -taken by an amateur in the country. To separate it from the others he -had had to cut off the wings of the broad garden hat she wore. But the -pure, intelligent glance, the half-smile, the pose, slightly inclined, -of the lovely head,—ah! it was all Valentine! He gazed long at those -features which he had seen alight with love, upon which his lips had -drunk burning kisses, and he said aloud:— -</p> -<p> -"I have sacrificed the other thing; I will not sacrifice her!" -</p> -<p> -As if to renew the solemn pledge that united them thenceforth, he -pressed his lips to the poor card whereon there shone a reflection of -that charm, unique in his eyes, and, seating himself at his desk, he -began a letter to Madame Olier which should describe the decisive -episode of the morning, or, rather, which should try to describe it. He -was constantly obliged to pause in order to choose among his thoughts. -How painful that careful surveillance of his words was to him! Complete -confidence is so natural, so necessary, with the person one loves! It is -the very breath of the heart. -</p> -<p> -That letter finished, he took another sheet to write another. It must -not be that the marquis should learn from the newspapers of the episode -of the Hugueville inventory. Landri owed it to himself as well as to him -to conduct himself in his relations with him exactly as if the terrible -revelation had never been made. But by what name should he call him? -Thrice the young man dipped his pen in the ink and thrice he laid it -down. His hand refused to trace the two affectionate syllables. At last, -with a sort of devout horror, he wrote, "Dear father."—Rapidly, -without choosing his words,—he was simply narrating facts -now,—he filled four pages with his long, nervous handwriting, and -signed, as usual, "Your respectful and affectionate son." -</p> -<p> -"I am entitled to it," he said, as he closed the envelope, which he -sealed with the Claviers arms; "I have paid dearly enough for it." -</p> -<p> -These letters written and mailed, Landri was surprised to feel a sort of -peace, depressed and gloomy to be sure, but peace none the less. How he -had dreaded that turning-point of his destiny, that hour when he must -cease to serve, when he would become once more, to use his own words, -"an idler and useless,—a rich man with the most authentic -coat-of-arms on his carriage,—an <i>émigré</i> within the -country!" That hour had struck, and he was almost calm. The misfortune -that has happened has this merit at least: the tumult of ideas aroused -by uncertainty subsides before the accomplished fact, and there ensues -within us a sudden silence, as it were, which gives to the heart a -simulacrum of repose. Assuredly Landri was very sad at the thought that -he had taken part for the last time in the life of the regiment. But at -all events he <i>knew</i> that it was for the last time. The discomfort -of indecision was at an end. During those long days of enforced -retirement he would be able to apply the powers of his mind to his plans -of a new future, without wondering whether or no that future was -possible. It was possible—less simple, less in conformity with the -aspirations of his youth than if he had remained a soldier while -marrying Valentine; but as he still had Valentine, nothing was lost. -</p> -<p> -On that first afternoon of his compulsory seclusion, in order not to -abandon himself to discouragement, he tried to concentrate his thoughts -upon the plan of that existence <i>à deux</i>, wherein he would find, -if not happiness, at least a balm for the smarting wound open forever in -his heart. He looked on his shelves for books relating to the different -French provinces, in order to study the conditions of an establishment -in the country. That was what he looked forward to—a life of -retirement on a large estate, at a distance from Paris, with all that an -extensive rural undertaking represents in the way of profitable -activity. -</p> -<p> -But ere nightfall the inward silence was broken and the tempest of ideas -swept down upon him anew. He had been for years too zealous an officer -not to feel a certain remorse, which was sure to increase upon -reflection, for having been governed, throughout the incident of that -morning, by motives so entirely unconnected with the military service. -He had transformed an act in the line of his duty into an episode of his -personal, sentimental life. That was a much more serious offence, from -the professional point of view, than the breach of discipline. He would -not have felt remorse if he had had, for refusing to act, the motives of -a Despois, the subordination of military law to religious law, which -latter such men regard as primordial and imprescriptible. He, Landri, -had acted upon impulse. He had not even been governed by the argument he -had used upon himself from the first day—that of a debt that he owed -the Claviers-Grandchamps. Had he, in truth, acted at all? He had been -acted upon, in the literal meaning of the words. The marquis's powerful -personality had, as it were, prevailed with him from afar. -</p> -<p> -To this remorse for having consulted, under such circumstances, not his -conscience, but only his affection and compassion for that man, was -added the fear that the same influence would find him weak once more in -the second assault that he would have to repel. He did not suspect that, -with his inheritance as a love-child, he would display far greater -energy in defending his passion. In him the source of strength was not -in the reasoning power, it was in the heart. He was not to learn that -until he was put to the test. What he did know was that, with the most -imperative motives for making an irreparable breach between M. de -Claviers and himself, the opportunity had been offered him and he had -not grasped it. He could not do it. Those motives were still as strong -as ever. The affection by which he had allowed himself to be mastered -when he was on the point of doing what would set him free, was a wounded -and poisoned affection. It had made him incapable of inflicting great -suffering on that man. It would make him incapable of living with him, -as he would be called upon to do, every day, now that he was free. How -could he fail to say to himself again and again that, even outside the -binding engagement that he had entered into with Madame Olier, to throw -away this second opportunity to break with the marquis was to condemn -himself in the future to an endless succession of painful scenes in one -of which his secret would be discovered. M. de Claviers could not fail -to see that he had changed. He would be anxious about it. He would -investigate. -</p> -<p> -All this Landri told himself. His conclusion was that at any cost, and -at the earliest possible moment, the marquis must be informed of his -betrothal. And then he doubted his courage to make that declaration, -reminding himself how he had weakened, how he had suddenly lost heart on -the platform of the church at Hugueville, to which he had gone up with -such firm determination! Thereupon he wondered if it would not be the -safer way to take advantage of his arrest to write. Colonel Charbonnier -certainly would not depart from his customary severity so far as to -authorize him to receive a single visit, even from his father. -Consequently, if M. de Claviers were informed by letter of the marriage -engagement between Landri and Valentine, he would be unable to express -his dissatisfaction otherwise than by letter. -</p> -<p> -The lieutenant was too manly, despite the reflex action of a -sensitiveness that was very near being morbid, and he had too much -respect for his affection for Valentine, not to shrink from so cowardly -a proceeding. The explanation must be, should be, by word of mouth, from -man to man. It should take place the first time that he was alone with -the marquis; and to cut short a state of vacillation that humiliated -him, he said to himself aloud:— -</p> -<p> -"Yes, the very first time. I pledge my word of honor." -</p> -<p> -It was on Friday evening that he made this pledge, which was so definite -that it procured him another interval of comparative tranquillity. -Saturday passed with his mind still in a state of feverish confusion, -but with his resolution unshaken. -</p> -<p> -Sunday brought three new facts in the shape of three letters, one from -the marquis, one from Valentine, one from Métivier the notary. The old -nobleman was not a letter-writer. He congratulated Landri, "in the name -of all the Claviers-Grandchamps, past, present and future;" and then -concluded: "You will exalt your old father's joy and pride to their -highest point by talking to the judges as he suggested." -</p> -<p> -How like blows from a dagger were such words from him! And again, how -like such blows were the words in which the gentle recluse of Rue -Monsieur poured forth all her sympathy! She spoke to him whom she -regarded as her fiancé of the happiness that the Hugueville incident -must have afforded his father! Had she not then guessed the whole truth? -The young man foresaw a new source of torture in the efforts that the -dear woman would make, when they were united, to reconcile him to the -marquis, and his own efforts to resist that pressure without betraying -himself. Ah! he had not come to the end of his suffering! -</p> -<p> -The notary's letter was, also, very short, but it contained one line so -enigmatical that Landri, under existing circumstances, could not help -being disturbed by it. Maître Métivier apologized for answering -somewhat tardily on the ground that he had desired first to institute a -little investigation. He added that Landri's presence in Paris was not -at all necessary, and that, thanks to "the unexpected incident of which -he was aware," the deplorable affair was on the road to speedy and final -adjustment. What incident? Was Chaffin really dishonest, as his former -pupil had intuitively suspected, and as Jaubourg had declared on his -death-bed? Had they detected him and discovered a way to put an end to -his manœuvres? Had he confessed? Or—Already, it will be remembered, -Landri had trembled at the thought that Jaubourg might have made his -will in his favor.—But no; he would have been officially advised ere -this. In such perplexity, the best way was to request from Métivier, at -once, an explanation of that obscure passage in his letter. That was the -simplest and wisest solution. But so great is the emotional strain, the -anxious anticipation of misfortune, caused by a too violent shock, that -Landri had not the courage to adopt it. If it did not refer to a legacy -from Jaubourg, the "unexpected incident" was really a matter of -indifference to him. If the contrary were true, he should know it soon -enough. -</p> -<p> -In fact the Monday was not to pass before he was fully informed and -found himself face to face with another problem of conscience, more -painful perhaps than those of the preceding days. Tragedy engenders -tragedy, by virtue of a law in which consists the hidden moral of this -too truthful narrative of private life. It rarely happens that this is -not the consequence of one of those deep-rooted sins whose expiation -survives the person who committed it. It is one of the forms of that -transmission of sin, whereof it has been said with much truth that -nothing is more distasteful to us, and that "notwithstanding, but for -this, the most incomprehensible of all mysteries, we should be -incomprehensible to ourselves." -</p> -<p> -During the afternoon of Monday, then, Landri was alone in his salon, -apparently occupied in reading, but in reality absorbed in one of those -fits of melancholy meditation of which he had undergone so many during -the past week, and would, he felt, undergo so many more in the months -and years to come! The sound of the bell announcing a visitor roused him -from his abstraction. -</p> -<p> -"They're coming to notify me of the inquiry," he thought; "so much the -better!" -</p> -<p> -He heard his servant go to open the door, and in a moment a loud voice -reached his ears and made him jump to his feet. That imperious accent, -that tone of command—it was M. de Claviers fighting against the order -of seclusion. -</p> -<p> -"But I am his father!" he said. "I tell you, I'm his father! A father -has a right to see his son, it seems to me, and I will see -him.—However, here he is." -</p> -<p> -Landri had, in fact, come out of the salon, completely upset by his -father's arrival. He was too familiar with the marquis's indomitable -will not to know that he would throw the orderly aside, with his still -powerful hands, rather than go away. -</p> -<p> -"Ah! I see you at last, my dear, my son!" He took the young man in his -arms and pressed him to his heart, repeating passionately: "My son! my -son! At last I can say to you what I wrote so badly and briefly! The pen -and I are not on the best of terms since my eyes began to fail. I feel -my age. But not in my heart; and that old heart leaped with joy and -pride when I read your letter. Yes, I am happy. Yes, I am proud. I -should have come Saturday, but I had to see Métivier about some -tiresome business matters,—I'll tell you about it,—and again -yesterday, although it was Sunday. This morning I read in a newspaper -that there is talk of putting you under arrest in a fortress. 'Not -before I have embraced him,' I said to myself, and I did as I did the -other day, when I went to see poor Charles,—I jumped into the train. -I shall return to-night, and I shall be in Paris in good time for my -appointment with Métivier. For that business isn't finished yet. Just -fancy—But later, later. Let's talk about you. Are you well? Let me -look at you. A little thin and pale." -</p> -<p> -"That's because I don't go out," the young man replied. "I am in strict -confinement." -</p> -<p> -"I shall not be the cause of your being punished more severely, shall I? -If necessary I will go and ask the colonel for a permit. Although, -according to what you have told me—" -</p> -<p> -"It's not at all necessary," replied Landri hastily; and he added: -"There's nothing more they can do to me." -</p> -<p> -In his mouth these words were only too true. The shock that the -marquis's sudden appearance had given him had changed instantly into -inexpressible grief—the same grief that he had felt with such -intensity on their meeting in Jaubourg's death-chamber. M. de Claviers' -gestures, his glance, his voice, his breath, moved him to the lowest -depths of his being; and the other, seeing his perturbation, but -attributing it to disappointment because of his shattered career, said -to him:— -</p> -<p> -"You are sad when I hoped to find you happy to take your leave of the -army with that fine gesture, which I partly suggested to you! Do you -remember? And you must remember, too, how often I have told you, and -again only the other day, in the forest, that you could not stay with -these people. One by one they'll drive all men of heart out of the -service. What they want, these wretched successors of the Dantons and -Carnots, who at least had some patriotism, is a national guard -surrounded by spies!—Stand straight, Landri. Have the pride of the -blow you have dealt them. We will prepare your defence together. It -shall be a manifesto. We'll show these Blues, who think they have -exterminated us, that there are still Whites in the land. We will argue -once more a cause that has been pending more than a hundred years, from -the decision of which we must appeal untiringly,—the cause of -Condé's army. We will proclaim that the country is not one more than -half of living Frenchmen, as their idiotic theory of majorities would -have it; that the law is not one more than half of the representatives -of that one more than half. In the word country [<i>patrie</i>] there is -the word father [<i>père</i>]—<i>patria, pater</i>—The -country is France as our fathers made it, or it is nothing. The law is -tradition, as they handed it down to us to maintain, or it is nothing. -We will say that, even in 1906, we nobles do not recognize 1789, that we -have never recognized the night of the 4th of August, that we are -gentlemen, and that a gentleman does not perform tasks of a certain -sort. You must let me select your advocate and instruct him. A -manifesto, Landri,—I propose to have a manifesto, which will stir -up others!—Come, tell me the whole story. The newspapers are full -of lies. They claim that you hesitated, that you went up the church -steps with the sappers.—How did it happen?" -</p> -<p> -"Why, just as they say," replied the young man. -</p> -<p> -"You hesitated?" rejoined the marquis; and, gazing at Landri, with -infinite affection in his clear blue eyes, he continued: "I understand -your pallor now. The sacrifice was very painful. For it is a sacrifice -that you have made to us, that you have made to me," he added, not -realizing how true his words were. -</p> -<p> -The "Émigré" had been speaking with all the passion of a partisan, -who, being unable to fight the government except in thought, indulges in -that pastime with all his heart. Now he made way for the father. -</p> -<p> -"Thanks," he said, and pressed his son's hand. "But, do not deceive -yourself," he continued; "it is for France as well that you have made -this sacrifice. You remember that I told you also the other day that I -understood you only too well, that I too had heard, in my youth, the -voice of the tempter: 'One does not serve the government, one serves -France.' One of our princes said it at the trial of the traitor Bazaine: -'France was involved!'—That is why I allowed you to enter -Saint-Cyr. Besides, to wear the sword is no degradation. Only follow the -logic of your own idea, and you will meet mine, for the truth is -one.—Once more, what was your object in putting on the uniform? To -serve your country.—What service could you render her that would -be more complete, more serviceable than this—to maintain intact, -before the eyes of all men, the type of the soldier-chevalier? The -chevalier, you see, is the ideal code of regulations, always permanent -under new forms, and summed up in the words: the flag, military honor, -the good of the service. It is the Chevalier whom the Revolution pursues -with its hatred to-day, under the cape or the cloak, as of yore under -the coat of the bodyguard or the light-horse. It was against him that it -invented the abominable phrase, 'a national army,' which means, 'no army -at all, but the common people armed with muskets, pikes and -cannon!'—Well! by refusing to march against a church you have -asserted once more the permanence of the Chevalier type. In the old -days, on their reception they were presented with a sword in the shape -of a cross. Admirable symbol of our ancestors—force ruled by -faith, that is to say, by justice and mercy! That is what the Cross is, -justice tempered by mercy. You have proclaimed aloud that the Soldier -and the Chevalier are but one. You have made yourself the example. -Therein is the whole of military duty. You and those men who have -previously done as you have done have postponed the hour when France -will cease to have an army, by steadfast adherence to principle. You -know the value that I attach to such adherence. You understand now that -one must sometimes lay down life in order to keep intact the germ of the -future—principle, always principle! That is what the ancients did -when they left their cities but took their gods with them. I have always -loved that symbolism. It is Christian even in its paganism! I have an -idea that in the future you will agree better with your old father. And -then, too, you will help him grow old. You are my witness that I have -never complained. I have never attempted to impose upon you the -exactions of my selfishness. But why should I not confess it? Grandchamp -has sometimes seemed very empty to me, and the house on Rue du -Faubourg-Saint-Honoré—very empty. My friends are going, one after -another, witness my poor Charles. At my age one is weary of burying, -weary of surviving. You will help me to drive away these black devils. -We will not part any more.—But what's the matter?" -</p> -<p> -"The matter is," the young man replied, "that I cannot bear to hear you -talk like this." -</p> -<p> -He had made a gesture to stop the marquis, and he let a cry of pain -escape him, of which he had at least an explanation to give, although it -was not the true one. Whatever the cost, he felt that he must interrupt -an effusion which caused him too much suffering, and a declaration of -principles which were so unwittingly but so fiendishly ironical when -addressed to him, the child of sin, the nobleman by imposture. It was -necessary to have done with it. -</p> -<p> -"No," he insisted, "I cannot. This life together that you speak of, you -will not care to live with me when I have told you what I am bound to -tell you. The other day, during our conversation in the forest, to which -you just referred, I spoke to you about a marriage. It is going to take -place. Since last Tuesday I have been engaged—" -</p> -<p> -"Engaged?" cried the marquis. "Don't tell me, Landri, that it's to that -Madame Olier." -</p> -<p> -"It is to Madame Olier. I have asked her for her hand. She has promised -it to me. We have exchanged our troths. She will be my wife." -</p> -<p> -"You asked her for her hand?" M. de Claviers exclaimed. "Then you -knew—" -</p> -<p> -"That you would refuse your consent? Yes," said the young man. -</p> -<p> -"And does Madame Olier know that I refused it?" -</p> -<p> -"I did not tell her that I had spoken to you of her." -</p> -<p> -"And she agreed to become engaged to you, without troubling herself -about what I would do, your father?" -</p> -<p> -"She had faith in me," replied Landri. -</p> -<p> -Could he explain under what conditions of supreme grief, almost of -agony, he and Valentine had united their destinies? And yet that M. de -Claviers should judge her wrongfully, should take her for an -adventuress, was terribly painful to him! He knew his way of thinking. -He had still in his ears the words: "She must be very pure, very -sensitive. She will never consent to marry you against your father's -wish. If her ideas were not exalted to that point, you would not love -her."—And he implored:— -</p> -<p> -"I ask you not to speak of her. As she is mine now, I cannot permit -anybody to utter in my presence a word derogatory to her—not even -you." -</p> -<p> -"Begin yourself by not telling me of actions on her part which are not -those of the woman that I took her for after your confidences. I say -nothing of her. I don't know her. I speak of your conduct toward our -family. Will she or will she not be of our family if you marry her? Am I -or am I not the head of that family? Have I the right to defend the name -of Claviers-Grandchamp?"—He had risen and he bore down upon his son, -with folded arms and a rush of blood to his aged face, of that blood whose -claims he was asserting—and to whom! "And it is just when I have -lost my dearest friend that you have done this to me, when you knew that -I should be so stricken with grief!—In Heaven's name, who is this -woman, who has so perverted your heart?—But what can she be if not a -seeker of titles and wealth, having planned what she has planned in -order to force herself upon us, upon me first of all, whether I will or -no, by virtue of the accomplished fact?—But no! the fact shall not be -accomplished. This marriage shall not take place. I, your father, do not -wish it to take place—do you hear, Landri,—I do not wish it." -</p> -<p> -The young man submitted to this formidable attack without replying. He -shuddered when he heard that judgment of Valentine. But M. de Claviers -was the only being on earth against whom he could not defend the woman -he loved. Whence did he derive the right to raise his voice against him, -even if he had the strength? And yet in the attempt to arrest that -torrent of indignation, as to which he could not foresee how far it -would carry the marquis, in view of his natural violence, he said -simply, or, rather, groaned:— -</p> -<p> -"I shall not defend her against you. Not a word shall come from my mouth -that lacks the respect that I owe you. Because of that, remember that -she is a woman and that I love her." -</p> -<p> -"She has forgotten that I am your father," retorted the irascible -marquis. But he had not lied when, a few moments earlier, he had uttered -with a sympathetic accent the word "chevalier." The legendary meaning of -that venerable word, profaned by the most unwarranted usage, was still -to him a living truth. That the young man should make that appeal to him -was sufficient to induce him to interrupt his indictment of one who was -absent. He reseated himself, and with his elbows on the table, and his -head in his hands, he continued after a pause, in a tone in which wrath -had given place to sadness:— -</p> -<p> -"Then you will send me a respectful summons,<a name="FNanchor_5_1" id="FNanchor_5_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_1" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> I suppose?" -</p> -<p> -"I shall have to," replied Landri, "if you do not give your consent." -</p> -<p> -He realized that he was lost if he yielded to the emotion with which -that plaint, so affectionate in its manly simplicity, had filled his -heart anew. This constant laying bare to the quick of his sensitive -nature by that man's mere presence proved to him once more how necessary -it was that he should muster energy to complete the rupture. He loved -him, he revered him too deeply to be able to live in falsehood with him. -</p> -<p> -"My consent?" echoed the marquis, and his anger flared up once more. -"Never! No, never! This is no mere caprice, as you must know. It -concerns the thing that has been the mainspring of my whole existence. -As for the authority in the name of which I forbid—you understand, I -forbid—this marriage, you can defy it and violate it. The shocking -laws of the present day allow you to do so; but if you dare, you will do a -worse thing than if you had broken in the door of Hugueville church the -other day. You will insult your father.—I prefer to believe," he -continued, after another silence, during which he had visibly striven to -control himself, "I prefer to believe that you will reflect. You -hesitated at Hugueville, and then the Claviers blood won the day over -the poison of modern ideas with which I cannot see how you have become -infected. This marriage out of your class is another case of revolt -against prejudices. If our ancestors had not had them, these prejudices, -for well-nigh eight hundred years, you and I would not be -Claviers-Grandchamps. If you choose, from weakness, from aberration of -mind, to cease to behave like one of them, an infamous code forbids me -to prevent you, but know this, that I shall die of despair!—Nothing! -he cares nothing for that!" he continued, rising and pacing the floor. "He -does not answer!—When I see you thus, speechless, obstinate, -insensible to my suffering, I do not believe my eyes. But answer me, pray! -Speak to me! Ask me for further time, at least, so that I may not go away -upon those horrible words, that threat against your father. For you did -threaten me. You said: 'I shall have to! I shall have to!'—Come, -Landri, say that you will regret those words, say that I have moved -you." -</p> -<p> -"You tear my heart," the young man replied. "But I have given my word. I -shall keep it. I shall marry Madame Olier." -</p> -<p> -"And I," exclaimed M. de Claviers, exasperated to the highest pitch by -this renewed resistance, "I give you my word that if you do, I will -never see you again.—Enough of this!" he continued in an imperious -tone. "For an hour past I have shown you all the affection, all the love -that I have in my heart for you, and all my grief as well, and you defy -me. God knows that I did not come here with the idea of speaking to you -as I am going to do. But you shall not defy the paternal majesty with -impunity!" And it was true that at that moment majesty did emanate from -him,—the majesty of the fathers of an earlier time who, as private -dispensers of justice, condemned their sons to imprisonment, and -sometimes to the galleys.<a name="FNanchor_6_1" id="FNanchor_6_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_1" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> "You will ask my pardon, you understand, -for what you have presumed to say to me, or I will never see you again. -And to prove that this sentence of separation between us, if you do not -obey, is final on my part, I shall begin as soon as I reach Paris, -to-morrow morning, to segregate our property. We have been engaged of -late, Métivier and I, in adjusting my affairs which Chaffin's -improvidence had allowed to fall into an unfortunate condition. I shall -take advantage of the opportunity to surrender to you your power of -attorney and all your property. I will spare you the necessity of -demanding them." -</p> -<p> -"I?" cried Landri. "You cannot believe—" -</p> -<p> -The names of Chaffin and Métivier had suddenly reminded him of the -financial catastrophe the imminence of which had so alarmed him. He had -asked the notary to say nothing, and he was quite sure that his -correspondence with him was unknown to the marquis. So that he could not -have interpreted it as a step suggested by Valentine to obtain -possession of his fortune. But what if Métivier had been lacking in -professional discretion? What if that last little sentence signified -such a suspicion? -</p> -<p> -"I believe nothing," rejoined M. de Claviers, "except that on certain -roads one does not stop."—Then, to prove that he proposed to be just, -even in the execution of his sentence upon his rebellious son: "But as -you haven't yet reached that point, and as you may still have some -scruples, considering that I spoke to you about my burdens,—let me -tell you that my difficulties are all at an end, thanks to the devotion of -a friend. Charles Jaubourg had none but distant relations, of whom he had -reason to complain. He has left me his whole fortune by his will. I came -to tell you this news also," he added with a sigh, "and to read you the -provisions of the will. Nothing could be more lofty in sentiment, more -delicately expressed. I have accepted the legacy, in the first place, -because it's absolutely honest money: Charles's father was probity -itself; secondly, because I do not injure any one—his cousins are all -rich and he never saw them; and finally because I loved him as much as -he loved me. One can count the attachments in life that do not deceive -one.—However I need not tell you that, without this legacy, your -fortune was intact. I will order Métivier to communicate with you about -the settlement. As for me, when the day comes that you desire to recover -a father, you know the conditions.—Adieu." -</p> -<p> -Landri had listened with, an indescribable mixture of fear and -disgust—fear of betraying his excessive emotion, disgust at the -infamy of which he was the helpless witness. This then was the ghastly -means devised by Jaubourg to leave his whole fortune to his son! And -should he, the son, permit that money to be accepted thus, with such -touching and confiding gratitude, by that nobleman, so proud and of such -magnificent moral integrity? If, by his silence concerning what he knew, -he should make himself an accomplice in that final act of treachery, -would he not cap the climax of the outrage by his false generosity? The -cry of protest was on his lips, and he did not utter it. There was -something more atrocious than the failure to warn that honorable and -terribly abused man, and that was for his wife's child to tell him what -that wife had been. -</p> -<p> -M. de Claviers had walked to the door. He seemed to await a word, a -gesture, a glance; and Landri stood silent, with downcast eyes. The -marquis himself started to turn back. Then, in face of the young man's -obstinate immobility, his dense eyebrows contracted, his eyes became -stern. He repeated:— -</p> -<p> -"Adieu. Do you understand that I am bidding you adieu?" -</p> -<p> -"Adieu," said Landri, without raising his eyes, while the dispenser of -justice, with a shrug of his powerful shoulders, left the room to avoid -giving way to the fresh wave of indignation that swept over his great -heart. -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_5_1" id="Footnote_5_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_1"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>In French law, a <i>sommation respectueuse</i> is an -extrajudicial document, which a young man of twenty-five or a young -woman of twenty-one, proposing to marry without parental consent, is -required to serve upon his or her parents, requesting advice concerning -the marriage.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_6_1" id="Footnote_6_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_1"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>Merlin, <i>Répertoire de Jurisprudence</i>, "Puissance -Paternelle," Sect. III, § 1:—"Basset mentions a sentence -pronounced by a father in person, by the advice of his family, against his -son. He declared him to be unworthy to succeed, and sentenced him to the -galleys for twenty years. The procureur-général of the Parliament of -Grenoble appealed from this sentence as too light, and by decree of -September 19, 1663, the son was sentenced to the galleys for life."</p> -</div> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap07"></a></p> - -<h4>VII -<br /><br /> -ALL SAVE HONOR -</h4> - -<p> -Four weeks had passed since the young man had listened to the Marquis de -Claviers-Grandchamp's wrathful stride through the reception-room of his -apartment, without calling him back to cry out the truth, to prevent -that deplorable injustice: the debts incurred by his imprudent but -generous and chivalrous prodigality paid with the money of his wife's -lover! After those twenty-nine days Landri found himself once more, in -the same place and at the same hour, surrounded by the same familiar -objects amid which his period of arrest had passed. -</p> -<p> -He was free now. On the preceding day he had been sentenced by the -court-martial at Châlons, by five votes against two, to a fortnight's -imprisonment, to date back to his original arrest. On his return from -Châlons to Saint-Mihiel, he had found in his room an official -communication, stating that "by presidential order, under date of this -day, Lieutenant de Claviers-Grandchamp is retired from active service on -half-pay." That sheet of paper was the veritable "Here lies" of the -soldier, rather than the letter that he had received from the colonel on -his return from the Hugueville expedition. Landri had crumpled it up and -thrown it aside, paying no further heed to it. All his attention was -given to a telegram which he read again and again, an indefinite number -of times, seated, with his head in his hands, at the same table and in -the same attitude as the marquis the other day, while his valet and the -orderly went in and out, packing his trunks. -</p> -<p> -Landri was to return to Paris by the night train. The telegram in which -he was so absorbed was from M. de Claviers' maître d'hôtel. It was a -reply to the only letter that he had written the marquis since their -interview. He had sent it on the adjournment of the court-martial, to -inform him of the verdict. It contained a careful but very distinct -allusion to his proposed marriage, and stated that he proposed to go to -Paris unless his "father"—he continued to call him by that -name—should see any objection to his doing so. He read and reread -the despatch acknowledging the receipt of that letter. -</p> - -<blockquote><p> -"Monsieur le Marquis, being obliged to leave for Grandchamp, instructs -me to say to Monsieur le Comte, in reply to his letter, that he will -expect him at Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré to-morrow. -</p> -<p style="margin-left: 60%;">GARNIER."</p> -</blockquote> - -<p> -That M. de Claviers had not put aside his severity, this missive, so -deliberately impersonal and at such a time, was a sufficient proof. -</p> -<p> -"However, he is willing to see me!" said Landri to himself. "This -interview will be another very painful one, but I must not shirk it." -</p> -<p> -Upon receipt of the despatch he had devoted all the energy of his mind -to looking at the impending meeting from the point of view that he had -constantly maintained during that month of almost absolute solitude. He -had passed the whole of it in trying to define his duty, and he had -always come at last to the twofold necessity: silence and separation, -separation and silence. During those interminable hours of reflection he -had not had one moment's doubt. Not for a moment, either, had he ceased -to suffer at the thought of Jaubourg's will, of the shocking abuse of -confidence committed for his benefit by his real father, and in which he -could not avoid being an accomplice, rather than commit a still more -shocking crime by breaking the heart of the most loyal of men, by -dishonoring his own mother. His grief finally took the shape of remorse -for his compulsory participation in this vilest of falsehoods. Every -time that he had remembered, during those four weeks, the petrifying -revelation, he had thought instantly of the method resorted to by the -dead man to leave him his fortune, and had shuddered with impotent -abhorrence. -</p> -<p> -Nothing that had happened had diverted his mind from that obsession: -neither the questions asked during the official inquiry, nor the -consultations with his counsel, nor his appearance before the judges, -nor the manifestations called forth by his act. Expressions of sympathy -had come to him by hundreds from every part of France, from superior -officers and comrades, even from privates. He had received also a great -number of letters and postal cards filled with low-lived insults. This -was a proof that the Marquis de Claviers was right, and that the fine -gesture of refusal before the door of the church to be burglarized, -since it exasperated the enemies of the army, evidently answered a -deep-rooted craving of the military conscience. But alas! it was only a -gesture, only a pretence. The officer had obeyed a sentiment which none -of his admirers or his insulters could even suspect. Praise and -criticism affected him no more than other impressions of the external -world. Madame Olier's letters alone had discovered the secret of -communicating to him a little of their tenderness. He had received one -each day. Evidently the dear woman realized that she had hurt him the -first day by speaking of M. de Claviers. Never after that, in the course -of those chats with pen in hand, did she so much as hint at the -marquis's existence. "Somebody has told her about the legacy," was -Landri's conclusion, "and she understands." -</p> -<p> -He had guessed aright. Madame Privat, who had come to Paris for -Jaubourg's funeral, had paid Valentine a visit. She had told her, with -the acerbity of a disinherited relation, about her cousin's will. -</p> -<p> -"You remember what I told you about his passion for Madame de -Claviers-Grandchamp? Now he leaves Monsieur de Claviers all his -property! Privat insists that he can't see anything wrong. He claims -that it's the surest proof that nothing ever happened.—You must -confess, my dear friend, that it has an evil look." -</p> -<p> -Madame Olier had made no reply. But her heart had overflowed with pity. -She had seen Landri as he was at their last meeting, in turn paralyzed -and convulsed by grief, and she had divined the terrible truth. Her -affection had assumed a gentler, more caressing phase, across the -distance, and on that afternoon preceding his return to Paris, as he -bent over that enigmatical despatch, the certain precursor of fresh -struggles, the convicted officer, to exorcise his troubles, evoked the -image of his only friend, his betrothed and his comforter. -</p> -<p> -"I shall see her to-morrow," he said to himself. "I shall be able to -keep the secret that honor commands me to keep, and she will read my -heart and pity me. She loves me! <i>He</i> is going to ask me to give -her up. I had the strength to resist the first attack. I am sure of -having still more against the second.—But is that really what he -wants to talk to me about?—What else can it be?" -</p> -<p> -In this question which Landri asked himself, or rather, which asked -itself in his mind, in his own despite, another supposition was -comprised. If it were true that Madame Olier had heard of Jaubourg's -attentions to Madame de Claviers,—and of that he had no -doubt,—others must have heard of them, too, others would be -talking of them. In the first shock of the revelation that had been the -son's first thought. The reader will remember that, after he had started -for his club on Rue Scribe, after the scene on Rue de Solferino, he had -fled wildly, like a madman, with the terror of a culprit flying from a -witness of his shame, simply because he saw a member of the club cross -the threshold. Charles Jaubourg's will must have revived all the gossip, -aroused anew the slumbering malevolence. Who could say that the marquis -had not received anonymous letters, that his suspicions had not been -awakened? -</p> -<p> -One fact had surprised Landri more than all the other incidents of those -four weeks. As he dwelt upon the hidden meaning of the despatch, his -mind reverted to that fact which suddenly assumed very great importance. -How was it that M. de Claviers had done nothing in respect to one of the -matters discussed in their interview—the choice of an advocate? -The motives that made him irreconcilable on the subject of the marriage -to Valentine were respect, worship, idolatry of his name. Would not -those same motives naturally have led him to persevere in his original -purpose? The heir to that name was summoned before a court-martial. That -was a public fact which had no connection with their private -disagreement. How was it that the "Émigré" had not insisted that the -accused should be defended—that was his own word—on the -ground of the principle to which he devoted his life: the honor of the -noble? It was not necessary to communicate with his son for that. It -would have been enough to send the young man a defender duly -"instructed," according to another expression of his. He had not done -so. Why? Landri had had to apply to Métivier the notary, who had sent -down a kinsman of his, a distinguished practitioner, but purely -professional. The marquis and the counsel had never met. Why? Did it -mean that some new event had intervened? What was it? The awakening of -suspicion? Or was the wrath of outraged paternal authority sufficient to -explain his abstention? -</p> -<p> -Landri was so desirous to believe the latter that he went to the trunk -in which his books were already packed, and took out the work wherein -the marquis's ideas were collected and marshalled: "The History and -Genealogy of the House of Claviers-Grandchamp." The mere title made -Landri tremble, but he remembered having read a note, which he must find -at any price. When he had found it, he spelled out all the syllables, -word by word, in a low voice. He longed to read therein an explanation -of the attitude of the Feudalist, thwarted in one of his most firmly -rooted convictions. It was a fragment of a discourse delivered by the -eloquent Duveyrier before the Parliament of Paris, in 1783. M. de -Claviers had cited the passage apropos of the severity of one of his -ancestors toward a younger son, with enthusiastic approval and -emphasizing the last lines as if to make them his own. -</p> -<p> -In this argument Duveyrier was supporting a father's denunciation of his -own daughter to the authorities. -</p> -<p> -"Can we," he said, "can we, without distress, reflect upon the immense -interval that separates us from those who handed our laws down to us? By -what steps of progressive enfeeblement we have substituted for that -mental energy, for the power of genuine virtue, a factitious sensibility -which takes fright at the slightest effort; not the healthy sensibility, -inseparable from kindness of heart, which has compassion for the -criminal while punishing the crime, but that flexibility of character, -that flabbiness of heart which leads us to purchase the indulgence of -others by our own indulgence, and which we call sensibility in order to -legitimize our weakness, to ennoble it, indeed, if that were possible! -In the last days of the Republic, when discord was ushering in -depravity, Aulus Fulvius deserted Rome to follow Catiline. His father -called him back. That citizen, a rebel against his country, was still a -dutiful son. He obeyed. He submitted to the sentence of death pronounced -by his father. Our ancestors admired this example of sublime virtue. We -deem it harsh. Our grandsons will call it barbarous. <i>We are beginning -to be surprised that a father should exercise the right that the law -gives him, to avenge his betrayed honor, his contemned authority. We -shall end by depriving him of that right. From the impossibility of -punishing the children will result contempt for the father, -insubordination rebellion, and universal anarchy</i>." -</p> -<p> -"That's his way of thinking, and he's profoundly in earnest about it," -thought Landri, as he closed the bulky volume. "That's enough to make my -opposition exasperate him, so that he won't have anything more to do -with me until I have given way.—Where were my wits? He wants to see -me to-morrow about those same matters that he had Métivier write me about. -Must I imagine, too, that he has mysterious reasons for dividing our -property? He told me in this very room of his purpose to do that. That -alone proves how much weight he attaches to my offence against him. In -his eyes it's a crime. I ought to congratulate myself that he is so -rigid in his convictions." -</p> -<p> -This explanation was very plausible. But it did not allay the vague -anxiety that the telegram had caused Landri. For this reason: Maître -Métivier had sent him numerous papers to sign, about a fortnight -before, accompanying them with a long letter, of a more personal sort. -He said in it that he strongly approved of this segregation of the -property of the father and son, and that he saw therein good augury for -the future. He added that M. de Claviers had, upon his advice, entrusted -the liquidation of his indebtedness to a former clerk of his, -Métivier's, one M. Cauvet, an advocate who made a specialty of notarial -practice. This Cauvet had discovered a serious irregularity almost -immediately. Chaffin had been dismissed. "Perhaps Monsieur le Marquis -was a little severe," observed the cautious Métivier. "Although the -fraud was highly probable, it was not absolutely certain." -</p> -<p> -"So I was right," was Landri's instant thought, "Chaffin too was a -traitor." And he had gone no farther. In his present reflections matters -assumed a different aspect. Such violence under excitement was certainly -a pronounced feature of M. de Claviers' temperament. No other reason was -necessary to explain it than the discovery of a breach of trust. But the -consequences? Landri remembered that the son of the steward thus -summarily dismissed was Pierre Chaffin, the physician who had watched at -the bedside of the dying Jaubourg. Suppose that that fellow had repeated -to his father what he had unquestionably overheard? And suppose that the -father, to revenge himself, had in his turn repeated that secret? -Suppose that he had written to the person most interested? -</p> -<p> -"No," Landri answered his own questions, "Chaffin may have been tempted -by the money that passed through his hands, and have become a thief. But -he is not a monster. And Pierre is a physician. There are still some of -them, yes, a great many, who keep professional secrets. No; nothing can -have happened in that direction, nor in any other. Our conversation of -the other day is quite enough." -</p> -<p> -Despite these arguments, the return to Paris, under such conditions and -in obedience to that telegram, inspired the young man with an -apprehension that he could not overcome. -</p> -<p> -"It's being shut up in this apartment, where I have too many sorrowful -thoughts to disturb me," he said to himself; and he went out, to try to -conquer his weakness by walking. -</p> -<p> -He employed the last hours of the afternoon in paying farewell visits. -But they did not give him, after such a succession of violent shocks, -the peace of mind which he was very near requiring physically. He might -have measured the extent of the change wrought in him during those few -weeks, by this trivial fact: during that last walk from one end to the -other of the town where he had done his last garrison duty, he did not -feel a moment's nostalgia for the profession to which he had been so -attached. One anxiety overtopped everything else, of the same nature as -that which he had undergone before the telegram came, and had tried to -shake off: to ascertain whether the news of the infamous will had -reached the ears of his comrades, and what they thought of it. -</p> -<p> -Landri had heard vaguely long ago that Major Privat was a distant cousin -of Jaubourg. He had no sooner set foot on the sidewalk than he -remembered it. That officer had retired the previous winter. He had -certainly continued to correspond with some of his comrades in arms. Had -he written them the news, and if so, with what comments? In that case -what interpretation would those straightforward, simple hearts, whose -uncompromising loyalty he knew, place upon M. de Claviers' acceptance? -</p> -<p> -Such an idea was not of the sort that permits the intrusion of others. -In vain did the pictures of military activity on the streets of -Saint-Mihiel multiply themselves about the cashiered lieutenant, as if -to remind him of his youthful dreams and their destruction. He paid no -heed to them. Thus he was able to pass, without being suffocated with -despair, the headquarters gate, which he had entered only the other day -with the firm determination to retain his uniform. He met, without a -tearing at his heart-strings, several troopers of his former command, -led by his successor, who was mounted on Panther herself, become in -those few weeks a docile and spirited cavalry mare. He recognized -Baudoin's insolent and sneering profile, and Teilhard's face, already -less frank and open, evidently recaptured by anarchistic influences. -That is one of the bitterest pangs that a real leader of men can -feel,—to see the living tool that he has hoped, and has begun, to -shape, go astray in other hands. Landri was hardly moved by it. On the -other hand, he was intensely relieved to find that neither Despois nor -Vigouroux, the first two officers whom he called upon, had the slightest -suspicion of the legacy left to the Claviers by Privat's cousin. He had -the courage to mention the former major's name to both of them. Plainly, -they had not thought of him for months. They had many other cares in -their heads, which they both poured into his ears, each after his -manner. -</p> -<p> -"So you are lost to the army," said Despois. "Such an excellent -officer—what a pity! I blame most the wretches who are governing us, -for not understanding that, especially among us, a man cannot be -replaced. A man! When they have one who wants to serve, they ought to do -everything to keep him. In a campaign, one man is worth ten, twenty, -thirty, a hundred, yes, a thousand others! One would think that our -tyrants were afflicted with a vertigo that impels them to eliminate from -the army the men of heart, that is to say, the loyalists, the men from -whom their Republic has least to fear. The officer who refuses, as you -did, to break down a chapel door, is the officer who doesn't conspire, -because he has scruples, and those fools don't comprehend it!—I, -too," he added, "I shall leave, and very soon. I don't think that I can -stand it. Yesterday they made us march against the churches, to-morrow we -shall be called upon for a campaign against the strikers. That is no -more a soldier's work than the other. The army may be employed, in -exceptional cases, to see that the laws are executed. But it must be one -of the exceptional cases. The reason for the existence of the army is -war, not police duty. Our politicians have a horror of war, of that -manly and sanctified school of heroism. They have the degraded taste for -armed demonstrations in the streets. Look you, they are talking of -sending us next week to adjust matters at the forges of Apremont.—For -heaven's sake, gentlemen, give us a policy of internal peace and of -proud dignity externally!—Adieu, Claviers. I wish that we may meet -again, you can guess where; foot to foot, charging the enemy. But will -there still be any cavalry to follow us?—I am wrong. We have no right -to despair, so near Vaucouleurs. What can you expect? It breaks your old -captain's heart to see you go away." -</p> -<p> -"Well! so they've slit your ears, my dear Claviers!" Such was -Vigouroux's first exclamation. "Ah! the—" And the lieutenant of -dragoons, who adhered to the great traditions of the Klébers and -Cambronnes, hurled a mess-room epithet at his comrade's persecutors. "Do -you know that the same thing came near happening to me? And why? Because -I exchanged two or three words with you when we dismounted on our return -from Hugueville. Gad! they didn't waste any time. That same afternoon -the colonel sent for me.—'Is it true that you congratulated Monsieur -de Claviers in public?' he asked me.—'I did talk with Claviers,' I -replied, 'but privately, when we were off duty; and if anybody claims to -have been present at our interview, he lies.'—Charbonnier hesitated a -moment. For all that he has the ideas that you know of, he's a good -fellow. And then, Vigouroux, Charbonnier—those names have a similar -sound, whereas Claviers-Grandchamp—However, 'I'll let it pass this -time,' he said. 'But be less talkative, young man. You may fall in with -another colonel than me.'—That's all there was to it. You see, two -minutes' conversation, and we were spied upon. It poisons life. -Claviers, to be surrounded by blackguards. It spoils the cooking at the -mess, which really hasn't been so bad this year. I can't eat without -talking, and no one dares to speak at the table now. If all the good men -like you, the staunch ones, should disappear, what would become of us? -But no matter, Charbonnier and his curs may say what they please, I -congratulate you again, and I authorize you to say everywhere that -Vigouroux cried 'bravo' twice over." -</p> -<p> -So Privat had not written! That was the whole significance, to their -former comrade, of the words of the two officers, one so distinguished -by nature, the other so simple-hearted, both equally attached to the -service and wounded to the quick in their military honor by abominable -orders. Later Landri was destined to see very often in his thoughts the -sad and honest glance of Despois in its deeply lined mask, and the -jovially disgusted lip—if one may say so—of the ruddy-visaged -Vigouroux. At the moment there was no place in his heart for sensations -of that sort. -</p> -<p> -His other visits passed off with the same alternations of painful -curiosity and comparative—but only momentary—relief. -</p> -<p> -The anticipation of the interview with M. de Claviers—the third since -he had known what he knew—consumed him with too fierce a fever. It -increased constantly as the minutes passed that brought him nearer to -the time when he would find himself face to face with him. Again, as in -the ride at the head of his dragoons to Hugueville-en-Plaine, he seemed -to see him and only him—only him on the railway platform, where very -few of his friends had the courage to come to bid him adieu; only him in -the carriage, where, lulled by the monotonous rumbling of the train, he -tried to imagine the words he was about to hear and those that he would -say in reply, endlessly and anxiously; only him, finally, in Paris, -where, as he stood in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, before the door of -their house, his suffering acquired fresh intensity. He had not crossed -the threshold since the day when, coming from Saint-Mihiel by train, he -had gone there to dress, before going to Valentine's to ask for her -hand. That was the day before Charles Jaubourg's death! -</p> -<p> -Everything indicated that the manner of life in that seignorial mansion -was still as he had always known it. The old concierge saluted him from -his doorway with the same deferential and familiar expression. The same -stablemen, with the same gestures, were splashing pails of water on the -wheels of the same carriages. Garnier, the maître-d'hôtel, whose white -hair gave him a powdered aspect, received him with the same ceremony at -the top of the steps, when his arrival had been announced by the same -bell. -</p> -<p> -"Is Monsieur le Marquis well?" Landri inquired; and his heart gave a -great throb of relief, as on the day before with Despois and Vigouroux, -when the servant replied:— -</p> -<p> -"Why, yes, Monsieur le Comte, very well. Monsieur le Marquis went to -Grandchamp yesterday to hunt, with several friends." -</p> -<p> -"He hunts!" thought the young man. "Then nothing extraordinary is -happening! Evidently I was right. He wishes to talk with me about money -matters only." And he said, aloud: "Ask him if he can see me about ten -o'clock." -</p> -<p> -This touch of ceremoniousness was no novelty in the relations between -the father and son. Although the conventional courtesy which is -traditionary in old-fashioned families creates something like -embarrassment at certain times, at other times it reveals itself as -singularly beneficent in its operation. It ensures anonymity, if -necessary, when one is suffering. No one of the household suspected that -there was impending between the marquis and Landri one of those scenes -which mark a solemn epoch in two lives. -</p> -<p> -But did Landri himself suspect to what sort of an interview he was -proceeding when, at the appointed hour, he went down from his apartment -to the library, where M. de Claviers had sent word that he was awaiting -him? That large, high-studded room was on the same level with the -garden, which was fresh and bright-colored in summer, but so severely -bare and leafless on that dark December morning. The gloomy setting was -only too appropriate to the words that were to be exchanged there. -</p> -<p> -The marquis was standing in front of the vast fireplace, with his back -to the fire, whose bright flame twined about a veritable tree-trunk. It -was another of the old nobleman's manias, that huge fire of the olden -time. Standing before that monumental chimneypiece, he was himself at -that moment, despite his modern costume, more of an "ancient portrait" -than ever. But it was the portrait of one who was living through hours -of frightful martyrdom. The master of the hunt of the forest of Hez, -whose tall erect figure Landri had so admired in the group of sportsmen -watching the kill, was scarcely fifty years of age, despite the -sixty-five years that the genealogical tree of the Claviers-Grandchamps -gave him. The head of the family, who was at that moment awaiting the -heir to his name in the immense room lined with wainscotings and books, -was an old man. His ruddy complexion mottled with white spots, his heavy -eyelids, the wrinkles on his brow, told the story of the long sleepless -nights of those four weeks. The jovial gleam of his deep blue eyes was -replaced by an expression of feverish ardor, wherein one could divine -his secret agony—at that moment! For the undiminished pride of the -whole physiognomy said plainly enough that the nobleman had not -surrendered, and that before any other witness he would have found a way -to conceal his wound. -</p> -<p> -What was the wound? To know, Landri had no need to question him. What he -had foreseen had happened. M. de Claviers suspected the truth. To what -extent? How had he been warned? The young man instinctively collected -all his strength, in order to undergo without faltering an interview in -which his own secret might escape him. He was about to realize once more -the superiority of Race, and what a powerful and resolute character it -bestows upon its authentic representatives. -</p> -<p> -M. de Claviers was infinitely affectionate and sensitive, but he was -above all else a man. In him, character was in very truth nourished upon -and permeated by those principles upon which he declaimed with a fervor -which was sometimes so discordant, even—especially, -perhaps—in his own circle. At supremely critical moments he was -certain to manifest the energy born of an unchangeable resolution, which -scorns equivocation, and which has the unswerving decision of the -surgeon's knife. He, too, was unaware exactly how much his son—in -name—knew of a situation of which he had never dreamed before he -had had overwhelming and indisputable proof of it. He was justified in -thinking that the young man was altogether ignorant. That was enough to -justify, in a weaker nature, the temptation to hold his peace, which -Landri assuredly would not have escaped. In the marquis's eyes one duty -overshadowed everything else,—the duty of saving, in this -shipwreck of all his confidence and all his affections, so much as he -could save of the honor of the Claviers-Grandchamps. He was the -depositary of the name, and he proposed to impose his will on the -intruder,—justifiably, indeed,—without concern for aught -save that honor. And so when the young man, immediately on entering the -room, began to speak, alluding to their last interview, he cut him short -with a word. -</p> -<p> -"I did not send for you," he said; and the failure to address him by the -familiar <i>tu</i> seemed strangely harsh in his mouth, for never before, -since his childhood, had Landri known him to address him thus, even in -his sternest moments;—"I did not send for you to resume a discussion -which, henceforth, has no interest or even any pretext. Something has -happened during the month since we last met. It is destined to change -our relations forever, and in every respect. It has seemed to me that I -owed it to myself and to you to make it known to you. Prepare to receive -a very painful blow, as I received it, bravely." -</p> -<p> -"I am prepared, father, to receive anything from you," Landri replied, -"for I am sure that you will never do anything except for what you -believe to be my good." -</p> -<p> -This ambiguous sentence was a final effort to conceal—to what -avail now?—what he on his side had learned. At the word "father" -the marquis, firm as he was, could not help closing his eyes for a -second. But his voice, full and deep, did not falter as he -continued:— -</p> -<p> -"Look over those two letters first; then we will talk." -</p> -<p> -With outstretched finger he pointed to an envelope lying on the desk, -unsealed. On opening it the young man saw that it did in fact contain -two letters. One, type-written, was thus conceived:— -</p> -<p> -"Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp doubtless is unaware of the -reasons that led one of his friends (?) very recently deceased, to make -him his residuary legatee. The accompanying document will enlighten him. -If Monsieur le Marquis is not satisfied, we have other documents to -furnish him." And this denunciation was signed: "An admirer of the house -of Claviers-Grandchamp"! -</p> -<p> -The other letter—Ah! his recognition of the handwriting stopped -the beating of Landri's heart. The paper, slightly yellowed by time, -still gave forth a vague, musty sweetness, the faint, evaporated odor of -Geneviève de Claviers' favorite perfume,—the perfume that hovered -about the kisses of which the child was born who unfolded the sheet with -hands that trembled so that he tore it across the middle. It was a love -letter, written without precaution, in the perilous sense of security -which a long-continued liaison finally imparts even to those who are -most closely watched. The first three words,—"My beloved -Charles,"—the "tu" that came next—news of "our dear little -Landri,"—and other phrases, no less explicit, would have made it -impossible for the most obstinate to doubt. -</p> -<p> -From whom had the letter been stolen? From the lover after he received -it? Or had villainous hands intercepted it, hands which the careless -mistress deemed faithful? Why had they waited for years before using -this formidable weapon, and why was it produced to-day, when the two -culprits were protected forever by the tomb against the vengeance of the -outraged husband? That the will which made M. de Claviers sole legatee -had induced this revolting denunciation, the other letter needed not to -assert with such insulting cynicism. It was sufficient evidence in -itself. The motive was of little importance. The effect had been -produced, as complete as the most implacable animosity could wish. -</p> -<p> -Landri stood as one stricken dumb before the man whose name he bore, by -virtue of the sin of the dead woman who had insanely written those lines -with her impassioned fingers. When he ventured at last to raise his -eyes, he saw that the marquis pointed to the fire on the hearth. He -threw the two papers, laden with deadly meaning, into the flames. A -minute later a few charred fragments, whirling about in the smoke, alone -testified that those letters had ever existed. Doubtless the young man's -face had exhibited an extraordinary poignancy of suffering during that -silent scene, for, even at that moment, M. de Claviers could not help -pitying him. -</p> -<p> -"I could not perform the task incumbent upon me," he said, "except with -your aid and with you aware of the facts." -</p> -<p> -"Do not reproach yourself, monsieur," said Landri. "Those letters have -told me nothing. I knew it all before." -</p> -<p> -The blood rushed suddenly to the old man's face, attesting the burst of -passion that this unexpected reply aroused in him. His blue eyes flashed -fire, and as his former habit of speech returned to his lips in that -explosion, he cried:— -</p> -<p> -"You (<i>tu</i>) knew it all! And you did not speak to me! You knew all, -and your conscience didn't say to you: 'That man who brought me up, who -has always loved me like the most affectionate of fathers, was betrayed -in his conjugal honor! He is betrayed to-day in his probity! He accepts -that abominable legacy in good faith! He is grateful for it! He is going -to use it to pay his debts, to release his patrimony! His patrimony,'" -he repeated. "'At any price I must prevent that!'—You knew all, -and you allowed me to go away the other day without uttering the cry -that you owed me! Yes, you owed it to me, for what I have given you with -all my heart for so many years, for what I was still giving you a few -moments ago.—I was just about to apologize to you for not being -able to conceal the shameful truth from you! And you betrayed me, you, -too! You made yourself an accomplice in the supreme outrage!—Ah! -villain, you are indeed of their blood, the child of—" -</p> -<p> -He checked himself. Even in that outburst of his rage his great heart -recoiled from the barbarity of insulting a mother, however unworthy, in -the presence of a son. But the paroxysm was too violent to pass off -thus. His clenched fists opened and closed. He seized the first thing -that offered itself, a silver paper-knife lying on the table beside an -uncut review. He broke in two the blade, which snapped like glass. Then, -brought to himself by the very frenzy of the act, he addressed Landri -again in a tone in which the tempest still rumbled:— -</p> -<p> -"But explain yourself, unhappy boy! Explain your silence! Why did you -keep silent?" -</p> -<p> -"Because I loved you," said Landri, "and because my mother was -concerned." -</p> -<p> -A heart-rending cry, so simple and poignant in its humanness, of the -sort that the heart emits when it is touched to its lowest depths! M. de -Claviers had loved the young man too long and too deeply, that affection -was still too largely mingled in the horror which his existence inspired -in him, for him not to be moved to the very entrails. He made a gesture -which he instantly checked; and, as if he were angry with himself for -that weakness, his face clouded anew as he inquired:— -</p> -<p> -"And from whom did you learn of this thing?" -</p> -<p> -"On Rue de Solferino—on that Tuesday. Oh! don't compel me to live -through that frightful scene again!" -</p> -<p> -"He spoke to you!" roared M. de Claviers. "To you! to you! He dared!" -</p> -<p> -"He is dead," replied, nay, rather, implored the young man. -</p> -<p> -Again his innate generosity carried the day in the nobleman's heart; he -placed his hand over his eyes, the same hand with which he had traced -over the remains of his false friend the great sign of pardon. These -sudden outbursts of his speech and his passion frightened him, no doubt. -This interview which he had sought affected him too profoundly. He -collected himself thus for a few seconds, and when he began again to -speak his tone had changed. He uttered his words now with a sort of -haughty coldness, hurried and harsh, which made his interlocutor feel -even more keenly perhaps the utter hopelessness of their situation. -</p> -<p> -"It is useless to prolong an interview that must be as painful to you as -to me. Listen to me, I beg, without interrupting me. In my capacity of -head of the Claviers family, so long as you bear its name, I consider -myself as having with respect to you both duties and rights. My duty is -to treat you ostensibly as if you were my son!" His eyelids drooped once -more over his eyes, as he said this. "I shall not fail in that -duty.—My right is to demand that you abide by my decision in -everything that concerns the defence of my family's honor. That honor is -threatened. Such villainies as this are a sign." He pointed to the place -on the desk where the envelope had been. He still saw it there! "They -prove that people have talked about it, and that they are talking. We -know enough of the world, you and I, to know that its fickleness exceeds -its ferocity. We know, too, that it has, in spite of everything, a sort -of justice of its own. There is nobody, I say nobody, who can honestly -believe that Geoffroy de Claviers-Grandchamp accepted a legacy knowing -it to be infamous. If, therefore, he retains it, it must be because he -does not believe that it is infamous; because he is convinced that his -wife has been slandered. I propose,—understand me,—I propose -that people shall say, I propose that people shall think, that Madame de -Claviers has been slandered. Consequently I shall not renounce this -legacy after I have publicly agreed to accept it. Need I tell you that -that money fills me with horror, and that I shall keep none of it? It is -your money. I propose that you shall have it all. But this restitution -must be made between you and me. Unfortunately I have already given -orders that I cannot cancel without causing comment, to Métivier's man, -Cauvet, that miserable Chaffin's successor. So that restitution cannot -be made for some little time. In fact, I must have time to carry out my -plans.—There's one point settled between us, is it not?" -</p> -<p> -"It is for you to command," said Landri, "and for me to obey." -</p> -<p> -"I come to the second point. We can no longer, I do not say live -together, but see each other. We must part, and forever, while adhering -faithfully to the programme I have outlined. The avowed reason must be -one of those that our set will accept without looking beyond it. That -reason is all ready—it is the mésalliance which you proposed to -make and which you must make. A month ago the mere thought of it was -intolerable to me. I showed you that plainly enough. To-day—" he -shook his head with a bitter smile. "It is a horrible thing to me that -the family you will found will bear the name of mine. But then I can do -nothing. The Code would not allow me even to compel recognition of the -circumstances. Besides, I have no right to demand that you should not -make the most of your life. I cannot prevent that. I cannot prevent you -from existing. No. You will marry therefore, ostensibly against my will. -You will give me your word not to live in the same city with me, not to -present your wife in our circle. I do not wish to meet you or to meet -her.—Wait," he exclaimed imperiously, as Landri was about to reply. -"If I were not certain, I say again, that people are talking, things -would take care of themselves. You would leave this house this morning, -never to return. But people are talking, and as neither you nor I have -taken anybody into our confidence concerning our two -discussions,—at Hez and at Saint-Mihiel,—the abrupt -announcement of your marriage at this moment might be taken for a -pretext. No matter how well everybody knows that I am not a man of these -times, this theory of mésalliances is so weakened of late years, that -people might say and would say: 'He has seized this opportunity; there's -something else.'—Now, I propose that the reply shall be, as with -one voice: 'No, there was nothing else.'—You have left the army -under circumstances that have aroused the sympathy of everybody about -you—about us, I should say, since no human power can prevent our -interests being mutual. It is natural that I should take this time to -receive, to bring people about you. I will receive—we will -receive, together. I shall find the strength to maintain this attitude, -and so will you. It will last as long as we make it, but we must arrange -it so that, on the day when the news of your marriage and our rupture -becomes known, everybody who is intimate with us shall say: 'Poor -Claviers! he was so fond of his son!'—I doubt not that there will -be those who will add: 'What a fool!'—One's vanity is not to be -wounded when one thinks of honor, and the only way for me to defend -Madame de Claviers' honor is to seem to believe in it. In that our -interests are really mutual, with a mutuality which is not a falsehood. -She was, she still is my wife, and she is your mother." -</p> -<p> -"I repeat that I will obey you in everything," said the young man. -</p> -<p> -"It remains for me to touch upon two other points," continued the -marquis. "I have reflected much, during these last days, upon the -character of the person you are going to marry. You love her. Yes, you -must love her dearly to have spoken to me as you did when we were -together at Saint-Mihiel. You see, I do not underrate your affection for -me. You will be tempted to open your heart to her. If she doesn't -deserve to be loved as you love her, do not do it; and if she does -deserve it, do not do it. I ask you to give me your word that she shall -never learn this ghastly secret from you." -</p> -<p> -"I give it to you, instantly," Landri replied. He added, in a low voice, -so much in dread was he of another outburst of that rage which, he felt, -was still smouldering: "But if I should allow myself to tell her the -whole truth, I think—that I should tell her nothing new." -</p> -<p> -"You have spoken to her already!" ejaculated M. de Claviers in a -threatening tone. "Confess it. Ah! if you have done that—" -</p> -<p> -"I have not done it," Landri protested; and with tears in his eyes, he -added: "I entreat you, never believe that I could have acted otherwise -than you have taught me to act all your life and are still teaching me -at this moment. I will tell you everything. Then you can pass judgment -on me." -</p> -<p> -And he began by describing the first indication—her sudden entreaty -to him not to go up to the invalid's apartment on Rue de Solferino, on his -way from Paris to Grandchamp; and how, after the visit to Jaubourg and -the revelation, he had said to himself: "Madame Olier knows all,"—and -in what a state of feverish excitement he had arrived at her house, and -the horror he had had of speaking, and his silence in the face of her -grief, and that grief itself, and their betrothal in that moment of -supreme emotion. Then he told of the letter he had received from her -immediately after the Hugueville affair, and of the others, in which she -had not made a single allusion to M. de Claviers. -</p> -<p> -That gentleman listened to the confession with an impassive face, which -did, however, betray something like wonder. Never had Landri opened his -heart to him in this wise when he believed himself to be his son. Never -had he ventured to show to his father that charming, quivering -sensibility, so passionate and so delicate, so easily wounded and so -loving. He disclosed himself in all the loyalty of his refined and -affectionate nature, at the moment that the marquis and he were -exchanging the words of their final conversation. What more could they -say to each other? M. de Claviers felt that impossibility more than all -the rest. His old love for his son stirred him anew, and the more it -assailed him the more obstinately he stiffened himself against it. -Furthermore, throughout that narrative he caught glimpses of Valentine's -charming character, and it was intolerably bitter to him to recall -another betrothal—his own—forty years before, so superb and -splendid, to end in—what? In this heart-rending inquisition about -a deadly shame! -</p> -<p> -"You are right," he said at last, "it is only too evident. She knows -all. But how?" His features assumed an expression of deeper chagrin as -he added: "For a month I have been constantly confronted by this -question, without reaching even a suggestion of a reply: Who can have -stolen those letters?—'We have other documents to furnish!'" He -repeated the informer's words, in such a grief-stricken tone. "'Other -documents!'—Is it the heirs? But I saw them at the funeral. There was -an ex-major there, one Monsieur Privat, who spoke to me about you. I can -never believe in such hypocrisy! They knew about the will, and they -behaved admirably. No, the blow does not come from them. From a servant? -With what object? Blackmail. Oh! let him unmask then! I will pay him -whatever he wants for those other letters!—But no. A servant would -never have devised the devilish irony of the signature: 'an admirer of -the house of Claviers-Grandchamp'! That smells of the club, does that -dastardly insult, of low-lived envy of those who do not palter with the -cowardly customs of these days."—He uttered another roar. "Ah! If I -could only find out who it was! If I could!" And, shaking his head: -"This is not a question of myself at all. Once more I say, the honor of -Madame de Claviers is at stake, and this is the last promise I propose -to demand from you, that you would seek what I cannot seek—the hand -that dealt the blow. You may find it and you may not. But you must try, -so that they may not repeat it." -</p> -<p> -"Have you no suspicion of anybody?" inquired Landri, "Chaffin, whom you -dismissed—" -</p> -<p> -"Chaffin? Why, I had had the letter ten days when I settled with him. -No. Chaffin's a thief. He has never wanted anything but money. He'd have -tried to sell the papers. Let us not go astray in suppositions as -useless as my lamentations. Perhaps by questioning Madame Olier you may -learn something. Too much, perhaps."—A pause.—"No. That is not -possible, either." -</p> -<p> -What was the shocking idea to which that "No" was an answer, and the -"But if it were?" that he added? -</p> -<p> -"You are aware of my desires now," he concluded. -</p> -<p> -"I will comply with them," said the young man. He had understood the -wicked and atrocious suspicion that had suddenly suggested itself to the -cruelly betrayed husband, and he pitied him the more for it. "I promise -you." -</p> -<p> -"That is well," rejoined M. de Claviers. "I accept your promise. Each -day I will write you my instructions concerning what I wish you to do. -It is unnecessary for us to be alone together again unless you have some -information to give me as to the inquiry you are to undertake. I do not -hope very much from it.—I forgot. I asked the Charluses and Bressieux -to luncheon. Be here at quarter past twelve. Now, go." -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -"Shall I have the strength to keep that promise of mine?" Landri asked -himself as he went down at the appointed hour to the small salon where -the marquis received his guests when he gave a luncheon. To reach it he -had to pass through a succession of magnificent apartments, and at a -distance he could hear the ringing tones of the loud voice that was -associated with all the memories of his childhood and youth. Was the man -who, but a short time before, by turns stoical and desperate, cold as -ice and aflame with passion, accused, commanded, groaned, suspected, in -such a frenzy of grief and indignation, really the same as he who -greeted him with these words, in a jovial tone, as he waved his hand -toward the friends whose coming he had announced:— -</p> -<p> -"Well, well! So you keep us waiting, master hero! You have no right to, -being new at the game! But you have credit for some time to come, after -what you have done. Hasn't he, Mademoiselle Marie?" -</p> -<p> -"Oh! a big bunch of it," said Marie de Charlus, laughing with her -beautiful white teeth. "Ah! you tease me. Monsieur de Claviers, and I'll -revenge myself by talking slang. But that won't prevent my going back to -the French of your old France to say to your son that we are all, men -and women alike, very, very proud of him." -</p> -<p> -"Very proud," echoed Charlus. "To see a fine thing finely done always -gives pleasure. But when the one who does it belongs to the <i>comme il -faut</i>, class, the pleasure is doubled." -</p> -<p> -"It is indeed," said Bressieux, shaking Landri's hand in his turn. "We -are not spoiled in that way." -</p> -<p> -"It's because <i>comme il faut</i> folk think too much of their cakes and -ale," retorted Marie, glancing at the Seigneur de la Rochebrocante with -the laughing insolence that was peculiar to her. -</p> -<p> -"It is principally because the <i>comme il faut</i> folk are not what they -should be [<i>comme il faudrait</i>]," said the marquis. "It's so easy to be -of one's own party, nothing more, whereas nowadays no one is of his own -opinion even; and I see none but people who, on the pretext of broad and -liberal ideas, admit that their enemies are in the right. Landri was of -his own party, that's the whole story, without talk and without parade. -You must tell them about it, my boy, and how those excellent peasants -applauded you and your dragoons when you turned on your heel in the -teeth of the disgusted prefect.—But luncheon is served. Will you -allow me to offer you my arm, mademoiselle? Lardin has promised to surpass -himself, and we shall have, to drink this tall fellow's health, a -certain Musigny of a royal year. For we still drink, and drink Burgundy -too, we old fellows, just as we still eat, and with a good appetite, in -that old France that you make sport of. A sweet thing your new France -is! All mineral waters and diet!" -</p> -<p> -Liveried servants held the chairs for the guests around the table, the -dark wood of which had no cloth, according to the old ceremonial of -<i>déjeuners à la française</i>. The great garden imparted an almost rural -atmosphere of peace to that room, which the host enlivened with his -cordiality. To one who observed him closely the contagious warmth of his -joviality was in too striking contrast with the feverish gleam of his -eyes, and the traces of suffering on his face. But the pride of -defending his name sustained him; and, forestalling himself any possible -observation of that sort, he, who had never lied, said:— -</p> -<p> -"I was very anxious for Landri to return. 'That's the true remedy for -me.' I told Louvet, when he talked about diet, apropos of those two or -three attacks of vertigo I told you of, Charlus. But it seems to me that -this young man doesn't seem glad enough to see us. You'll see that he'll -regret the army." -</p> -<p> -And, not to fall behind the tragic heroism of that comedy, Landri, who -was being served at that moment with eggs à la Grandchamp, one of the -accomplished Lardin's thousand and one creations, remarked, laughing in -his turn:— -</p> -<p> -"I certainly sha'n't regret the cuisine of the mess. It is true that -your chef has outdone himself to celebrate my fall from grace." -</p> -<p> -He put his fork to his lips with the respectful manner of a gourmand to -whom eating is a solemn affair, which drew from Bressieux the -exclamation:— -</p> -<p> -"You are coming to it! The table is the least deceitful of all things, -and when one of Lardin's chefs-d'œuvre is put before one, in Chantilly -of such delicacy as this," he added, pointing to his plate,—and -one could not tell from the twinkling of his eye whether he was giving -vent to his enthusiasm for antiques or was indulging in secret -sarcasm,—"one may well say, despite the famous <i>mot</i>, that -one knows the joy of living!" -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap08"></a></p> - -<h4>VIII -<br /><br /> -ON A SCENT -</h4> - -<p> -Landri had not been mistaken—those phrases that had escaped M. de -Claviers, to be instantly interrupted:—the "too much, perhaps," -and the "but if it were!"—signified that for an instant at least -that man, formerly so entirely a stranger to all the meannesses of -suspicion, had harbored the unfortunate suspicion that Madame Olier was -the denouncer of Madame de Claviers. An utterly insane idea even from a -physical standpoint! How could Valentine ever have obtained the -letter?—And even more insane morally. It attributed to a young -woman, gratuitously, without the slightest evidence, the most shameless -of schemes: to separate Landri forever from the man who had hitherto -believed him to be his son! And with what object? To marry him with less -difficulty?—That theory would not stand a single instant. The -wound must in truth have been very deep, that the great-souled <i>grand -seigneur</i> should have come so quickly to such a transformation of -character. -</p> -<p> -On leaving the house on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, at the end of -that luncheon which had left him with the impression of a nightmare, -Landri recalled those words among all the rest, and that insinuation so -insulting to his Valentine. He found therein an additional reason for -desiring to know who had committed that two-fold private crime, -unpunishable by law, yet truly ferocious: that theft of a -correspondence, aggravated by an anonymous denunciation. In that -interview, the strain of which was almost beyond human endurance, he had -seen distinctly that only that knowledge could relieve in any degree the -agony with which the marquis was suffocating. He himself realized the -necessity of the destruction of those "other documents," as the -anonymous writer had said, in heartless official phraseology. Such -letters, if retained, constituted a too formidable menace against the -dead wife's honor, which the betrayed husband was generously determined -to save. How could the son have failed to feel that his self-esteem -required him to take part in that work of salvation? And how could -Valentine's lover not have it at heart that not even the shadow of the -shade of that most unreasonable suspicion should be let hover above the -woman whom he was to marry and whom M. de Claviers would never know? -</p> -<p> -That he could have thought so of her, even in a moment of suffering and -frenzy, was enough to intensify the young man's longing to see the light -in that abhorrent darkness. But what scent was he to follow, and upon -what indications? He asked himself this question, set free at last from -that constraint against his natural instincts to which he whom he had so -long called the "Émigré" had condemned him—while condemning himself -thereto through a sense of honor worthy of another age. -</p> -<p> -He bent his steps to Valentine's house, to seek in her soft eyes, in her -dear smile, in her loved presence, strength to endure this test, the end -of which it was not for him to fix. Would he question her, as M. de -Claviers had not hesitated to advise him to do? To learn what? That the -disinherited relations had told her of Jaubourg's will, and that she had -drawn therefrom a conclusion only too evident to one already informed? -That she was informed, Landri knew only too well. In the long solitary -meditations of his weeks of arrest at Saint-Mihiel, he had succeeded in -piecing together the whole story, and in understanding why the Privats -had always treated him with a coolness which he had noticed only at a -distance.—Yes, what was the use of trying to learn anything more? If -it were the Privats from whom the anonymous letter came, Valentine did not -know it, and what purpose would it serve to introduce her to such -villainy? True lovers have a passionate and rapturous respect for that -fine flower of delicacy and of illusion which constitutes the spotless -charm of the feminine heart, when it has not been prematurely brutalized -by the blighting realities of life. This sentiment alone would have -deterred Landri from questioning his sweetheart, even if he had not felt -a sort of spasm of horror at the thought of accusing his mother to her. -Silence is the pious charity of the son to whom reverence is forbidden. -And then, too, even if he had essayed to speak, the young woman would -have arrested the blasphemous words on his lips. -</p> -<p> -He had no sooner crossed the threshold of the little salon on Rue -Monsieur, where she awaited him, than from the glance with which she -greeted him he became aware that she too dreaded a painful explanation. -And how could he mar the delight of their meeting by such a hideous -disclosure, finding her as he found her, so youthful and lovely, still -in black—although the approaching end of her mourning could already -be detected! -</p> -<p> -Valentine wore a gown of crêpe de Chine and lace, the soft fabrics -admirably in harmony with the slender grace of her whole person. On her -neck a string of pearls glistened softly, a bunch of violets bloomed at -her waist, and on the light curls of her ash-colored hair was a -<i>torsade</i> of black tulle. It was, as it were, the rebirth of the -woman,—those jewels and flowers, and that evident yet artless desire -to please which imparted a flush as of a rose-petal to her thin cheeks, a -gleam to her blue eyes, a quiver to her smile. -</p> -<p> -She had her son with her, and was feverishly smoothing his hair, of a -golden shade like the pale gold of her own. She pushed him gently toward -Landri as he entered the room, as if he were a symbol of the union of -which she dreamed—a union in which nothing of the child's happiness -should be sacrificed, in which he should always remain with her and his -second father. -</p> -<p> -"Give Monsieur de Claviers a kiss, Ludovic," she said, "and tell him -that you and your mother prayed for him while he was in prison, so -unjustly." -</p> -<p> -"It's true," said the child, "and I am glad you've come out! They won't -put you in again, will they, monsieur?" he added apprehensively. -</p> -<p> -"No," replied Landri; and he, too, caressed the golden curls, while the -mother said:— -</p> -<p> -"I kept you here only because you wanted to see Monsieur de Claviers. -You have seen him, so go to your lessons.—He is fond of you," she -continued, when the door had closed behind the little fellow, "and that -is so sweet to me!" And, taking the young man's hand in her own, she -added: "Yes, I prayed so earnestly for you,—but before your -arrest,—that you would do what you did do, and I am so proud, so -proud! When I read in the newspapers what happened at Hugueville, I felt so -proud of you!" -</p> -<p> -"And I," he said, "it is so sweet to be with you once more!" -</p> -<p> -And it was true that the affectionate welcome of that passionately loved -woman, after the heart-rending scenes of the morning, which had -themselves followed upon a succession of racking and corroding emotions, -was like the divine coolness of the oasis between two wearisome journeys -over the scorching sand of the desert—a feast of the heart almost too -intoxicating, so that it seemed as if the contrast could not be true, -that that rapture was a lie and on the point of vanishing. -</p> -<p> -"Yes," he continued, "so sweet. For, you see, I have no one but you in -all the world." -</p> -<p> -"Have you spoken to Monsieur de Claviers of your plans?" she asked. "You -have never written me about it." -</p> -<p> -She interpreted Landri's words only in part in their real meaning, not -wishing to seem to have divined the other part. Keen as was her -intuition, she had not discerned the whole of the drama in which her -dearly loved friend was involved. She had guessed that he was Jaubourg's -son and that he knew it. She had no idea that the marquis also knew it. -</p> -<p> -"I have spoken to him." -</p> -<p> -"And he has refused his consent?" -</p> -<p> -"He has refused it." -</p> -<p> -"Landri," she resumed after a pause, "you know now that I love you, and -how dearly! When I answered yes to your question five weeks ago, I did -so without any illusions. I was certain that Monsieur de Claviers would -never agree to our marriage. I disregarded that, because I saw, I -thought I saw, that you really could not live without me, and because I -loved you. Do not seek in what I say something that is not there. I love -you still. I am, I shall always be, ready to give you my life. -But if you must face difficulties that are too great, engage in a -contest that is too painful, I want you to know that you are free. I -will wait for you one year, two years, ten years, twenty years, if -necessary—forever." She repeated: "Forever." -</p> -<p> -"After what Monsieur de Claviers and I have said to each other," Landri -replied, "everything is at an end between us, whether I marry you or -not." -</p> -<p> -She looked at him while he uttered these words in so melancholy a tone -that she shuddered at it. He turned a little pale, realizing that she -understood; and in an outrush of pity like that of the other day she -drew him to her, pressing his hand against her heart. -</p> -<p> -"I will try to wipe that out, too," she said, quivering with emotion. -</p> -<p> -It was his part to seem not to comprehend all that that protestation -signified, and he rejoined:— -</p> -<p> -"He was not content with refusing. He insists that, when I am married, I -shall not live in Paris." -</p> -<p> -"I will answer you like Ruth," she said. "'Whither thou goest, I will -go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge.'" -</p> -<p> -"Even if I do not simply leave Paris—even away from France?" -</p> -<p> -"Even away from France." -</p> -<p> -A little sign disclosed the intensity of the emotion with which she was -overflowing. The pupils of her eyes dilated so that her blue eyes seemed -to be black; and enveloping, caressing, embracing Landri in that sombre -glance, she said:— -</p> -<p> -"You have no idea of the affection that I have been heaping up for you -in my heart during these three years when I have hidden from you so much -of what I felt, in order not to ruin you. That love has burrowed into me -to such a depth that it would make me tremble if you were not you, if I -were not sure that you will never expect of me anything except my duty, -that you will never ask me to live under such conditions that my son -would not be brought up, as he must be, so as to remain, even away from -his country, a child of France!" She repeated: "Even away from his -country;" then asked, timidly: "Does Monsieur de Claviers really demand -it?" -</p> -<p> -"He demands nothing," Landri replied. -</p> -<p> -"But you think that that's the only way to reconcile him in some degree -to the idea of our marriage, eh?" she asked; and, as he bowed: "Then we -must not hesitate," she added. "You do not know either how much you have -taught me to love him, even without knowing him; how grateful I am to -him for the influence he has had on you, for the traces of his wonderful -sense of delicacy which I find in yours. When I said yes to you the -other day, I had a feeling of remorse for taking you from your duty and -from his affection. You tell me that there is no occasion for it, that -all is at an end between you. That takes away my remorse but makes me so -sorry for you. Remember at all events that to part is not to forget each -other. You may retain an image of each other against which you have no -reproach to make. I hope that it may be so between Monsieur de Claviers -and you, and that when he thinks of you he will realize that you loved -him, that you still love him, as he deserves, and that there is only -this life between you." -</p> -<p> -The trees in the little garden beyond the door-window were as desolate -as those which spread their leafless branches outside the high windows -of the dining-room on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. The leaden sky of -that winter's day was as depressing. The young woman's words, albeit not -especially significant, and so considerately vague, affirmed none the -less, by their very reticences, the same ghastly and incontrovertible -fact which had weighed so heavily upon Landri's heart during the -agonizing formal luncheon an hour earlier. But once more Valentine had -the miraculous double sight of love. She had appealed to the only -sentiment in that suffering heart which could assist him to live through -the far too trying period that was to precede the ostensible rupture -with the marquis. He could find the requisite strength only in his -passionate craving to prove to him the depth of an affection which had -never been more intensely alive. -</p> -<p> -At those words of his compassionate friend and loving monitress, -Landri's heart, always so susceptible to affection, was once more -inspired with a genuine purpose, and when he left Rue Monsieur, he was -conscious, even in his distress, of that species of inward satisfaction -which one derives from a determined plan of action, when it is based -upon a courageous acceptance of circumstances, even the most hostile, -and upon the most deep-rooted attachments of our being. Yes, although -the rôle of dissimulation imposed upon him by M. de Claviers was most -painful, he would summon strength to go on with it as long as it should -be necessary. Difficult as was the task of discovering the anonymous -informer, he would devote himself to it. He was able to offer that -reparation to the great and noble-hearted victim of the falsehood of -which he himself was born. He would offer it to him before leaving -Paris—and, perhaps, other reparation too. When he had spoken to -Valentine of the project of making their home far away from France, he -had given voice to one of the ideas that had been most constantly in his -mind during those last weeks. In a voluntary exile to the western part of -the United States,—or perhaps of Canada; there he would still be at -home!—he saw a possibility of laying aside, without exciting comment, -that name of Claviers-Grandchamp, which was not his own. With what -emotion he had heard the dear woman's reply: "Even away from -France!"—And that assurance added to his courage. -</p> -<p> -He needed that reinforcement of courage to endure the dinner which he -was obliged to eat that evening at the club on Rue Scribe, sitting -opposite M. de Claviers. The latter had transmitted to him his commands -to that effect, as had been agreed, in a note which contained this line -only: "Dinner at the club, at eight o'clock."—He needed it again, and -more, the next day, to consent to take his seat beside the marquis, at -ten o'clock, in the box at the Opéra which had been Madame de -Claviers'. Charles Jaubourg had passed so many evenings there gazing at -his mistress enthroned in all the splendor of her social royalty. -Something of that liaison floated still about the hangings of the box, -which the châtelain of Grandchamp had retained in pious regard for her -memory. -</p> -<p> -And what courage again, on the days that followed, to appear at banquet -after banquet, at reception after reception, always beside that -companion, who, in the presence of witnesses, continued to treat him -with the old-time warmth and cordiality! And as soon as they were alone, -in the automobile which took them from or to the house, not a word, not -a glance; and upon that face, more haggard and more aged from day to -day, was the stamp of the haughty grief that will never complain or -forgive. -</p> -<p> -How many times, as they drove home thus, Landri was tempted to ask: "Are -you satisfied with me?" -</p> -<p> -Satisfied! What a word to be uttered between them! Would the time ever -come when he could utter a different word? when he could say to him: "I -know the name of the anonymous villain who wrote that infamous letter. -Here are the other documents that he threatened you with?" -</p> -<p> -Between the moments that he passed in this way, in this heart-rending -attitude of dissimulation before the world, and the hours which he had -at once adopted the delicious habit of devoting, every afternoon, to the -comforter of Rue Monsieur, his only preoccupation was this: to find a -scent and follow it. But what scent? But how? -</p> -<p> -"I must proceed upon the definite facts," he said to himself the first -day. Now, what were these "definite facts?" That the sending of Madame -de Claviers' letter to her husband was coincident with the publication -of Jaubourg's will. What could the sender have hoped? That M. de -Claviers would refuse to accept the property. Who would have profited by -his refusal? The heirs-at-law. It was advisable therefore to investigate -in that direction, leaving Privat out of the question. Landri knew that -officer too well to suppose for an instant that he, who was rich in his -own right and through his wife, would have been guilty of so base an -action. For whose benefit, indeed? The Privats had no children. -</p> -<p> -Certain inquiries, cautiously instituted, convinced him that the other -three heirs were no more open to suspicion. One was a wholesale -tradesman on Rue du Sentier, Paris; another, the owner of extensive -vineyards near Lectoure, where the Jaubourgs originally came -from; the third, a magistrate of distinction, held the office of -procureur-général in one of the courts of appeal in the Nord. -</p> -<p> -There was a whole course of social philosophy in this list of Charles -Jaubourg's cousinships. He himself had been the fashionable bourgeois -who becomes an aristocrat. He had, unconsciously, in a liaison with a -great lady, gratified the craving for being ennobled which is the -natural instinct, and if well directed, perfectly legitimate and -praiseworthy, of the best representatives of the middle classes. To -Landri's mind the stations occupied by the dead man's relations were -simply a guaranty that no one of them was the denouncer he sought. These -first "definite facts" suggested no tenable hypothesis. -</p> -<p> -Another "definite fact" was the theft of Madame de Claviers' letter. A -letter may be stolen only from the person who sends it or the person to -whom it is sent. The Marquise de Claviers-Grandchamp had been dead -fifteen years. It was possible that the letter had been stolen fifteen -years before, and that the thief had let all that time pass without -using it, but it was most improbable. Now, when one is pursuing an -investigation of this sort, the rule is not to turn to the improbable -until one has followed all the probable clues. The wisest course -therefore was to assume that it had been stolen at Jaubourg's apartment. -What a contradiction it was that a man so prudent, so on his guard, who -had worked so hard to conceal his fatherhood should preserve such -terribly condemnatory pages! It might be explained by the ardor of a -passion that must have been very great. Did he not sacrifice his whole -life to it? Precisely because he knew the danger of not destroying such -a correspondence, Madame de Claviers' lover must have multiplied his -precautions. That letter and the others referred to by the anonymous -writer could have been stolen therefore only by a person familiar with -all his habits, and at a time when he was incapable of keeping watch on -them. The theft must have been committed either during his sickness or -immediately after his death. What was the meaning of those words, "other -documents?" Evidently, the rest of the correspondence. But why was that -single letter sent, unaccompanied by any demand for money, and followed -by several weeks of silence? That was an enigma. But it did not explain -away the "definite fact." -</p> -<p> -That fact seemed to require that a wisely conducted inquiry should begin -with an interview with Joseph, the confidential servant of whom Jaubourg -had said on his death-bed: "You can believe him. He is reliable, -perfectly reliable." Landri had not seen him since the time in the -chamber of death when the marquis was kneeling at the bedside, praying. -In imagination he saw that figure, in black coat and white cravat, -making the final arrangements—that impassive face of a close-mouthed -witness or confederate. Joseph had been in his master's service thirty -years. He must inevitably have discovered Jaubourg's liaison with Madame -de Claviers. He knew the secret of Landri's birth. The young man -recalled his singular expression when he brought him a message, at -Grandchamp, on the day before his master's death. Moreover, was not -Joseph there, assisting Dr. Pierre Chaffin, when the invalid, in his -delirium, said so many terribly incriminating things? That thought made -the prospect of a conversation with the man so painful that Landri -recoiled at first. -</p> -<p> -"This is cowardly," he said to himself the next moment. "If I can't face -suffering of that sort for <i>him</i>, of what am I capable?" -</p> -<p> -Having determined upon this interview, the most elementary shrewdness -bade him bring it about without warning. The young man was not aware of -one fact which was likely to facilitate his task: M. de Claviers, as may -be imagined, had shrunk in horror from the thought of putting his foot -in Jaubourg's apartment again. Having resolved to return the detestable -legacy, and not choosing to order a sale, which would have attracted -notice, he had placed the apartment, until further orders, in charge of -the old maître d'hôtel. When Landri went to Rue de Solferino to ask -his address, the concierge replied with evident surprise, "Why, he's -upstairs, Monsieur le Comte!" which proved to the investigator what a -delicate affair he had undertaken. The slightest imprudence was likely -to arouse a very dangerous curiosity. And so all the efforts of his will -were combined to make his face impenetrable while he awaited the maître -d'hôtel in the library, into which an old woman who answered his ring -had ushered him. She was the "spouse" of "Monsieur Joseph," who acted as -laundress to the establishment during Jaubourg's lifetime. The couple -had a daughter. Mademoiselle Amélie, whom their indulgent employer had -allowed them to keep with them. How was it possible to associate the -idea of a criminal conspiracy with the head of a bourgeois family, -hungry for respectability? -</p> -<p> -Madame Joseph had a certain matronly dignity, which she displayed as she -opened the windows and explained the music of a piano, which was -Mademoiselle Amélie's. -</p> -<p> -"We had it brought into the apartment," she said, "because we never -leave it now, on account of the bric-à-brac." -</p> -<p> -The pianiste's father appeared, sad and deferential, respectful and -curious. The change in the Marquis de Claviers since his master's death -had not escaped that sagacious observer. He had guessed its secret -cause, but had not been able to divine how his long-abused credulity had -been so suddenly enlightened. When he found himself in Landri's -presence, his desire to find out gave to his ordinarily expressionless -eyes, in spite of himself, a sharpness which was hateful to -Landri—less so, however, than another circumstance both ghastly -and comical. Joseph was in deep mourning. He was dressed in garments -which had belonged to the dead man. The folds of the coat and trousers, -which were of English cut, as befitted a man of Jaubourg's pretensions -to style, had retained the outlines of their former owner's body, the -features, so to speak, of his movements. This evocation of the dead was -made to assume a caricaturish aspect by the servant's involuntary -mimicry of his master, who had evidently had a hypnotic influence upon -him. He regretted him sincerely, and there was genuine grief in his -voice when he said to Landri:— -</p> -<p> -"Ah! Monsieur le Comte, I told Monsieur le Comte at Grandchamp that -monsieur would not last two days longer. Such a kind master! Monsieur le -Comte knows that he left my wife and me an annuity of thirty-six hundred -francs and ten thousand francs for Amélie's marriage portion. I am -going to be able to retire to a little place in my province that I had -bought already with my savings. People tell me: 'You're going to be -happy, Monsieur Joseph.' But that isn't true, Monsieur le Comte. To have -watched him go, as I did, spoils everything for me." -</p> -<p> -"Since you were so devoted to him," rejoined Landri, studying the effect -of his words on that face, which was gradually overspread by amazement, -"you will certainly assist me in an investigation, which indeed -interests you yourself. Some papers have disappeared—letters, to -which Monsieur Jaubourg attached the greatest importance. Observe, Joseph, -that I do not accuse you. I came here to ask you simply, is it possible -that anybody entered the apartment while Monsieur Jaubourg was ill, and -took these papers?" -</p> -<p> -"No, Monsieur le Comte," replied the servant eagerly, "it isn't -possible." -</p> -<p> -The gleam that flashed from his eyes betrayed an alarm that was not -feigned. It was not for himself that he was afraid. He had nothing to do -with the horrible deed. But, in that case, who was it? as M. de Claviers -had said with a groan—who? -</p> -<p> -"Monsieur kept no papers, on principle," Joseph continued. "I have heard -him say many a time: 'When I am gone, there'll be no need to schedule -anything. I destroy everything.'—But he had preserved one package of -letters. This is how I know. The morning of the day he sent me to -Grandchamp—that was Monday—he felt very sick. He insisted on my -helping him to get up, in spite of the doctor's orders. He opened a -strong-box that he kept in his room. He took out two bundles of papers -with his own hands and put them in the fire. He wouldn't go back to bed -till he saw that there was nothing left of them but ashes. And as the -key of the strong-box never left him—" -</p> -<p> -"But during the days just before that Monday, he was in bed. Where was -the key then?" -</p> -<p> -"Hanging on his watch-chain, in the drawer of his night-table." -</p> -<p> -"Couldn't some one have come in, while he was asleep, for instance, and -you were not there?" -</p> -<p> -"One of the other servants, perhaps. I'll answer for them as for myself. -I was the one who selected them." -</p> -<p> -"But the doctor?" queried Landri. -</p> -<p> -"Monsieur le Docteur Chaffin?" said the maître-d'hôtel. "Of course. -But I can't believe it of him," he added, after a few seconds' -reflection. "Now, if it was his father—" -</p> -<p> -"His father?" Landri repeated. "Come, tell me your whole thought." -</p> -<p> -"I haven't any thought," replied Joseph, "except that I know that -monsieur was very suspicious of him." -</p> -<p> -"And he didn't come here during his illness?" -</p> -<p> -"Yes, I remember now—on Saturday. But he didn't see monsieur, for I -was with him. He sent for me to get late news to carry to Monsieur le -Marquis." -</p> -<p> -Thus Chaffin's image was associated once more in Landri's mind with the -mysterious scenes that must have been enacted about that bed of death. -Chaffin had wandered around that death-chamber during the last hours. -Chaffin had been in the apartment. Once, the servant said. What did he -know about it? Notwithstanding that he had lavished the most assiduous -attentions on the sick man, he must have been absent at times. It might -be that Chaffin, advised of his absence, had seized the opportunity, had -entered the sick-room with the doctor's connivance. If at that moment -the invalid was asleep, morphine assisting, the theft of the letters was -explained. -</p> -<p> -The young man had not left Joseph ten minutes before this explanation -had taken shape in his mind. It rested upon a series of almost fantastic -hypotheses: that Chaffin knew of the existence of Madame de Claviers' -letters; that he knew where Jaubourg kept them locked up; that Pierre -Chaffin was in connivance with his father; that the strong-box had not a -combination lock. But nothing appeared fantastic to Landri since the -terrible scene during which he had learned the secret of his birth. When -everything of which we were certain, which was, as it were, a part of -us,—loving regard for a mother's memory, respectful affection for a -father, family pride, assurance of social rank,—has crumbled at one -stroke, nothing surprises us. The most extraordinary events seem simple -to us. -</p> -<p> -Not one of these difficulties deterred Landri. The one thing that he did -not understand was Chaffin's interest in the theft and in the -denunciation that followed it. From the moment that he knew that his -former tutor was capable of malversation in managing the property of -such a man as the marquis, he adjudged him a scoundrel and capable of -the worst crimes. He remembered the step he had undertaken at the time -of his last visit to Grandchamp, and he interpreted it as being in -pursuance of one of his detestable schemes: to precipitate a disaster -under cover of which his peculations would pass unnoticed. All this was -true, but it came in collision with the further "definite fact," that -the denunciatory letter, according to M. de Claviers' own testimony, was -sent some time before the dishonest manager was dismissed. So that -Chaffin could not have been guided, in sending it, by a desire for -revenge. But a man does not act without a motive, especially when the -inevitable consequence of his action is the ruin of two lives. At that -time Chaffin had no motive for committing that useless and barbarous -villainy. No. He must seek elsewhere. -</p> -<p> -"No motive?" the young man asked himself a few days later. He had -exhausted himself in hypotheses and efforts, each more unavailing than -the last, even to the point of taking the trouble to interview -personally all the people who had been in Jaubourg's service under -Joseph, and he returned to the hypothesis to which, in spite of all the -objections to it, an unconquerable instinct guided him. "But I know -absolutely nothing about that man, whom I thought I knew so well, and in -whom I was so deceived. I don't even know why he was dismissed. From -whom can I find out? Why, from Métivier, of course. Besides, I shall -need him in connection with my marriage." -</p> -<p> -They had been discussing the date, Valentine and he, during the day. -True to their compact of silence, neither of them had mentioned M. de -Claviers. Landri continued to avoid explaining why he delayed in making -the <i>sommation</i>, which would hasten the longed-for moment of their -union, and she continued to avoid questioning him. He foresaw, however, -from various indications,—glances, tones of voice, -gestures,—that the heroic marquis himself would not endure much -longer their too painful relations, and he was beginning to discuss with -the dear companion of his life to come the details of their plans. In -these discussions she showed herself as he had always known her, -delicately judicious, and strong of heart. -</p> -<p> -The project of living on a large estate in the country gave place more -and more definitely to the dream of carrying on a "ranch" in Western -Canada—Ontario or Manitoba. A large amount of ready money would be -necessary. So that a pretext was at hand for the visit to Métivier. -</p> -<p> -The apprehension of an overstrained perspicacity is so distressing at -critical moments that Landri went several times as far as Place de la -Madeleine before he could make up his mind to go up to the notary's -office. He succeeded at last, as generally happens with over-sensitive -imaginations, in overcoming that apprehension, and realized that it had -been entirely subjective. -</p> -<p> -Métivier greeted him with the simple courtesy of a notary employed to -do a certain thing, with whom to think of his client is to think of -documents and figures. Of the family tragedy in which the -Claviers-Grandchamps were nearing shipwreck he had no suspicion. On the -other hand, he had shrewdly unravelled all the threads of the conspiracy -entered into by Chaffin and his confederates, and when Landri, after -speaking of certain formalities that were indispensable for the final -settlement of his mother's estate, in order to account for his visit, -touched upon the subject of his former tutor, Métivier exclaimed:— -</p> -<p> -"What did he do? Why, it's the simplest thing in the world. He came to -an understanding with certain people from whom your father had borrowed -money, in such wise as to secure a percentage of their profits. I am -expecting Altona this very morning. If he should happen to come while -you are here, you would see a superb specimen of the usurer of to-day. -He is the dealer in curiosities, who sells you a portrait by Velasquez, -a Boule cabinet, a bust by Houdon, for a hundred thousand or two hundred -thousand francs, and buys them back for fifty or sixty thousand. The -amusing feature of it is that the Velasquez and the Boule and the Houdon -are genuine, and that the customer wouldn't do a bad bit of business by -keeping them. This enables Master Altona to pass himself off as a -collector, a dilettante, a connoisseur of art!—This fellow and his -gang learned of Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers' financial -embarrassment. I am somewhat to blame. I recommended your father to -apply to a certain Gruet, whom I thought trustworthy, and he was of the -same stripe as they! They knew also what the treasures of Grandchamp -were worth. You see the scheme; it's familiar enough: to force the -marquis to a sale by getting all his debts in one hand. Chaffin was to -have his commission—thirty or forty thousand francs, perhaps more. -He undertook to offer Monsieur de Claviers four millions, in Altona's -name, for a list catalogued in the notes to your family history! He had -the audacity to do that! And Monsieur le Marquis is so kind-hearted that -he explained it to me: 'He thought he was doing me a service,' he -said.—Luckily we were able to enlighten him by discovering the -traces of a most commonplace rascality: bills settled twice, if you -please—once to the tradesman, and once, to whom?—to Master -Chaffin.—Monsieur de Claviers cut off his head. When I wrote you -that he was severe, Cauvet, the advocate I got for you, had found only -one of these bills. I said to myself that there was a chance for a -mistake. For all a man's a notary, he has difficulty in believing in -certain comedies, and this Chaffin played one for me when I questioned -him, with your letter in my hand. To dismiss him so summarily was to run -the risk of never getting to the bottom of many things. However, we're -beginning to see daylight. As I always say to my cousin Jacques Molan, -the dramatic author, the true modern comedy is played in our own homes." -</p> -<p> -"Then," queried Landri, as Métivier complacently mentioned his -cousinship to an illustrious writer, of whom he was proud after having -been very much ashamed of him, "then you think that Chaffin was -interested in the Altona deal?" -</p> -<p> -"There's no doubt of it!" replied the notary. "By the way,"—one of -his clerks had just knocked at the door and handed him a card,—"if -you'll allow me to have him shown in here, you will see Altona himself. -He is here. You can measure up the man; you will be able to judge -whether it is possible that, having chosen the end, he resorted to the -means, every means," and going through the motion of counting money, -"this included." -</p> -<p> -Landri did not need this meeting with the usurer-antiquary to know what -to think concerning the nature of the conspiracy against the pictures, -the tapestries and the furniture of the château of Grandchamp. The -recollection of the advice insinuated by Chaffin: "Ask for your -property," would have sufficed of itself, without this visit to -Métivier, to convince him that the sending of the anonymous letter -might be explained simply by a desire for money. At the moment that -Jaubourg's legacy fell in, M. de Claviers was in the clutches of the -Altona claim. He could free himself only by selling the treasures of the -château. Chaffin's disappointment was proportioned, no doubt, to the -commission that he lost. His knew his master's temperament. To betray to -him his wife's liaison with his false friend was to make that money -impossible of acceptance by him. If the rascal had letters of Madame de -Claviers in hand, all was explained. This theory was less chimerical -than the other, but upon how many hypotheses did even it rest! For a -moment it seemed certainty to Landri, ready to collapse, as the first -had done, upon examination. -</p> -<p> -Meanwhile he exchanged a salutation with Master Altona, as the notary -had slightingly dubbed the dealer in antiques. One had but to see the -two men side by side, to understand that ten years earlier he would have -called him "my boy," and ten years later he would call him "monsieur le -baron." -</p> -<p> -Altona had one of those bloodless faces, faded for good and all, which -have no age. He was very black-haired, with moustaches and an imperial -cut in a fashion to give him the aspect of one of the portraits he dealt -in. His brown, velvety eyes, which were like two spots on his pale face, -betrayed his Oriental origin, as did the strange mixture of servility -and arrogance displayed by his whole person. A little too well-dressed, -with too much jewelry, too faultlessly correct, one realized -nevertheless that one last touch of "side"—we use the language of the -sharpers in his employ—would make of him a passably successful -make-believe <i>grand seigneur</i>. Métivier, on the contrary, that highly -esteemed notary, well-to-do and well established, but dull and heavy, -and made apoplectic at fifty-five by his sedentary profession and by -over-indulgence in eating and smoking, would never be anything more than -a vulgar French bourgeois. Through the chance that brought them -together, in the presence of the heir of a very great name on the eve of -disappearing forever, the four walls of that green-box-lined office -contained a striking abstract of contemporary history. -</p> -<p> -Maxwell Altona—although born in Germany he bore that English -baptismal name—seemed in no wise embarrassed to find himself in -the presence of a son of the debtor he had plotted to rob, and when -Métivier had named them to each other, he said calmly, with his -shrewdest glance and his most engaging smile:— -</p> -<p> -"I am the more pleased to have the honor of being presented to you, -Monsieur le Comte, because I followed your trial with the deepest -interest and greatly admired your action at Hugueville. You have taken -your leave."—Here the foreigner betrayed himself, by that little -Germanism; no one is perfect.—"You are proposing, no doubt, to -devote yourself to your fine château. I am well acquainted with its -marvels."—At this point, one of the indescribably ironical -expressions that play over the mysterious features of these -international tradesmen.—"Allow me to suggest to you an -opportunity that is perhaps unique. You have but one of the two Gobelins -of the Turkish Embassy. It is the entry of Mehemet Effendi into Paris, -in 1721, with the mission of congratulating the King on his accession," -he added, addressing Métivier. Then, turning again to the possible -purchaser, "I know where the other is." -</p> -<p> -"Isn't he amazing?" the notary asked Landri as he showed him out. "One -affair has failed. He goes about another at once. He was going to strip -you. He sells to you. Faith, I advise you to look at the tapestry. I am -sure it's genuine. That's his probity, the pirate! He doesn't cheat -about his wares. And Cauvet won't have a commission, I promise you." -</p> -<p> -A commission? Was it possible that Chaffin had in very truth not -hesitated to commit the most shocking of private crimes, the betrayal of -a dead wife to her husband, of an illegitimate son to the head of a -family, after all the benefactions he had received, and all for fear of -losing his percentage, as Métivier had said, of the four millions? Was -it possible? At all events the objection urged at first by M. de -Claviers was removed: the fact that the anonymous letter was sent before -Chaffin's dismissal did not prove that he was not guilty. And yet how -many things still made it improbable that he was! And in the first -place, that he had had Madame de Claviers' letters in his possession! -Improbability? Yes. Impossibility? No. Here the son's complicity once -more appeared as the essential and sufficient condition. -</p> -<p> -All these ideas were whirling about in Landri's mind as he returned from -Place de la Madeleine toward Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. They -suddenly crystallized in a resolution which caused him to turn his back -on his home and walk toward Place de la Concorde, then through the -Tuileries toward the Seine, Notre-Dame, and Ile Saint-Louis. How many -times he had followed that route, a mere child, on his way from the -paternal abode to Quai de Béthune, where Chaffin's family then lived. -Having agreed, it will be remembered, to live with his pupil, he often -took him on Sunday to pass a few hours with Madame Chaffin, their -daughter Louise, and their son Pierre, in the fourth floor apartment, -from the balcony of which one commanded such a beautiful view of the -Seine, with the chevet of Notre-Dame at the right, the dome of the -Panthéon and of the Val-de-Grâce in front, and at the left the -thickets of the Jardin des Plantes and the Salpêtrière. In course of -time the Chaffins had gone down to the third floor, then to the first, -without leaving the house, which was convenient to the young medical -student because of the proximity of the Hôtel-Dieu and the Latin -Quarter. Louise had never married, and Madame Chaffin was still living. -</p> -<p> -These recollections of an existence apparently so upright protested in -the former pupil's heart against the insulting step he was preparing to -take. He was going to question Pierre Chaffin. But great heaven! That -virtuous occupant of an old house on a patriarchal quay had actually put -his fingers in his master's fortune. Were there but one chance in a -thousand, in ten thousand, that he had likewise stolen Madame de -Claviers' letters, with the connivance of his son Pierre, that one -chance was enough to cause Landri to try, at whatever cost, to find out. -</p> -<p> -"What do I risk?" he said to himself on the way. "I ask him whether, to -his knowledge, any one except himself and the servants entered the sick -man's bedroom. If no one went in, he will say no, simply. If some one -did go in, and that some one was his father, he will be confused. If it -is only for a second, I shall see it. That will be a certain indication, -and then I shall act." -</p> -<p> -How? By what steps? He did not know. But on the other hand he did know -that he was on his way to another trying scene in which all the -suffering of the last weeks would be revived, on seeing the physician -for the first time since that fatal Tuesday. He recalled Pierre's -preoccupied expression as he came from his delirious patient's bedside, -and the persistence with which he repeated: "It's downright madness." -But what then? They were likely to meet at any time, and if Landri -really proposed to keep to the compact he had made with M. de Claviers -and to defend his mother's memory, guilty though she was, against this -witness of Jaubourg's death-agony, it was much better to see him at once -and to bear himself in their interview as if the dying man had in truth -talked mere nonsense, which was of no consequence. -</p> -<p> -There was, to be sure, a difficulty of another sort. Pierre was the son -of a man dismissed by the marquis for dishonesty. True. But Landri was -not making a personal call upon him. He was going to seek information at -the hands of a doctor who had been paid by M. de Claviers; for -Jaubourg's residuary legatee must have paid all the debts of the -deceased, including the expenses of the last sickness. Moreover, if -Pierre was not Chaffin's confederate, he certainly did not know the true -reason of his father's discharge. His father would never have told him. -In that case there was nothing in Landri's procedure to surprise the -doctor. In the contrary case, why spare a couple of brigands? -</p> -<p> -All varieties of grief have their egoism. There was another hypothesis -which Madame de Claviers' son did not consider: perhaps, since his -father's dismissal, Pierre Chaffin had been passing through a crisis -similar to that of which his playmate in childhood was undergoing the -terrors. Between ignorance and actual complicity, there is room for -suspicion. Let us say at once that such was the plight of the physician, -worried to the point of dismay by the visible change that he had -observed in his father during the past month. -</p> -<p> -One afternoon in November Chaffin had appeared, in a state of great -agitation. He had told his son that the marquis had made him the -scapegoat of his follies. He had inveighed against the ingratitude of -the <i>grand seigneur</i>, in whose service his life had been passed, had -declared that he would accept nothing, not even the smallest pension, -from that man, and had forbidden his name to be mentioned in his -presence. Since then he had been wasting away in a melancholic state, -the true causes of which were, on the one hand, terror lest his son -should learn the real reason of his disgrace, and on the other hand the -most violent and invincible remorse. -</p> -<p> -Landri's instinct had led him to the right conclusion. Chaffin was the -anonymous informer. Enraged by the sudden collapse of his hopes, the -loss of a commission which would have rounded out his fortune, and -really convinced in his own mind that M. de Claviers would renounce the -Jaubourg legacy, Chaffin had gone to Altona to strike another bargain -with him, and to demand not one but two per cent of the four millions -offered for the list of treasures preserved at Grandchamp. He agreed, in -consideration of that sum, to induce the marquis to reopen the -negotiations that had been instantly broken off by the legacy. Altona -had accepted his offer. -</p> -<p> -Chaffin had in his possession a letter from Madame de Claviers to -Jaubourg. He had opened it when he was only a tutor, nearly eighteen -years before. Finding it on a table, in a package prepared for the post, -he had yielded to an intense curiosity to learn the real relations -between the friend of the family and the marchioness. That was the -period at which the process of corruption already described began. -Perhaps this discovery of the sin of his pupil's mother was the most -virulent element in his moral degeneration. He had not used the paper, -as he might have done, as the foundation of a lucrative system of -blackmail. He was not ripe for such villainy. But he had not destroyed -it, by reason of that sort of vague expectation which, in certain -natures, outwardly sound but rotten at the core, is, as it were, the -gestation of crime. He had, in fact, supplemented it by adding to -it—these were the "other documents"—three notes from Jaubourg, -pilfered from Landri's mother's desk. At the time the lovers had -discovered, with dismay, the disappearance of Madame de Claviers' -letter. They had both made cautious inquiry, and failing to learn -anything, had attributed the loss to some irregularity on the part of -the mail. The marchioness had not detected the second theft, which would -have put her on the scent. Jaubourg had always suspected Chaffin. That -was the meaning of the question, "What is he?" uttered in such distress -on his death-bed. -</p> -<p> -That is the sort of man that the former tutor was: a scoundrel who -lacked only a tempting opportunity. The bait of eighty thousand francs -was the opportunity. He had written the anonymous letter himself, on his -typewriter. He had placed it in an envelope with the other, the -incriminating one, and despatched them both to the marquis. But although -a greedy longing for gain, added to base and pitiless envy of the <i>grand -seigneur</i>, had impelled him to do this disgraceful deed in an hour of -madness, when the blow was dealt, his conscience of the earlier days, of -the humble giver of lessons to worthy bourgeois, had begun to make -itself heard. He could not banish from his thoughts the haunting image -of M. de Claviers' face as he had seen it during the fortnight between -his crime and his dismissal, so haggard, so ravaged by suffering! His -handiwork terrified him, especially as the end sought—at such a -price!—was not attained. Contrary to his expectation, the marquis -went on paying his debts. Pictures, furniture, hangings, remained at -Grandchamp. The eighty thousand francs Altona had promised him would -never come to his hands. -</p> -<p> -There are not many criminals who, in the face of a useless crime, -practise the calm philosophy of the assassin in the old story, who found -only a single sou in his victim's pocket, and observed: "A hundred like -this will make five francs!" The absolute inutility of his murderous -villainy did not even afford Chaffin the semi-insensibility which might -have come from the possession of that little fortune which, added to the -store already accumulated, would have given him a round twenty thousand -francs a year. -</p> -<p> -Tormented by this fixed idea, he was beginning to exhibit symptoms of -the acute mental alienation which incessant, poignant regret for an -irreparable sin is likely to cause in a man of some education. He could -no longer eat or sleep, read or write, attend to any business or remain -quiet. This agitation had not escaped the son's notice. The doctor had -begun, almost automatically, to watch his father. He soon assured -himself that these symptoms, so readily interpreted by an alienist, were -caused by no physical disturbance. The cause was entirely mental—the -physician said, cerebral. Almost automatically again, he had sought that -cause. -</p> -<p> -One fact aroused his suspicion: he fancied that he observed a certain -constraint in Professor Louvet's manner toward himself. As the head of -the clinical staff he was in constant communication with the illustrious -master of the Hôtel-Dieu. It had seemed to him, during the last weeks, -that his chief's handshake was, not less cordial, but less unreserved, -less familiar—in a word, that there was "a thorn" in it, as they -would have said to each other in neurologists' parlance, in speaking of a -common abrasion of the skin on a patient. Under any other circumstances -Pierre would not have hesitated to question the professor. He did not do -it. He had put together the two symptoms: the change in his master's -manner to him, and the change in his father. He had drawn therefrom the -conclusion, still automatically,—a profession like his ends by -imparting a mechanical method, an instinctive gait, to the mind,—that -the same fact was at the root of both. What fact? The quarrel between -Chaffin and M. de Claviers, that old and very important patient of -Louvet. -</p> -<p> -Pierre knew the marquis well, and although he had for him the antipathy -of one social class for another, his innate sense of justice compelled -him to esteem the great nobleman's greatness of soul. No, the châtelain -of Grandchamp, who bestowed pensions on scores of old servants,—only -two months since, his factotum was bewailing the fact at the family -table!—had not parted, without weighty reasons, from one whom he had -had in his service so many years. -</p> -<p> -What were those reasons? This question had been haunting the physician -for several days, with such persistent and increasing distress, that it -had occurred to him to seek an answer to it from Landri. He had been -deterred by very diverse considerations. It will be recalled that their -relations had never been perfectly simple. It was hard for the plebeian -to ask the titled man if his, the plebeian's, father had been guilty of -any offence contrary to honor. It was painful, too, for the physician, -who had learned, in the delirium of a death-agony, the secret of an -illegitimate birth, to seek a meeting with the son of the patient,—a -meeting over which that consciousness would hover like a pall, -especially as Pierre knew the terms of Jaubourg's will, and he did the -child of that adulterous connection the justice to believe that M. de -Claviers' acceptance of the legacy was torture to him. -</p> -<p> -One can imagine now the shock that it caused him, as he sat at work one -afternoon in his little study, littered with books and pamphlets, -when the maid handed him a card on which he read: "Comte de -Claviers-Grandchamp." Fate, which is wont to teach such lessons, brought -those two men face to face, who were born and reared under such widely -different conditions, and who were undergoing, unknown to each other, -the same universal ordeal of heredity, whereof one of the ancients said: -"We shall be punished, either in our own persons or in those of our -descendants, for the sins we have committed in this world." This is the -principle, at once mysterious and natural, moral and physiological, -which, by uniting persons of the same blood, creates the Family and -Society. -</p> -<p> -Pierre's first impulse—so intolerable to him was the thought of his -father's possible shame—was to reply: "I am not at home;" the -second, to say: "Show him in." For the very reason that he was -ignorant of the real reason for the dismissal of the steward of the -Claviers-Grandchamps, he was unwilling to appear to dread a conversation -with the future head of that house, and he thought:— -</p> -<p> -"What does he want of me? Doubtless he has come on account of the will. -He is going to ask me not to mention what I may have heard and guessed. -Those people have no appreciation of the honor of the medical -profession. Bah! the honor of a bourgeois in the eyes of a noble!—A -noble?" He laughed sneeringly,—"and of an officer with such ideas as -this incompetent has, and as he exhibited in that stupid business of the -inventory!" -</p> -<p> -As will be seen, his customary surly humor had already returned to this -strange creature, who had always taken life against the grain, if we may -so express it, because of his false position on the edge of a society in -which he had no well-defined place. The result was that on entering that -little room, the aspect of which disclosed the professional and -intellectual ardor of its tenant, Landri de Claviers encountered the -same armed glance that he had always known, behind the young scientist's -gold-bowed spectacles. With his red beard and his irregular features, as -if carved by a bill-hook, which gave him the aspect of a Tartar, the -younger Chaffin really had, at that moment, the look of a very -evil-minded man. This sensation was calculated to impart and did in fact -impart a dryness, almost a bitterness of accent to Landri's first words, -which were destined instantly to transform that conversation into a -brief and fierce duel. -</p> -<p> -"I shall not detain you long," he began, after they had exchanged a few -words of ordinary courtesy. Because of their former companionship and -their difference in rank, they never knew how to address each other. -They never called each other "monsieur," or by their names simply. "I -have come upon a delicate, a very delicate errand. But the question I -have come to ask is not put to the man, but to the physician who -attended Monsieur Jaubourg." -</p> -<p> -He had the strength to pronounce those two syllables without removing -his eyes from the other, who could not restrain a contraction of his -bushy eyebrows and a curl of his lip as he replied:— -</p> -<p> -"I am at your service so far as this question does not run counter to my -duty as a physician. We have a duty of absolute silence, which you do -not suspect," he continued with a peculiar bitterness: "nec visa, nec -audita, nec intellecta<a name="FNanchor_7_1" id="FNanchor_7_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_1" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> is the old form of the Hippocratic oath. It is -still true." -</p> -<p> -"It is a very simple matter," rejoined Landri. "You are aware that -Monsieur de Claviers is Monsieur Jaubourg's legatee. We have obtained -proof that some papers of great importance were taken from his apartment -during the last days of his illness. Well! I would be glad to have your -word—" -</p> -<p> -"That I didn't take them?" the doctor hastily interrupted. "Don't tell -me that you came here to ask me that," he continued with an outburst of -anger; "I will not allow it." -</p> -<p> -"You might have let me finish my sentence," retorted Landri, more -calmly, but very little more. Being absolutely ignorant of the inward -tragedy—so like his own, alas!—of which Pierre Chaffin was -the victim, this outbreak at the bare idea of a suspicion of dishonesty -was inexplicable to him. He had said nothing to justify it, and being -rendered so sensitive by his own suffering, he could not brook a reply -uttered in such a tone. "I finish that sentence. I would be glad to have -your word, not that you did not take the papers, but simply that no -person, to your knowledge, entered Monsieur Jaubourg's bedroom during -his illness,—besides the servants, Professor Louvet, and yourself, -of course. It seems to me that there is nothing in that to cause any -sensitiveness on your part. It is simply a matter of preventing -suspicion from going astray. You should be the first to desire it." -</p> -<p> -"I have no answer to make to a question of that sort," said Pierre. He -did not clearly discern his questioner's object. It was true that he -would have no right to take offence at the question, if it had not been -couched in terms too imperious and inquisitorial. The conclusion -especially had irritated him. But as Landri had affected to speak in a -very self-contained tone, almost ceremonious in its stiffness, he -determined to meet his coldness with equal coldness. He would have been -humiliated to appear less able to control his nerves, or less polished, -than the young noble, and he added: "I do not admit that it is the duty -of a physician to keep watch over his patient otherwise than -professionally. I venture to assert that I treated Monsieur Jaubourg to -the best of my ability, and that is all that his heirs have a right to -concern themselves about with respect to me." -</p> -<p> -"It is not a question of keeping watch," Landri replied. "You compel me, -in spite of myself, to make my questions more precise. Did you admit no -stranger to the invalid's bedroom? For you did receive visitors, I know -from Joseph." -</p> -<p> -"Visitors?" exclaimed the physician. "No one, except my father." He had -no sooner pronounced the word, than he ejaculated the "Ah!" of one who -suddenly grasps the situation. He was silent for a moment. Then, -controlling himself with an effort, he continued, throwing out his -breast and walking up to the other, with distorted face and breathing -quickly: "I will satisfy you. I give you my word of honor that I admitted -no one to Monsieur Jaubourg's bedroom,—no one, you understand; -my word of honor, and it's the word of an honest man, again you -understand! And that gives me the right to put a question to -you, in my turn. For all you call yourself Monsieur le Comte de -Claviers-Grandchamp, and I am simple Pierre Chaffin, we are no longer -living under the old régime, and I don't know that you are entitled to -come here, on your private authority, to question me like an examining -magistrate. You told me that some one had stolen papers from Monsieur -Jaubourg's, and you asked me if the person from whom I received a visit -did not go into the room where the stolen papers were. That was -equivalent to saying that you suspected that person of stealing them, -and that person was my father. My question is this: Do you suspect my -father, or do you not?" -</p> -<p> -"I will say, as you said just now, that I have no answer to make, having -named no one," Landri retorted. -</p> -<p> -His irritation faded away in the face of evidence: he had before him in -very truth an absolutely honest man. He had felt it in the vigor with -which Pierre had asserted his honor, in the upheaval of his whole being, -above all in his outcry of indignant surprise. And lo! a strange and -melancholy sympathy stirred in his heart. The tone in which the son had -spoken of his father echoed in the depths of his soul. It was like a -sudden repetition of his own inward lament. He observed with dismay -that, having come thither to obtain confirmation of one suspicion, his -visit had aroused another, not in his own mind, but in that of the very -person upon whom he had relied to discover the truth; and already it had -ceased to be in his power to allay that suspicion. -</p> -<p> -"To decline to answer is to answer," said Pierre Chaffin. "So papers are -missing from Monsieur Jaubourg's, valuable papers, no doubt, and you, -and Monsieur de Claviers, I suppose, with you, accuse my father of the -theft!" -</p> -<p> -"No valuable paper is missing from Monsieur Jaubourg's," replied Landri, -"and, once more, we accuse no one." -</p> -<p> -"If it is not valuable papers that have disappeared," continued the -physician, "it must be letters. And why do people steal letters? To sell -them, threatening to make them public, for blackmail." -</p> -<p> -His habit of inductive reasoning began to work anew, and in that moment -of supreme agony, he made use of what he knew to guess the rest. Letters -had been stolen. What letters? Those which referred to the birth of the -child of Jaubourg and Madame de Claviers. They were afraid of blackmail. -What sort of blackmail? That which the will suggested. And he said -aloud, changing from questioned to questioner, to suppliant rather, he -trembled so with anxiety as he made this appeal to his playmate in -childhood:— -</p> -<p> -"I gave you my word just now; give me your word that you did not believe -that my father was capable of that.—You don't answer? Then it must be -that you did believe it. And yet you and Monsieur de Claviers are not -cruel. You believed that? Why? I must know. I must know everything, -everything, everything, and first of all the real reason why my father -and Monsieur de Claviers parted. I am a man, Landri, and I am addressing -another man. What was the reason? Tell me." -</p> -<p> -"You are well aware that I was not here," Landri replied. "I know -nothing positive." -</p> -<p> -"Yes or no, did you hear any talk of dishonesty?" -</p> -<p> -"I heard something said of confusion in Monsieur de Claviers' affairs," -said Landri. "But I give you my word on this—that this matter of -Jaubourg's papers, as to which I wanted to obtain your testimony, had no -connection whatever with the reasons that may have led Monsieur de -Claviers to dispense with Monsieur Chaffin's services." -</p> -<p> -He was only too well aware, when he made this indefinite reply, that the -craving for knowledge with which the other was consumed demanded a reply -of a very different tenor. But he could not answer yes or no. He had -suffered too keenly when he learned of his mother's sin to allow his -lips to form words which should inform a son of his father's crime. Nor -would his sense of honor permit him to be lavish of denials. Indeed, -what was the use? When he decided upon this step, he had had no means of -divining that Pierre's mind was already disturbed, so that he had -immediately read into his question a meaning that was only too dear. -</p> -<p> -This altogether unforeseen result of their interview created in Landri's -mind the impression of an inevitable destiny, which he had felt many -times since his visit to his real father's death-bed, and he was, as it -were, paralyzed by it. Was that impression shared by the physician, or -was the poor fellow afraid of learning more? The evasive reply returned -by his interlocutor to so pitilessly precise a question seemed to have -overwhelmed him. He questioned him no further. -</p> -<p> -After a few moments of exceedingly painful silence, Landri rose. The -other did not try to detain him, and the young men parted, just touching -each other's fingers, and almost afraid to look at each other. -</p> -<p> -The same impression of Necessity, of a network of events woven by a will -stronger than his own, haunted Landri throughout that evening, which he -was able to pass alone, by good luck, M. de Claviers having gone to -Grandchamp. He found it on his pillow when he awoke, still pursued by -the image of that young man with whom he had played as a child, and whom -he saw as he had left him, pale and motionless in the grasp of that -horrible thought: "My father is a thief." As he said to himself at -Saint-Mihiel, "If the Clermont train had only been late!" so he said -now, "If only Louvet had not sent him to Rue de Solferino in order to -help him along! If only his father had not gone to see him—merely by -chance, perhaps!" -</p> -<p> -But is there such a thing as chance in the world? The triviality of the -incidents which had led up, in Pierre's case as well as in his own, to -so terrible an ordeal, confounded Landri, especially as that ordeal was -merited—by whom? By those of whom they were born. -</p> -<p> -The vision of the common catastrophe which enveloped the son of the -felonious steward and the son of the unfaithful wife, reached the point -of absolutely terrifying him when, about half-past nine, his servant -handed him a letter of which the handwriting alone made him tremble with -excitement. He was preparing to pay Joseph another visit. He had changed -his hypothesis since his visit to Quai de Béthune. He desired to talk -with Joseph concerning the people who were most intimate with Jaubourg, -remembering M. de Claviers' expression: "That smells of the club." As -will be seen, he had entirely abandoned the idea of incriminating -Chaffin. Now, this letter was from Chaffin! -</p> -<p> -The young man's heart beat fast, as he tore the envelope open, and yet -faster as he read these lines:— -</p> -<p> -"Landri, your old master implores you, in the name of the past, to -receive him instantly. He has a favor to ask of you which will save more -than his life, and he can perhaps do you a service which will wipe out -many things." -</p> -<p> -"Admit Monsieur Chaffin," he said to the valet; and almost in the same -breath: "Do you know whether Monsieur le Marquis has returned from -Grandchamp?" -</p> -<p> -"Last night, Monsieur le Comte," the servant replied; and while he left -the room to summon the discharged steward, Landri said to himself:— -</p> -<p> -"Do me a service? What if he were really the culprit? What if he has -brought the other letters? What if I am able to get them and give them -to <i>him</i>, in a few minutes?" -</p> -<p> -And the mere thought of M. de Claviers' expression as he thanked him -warmed his whole heart! -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_7_1" id="Footnote_7_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_1"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>"A physician should disclose neither what he has seen, nor -what he has heard, nor what he has divined."</p></div> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap09"></a></p> - -<h4>IX -<br /><br /> -SEPARATION -</h4> - -<p> -Chaffin was profoundly preoccupied, and very anxious as he followed the -footman who was instructed to usher him into Landri's presence. He would -have been even more so if he had glanced through the windows of the long -glass gallery that surrounded the courtyard of the hôtel. His legs, -trembling already, would have refused further service. He certainly -would not have crossed the threshold of the room where his former pupil -awaited him. -</p> -<p> -At the very moment when he was proceeding thus toward an interview -of decisive importance to him, the small door on Rue du -Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, through which visitors on foot were admitted, -opened in response to an impatient ring, and Pierre appeared. His -arrival thus on his father's heels, in view of the circumstances under -which the two men had parted, was a threat well calculated to check the -flow of blood in the unfaithful steward's veins. He had hastened thither -to implore a compassion which his son's presence would render -unavailing. That implacable Fate, of which Landri had been the -craftsman, unwitting at first, then terrified by its working out, -continued its work. But what is this Fate if not the internal logic of -life, so well summed up, in the words of the poet: "We are the masters -of our first step. We are the slaves of the second." This force which -thus compels all the consequences of crime is not distinguishable from -it. We could not help committing a crime. Once committed it holds us -fast. Our very precautions serve only to hasten our punishment. It -overtakes us alike through our prudences and our imprudences, through -those who love us and those who hate us and those even to whom we are -indifferent, so inevitably do our sins unfold their results according to -a mathematical ratio. -</p> -<p> -Landri's visit to Pierre Chaffin was a perfectly natural result of the -peculations committed by the steward of the Claviers estate, and that -visit had produced this other no less natural result: the doctor had -questioned his father. When Chaffin returned to the house on Quai de -Béthune on the preceding day, his son opened the door, anticipating his -ring, a sign that he had been at the window watching for his return. -</p> -<p> -"I was waiting for you," he said. "Let us go into my study. I have -something to say to you, at once." -</p> -<p> -"What's going on?" queried Chaffin. As he asked the question his glance -expressed more terror than surprise. This singular fact did not escape -Pierre. He was conscious of the false ring in the newcomer's laughter as -he added, with an impertinent allusion to the very advanced opinions -professed by the physician: "There's no question of an anarchist plot, -is there? For I am as much of a radical as you please, but still, you -know, a landed proprietor." -</p> -<p> -"Landri de Claviers has just gone from here," Pierre replied, paying no -heed to the pleasantry. He had closed the door by way of precaution, and -spoke in a low voice. He did not wish his mother and sister, who were -looking over the week's laundry in an adjoining room, to suspect that -his father and he were closeted together. "Yes," he repeated, "Landri de -Claviers." And he gazed steadfastly at the discharged steward. He tried -to detect upon that enigmatic face a confusion which did not appear. The -thief recovered his self-control, and ventured to reply:— -</p> -<p> -"He is probably ashamed of the way his father behaved to his old tutor. -I don't class them together, Monsieur de Claviers and him. Landri is -weak. He doesn't dare to break a lance against the prejudices of a -society which he estimates none the less at its real worth. You saw how -absurdly he acted in that matter of the inventory. He is not a believer, -he adores the army, and still he gets his job taken away from him! He -has a poor head, but he's a very good fellow." -</p> -<p> -"Landri did not come to apologize either for himself or his father," -said the doctor. "He came to accuse us." -</p> -<p> -"Us?" cried Chaffin. "Of what, I should like to know?" -</p> -<p> -Despite his self-control, that explicit statement made him jump. Among -the many suppositions with which his terror-haunted fancy had tormented -him, one had been especially persistent of late: he had written the -anonymous note, it will be remembered, on his typewriter. Several people -in the Claviers household knew that he had the machine. At the moment he -had said to himself: "Pshaw! there are thousands of others in Paris!" -and had gone ahead. Since then he had lived in deadly fear lest some -suggestion should lead the marquis to see whether the characters in the -letter did not correspond with those of his machine. It was an -extravagant fear. By virtue of what authority could M. de Claviers have -claimed such a power? But it is the peculiarity of the fixed idea, that -it does not distinguish the possible from the impossible. And then, -there was Pierre. To be assailed by an insinuation of that nature in the -esteem and affection of his son was to the father a worse punishment -than to be sent before the Assizes. Did Landri's accusation relate to -that? Did he claim the right to demand a test? But, if so, what was the -meaning of that "us?" -</p> -<p> -"I will tell you about it," rejoined the physician. He began to repeat -word for word the conversation he had had with his father's former -pupil, ending with the terrible question asked by himself: "Yes or no, -did you hear any talk of dishonesty?" and with Landri's evasive reply: -"I heard something said of confusion in Monsieur de Claviers' affairs." -</p> -<p> -As he told the story, which it was exceedingly painful to him to repeat -thus, his eyes continued to examine the face of the agent so directly -incriminated. Lively emotion was certain to be depicted thereon, even if he -were innocent,—especially if he were innocent. The news of Landri's -visit, under the existing conditions, could not be indifferent to a man -of heart. There was matter therein at which to take offence, to be -distressed, to be alarmed, to be indignant. Perhaps, if Chaffin had -foreseen this explanation with his son, he would have been shrewd enough -to feign agitation. But being attacked unexpectedly, he instinctively -feigned absolute impassibility. It is the least hazardous of defences -for a culprit taken by surprise. It offers no hold for an investigation, -but for that very reason it suggests mastery of self, a premeditated -reserve, the possibility of a secret. -</p> -<p> -Pierre felt this so strongly that, at the end of this painful -narration,—this cross-examination, rather, scarcely -disguised,—he uttered a cry, a downright appeal to the sense of -honor of that father of his, who listened to him with an impassive face -which made it impossible to discover a single one of his -thoughts:— -</p> -<p> -"And it doesn't make you jump from your chair that I, your son, have -reached the point where I could put such a question to that man, and -that he refused to answer? You seem to have no suspicion that I am -passing through one of the most ghastly hours of my whole life! Don't -tell me that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of Monsieur -Jaubourg's papers. I know it. Don't tell me that this act of Landri's -proves that he and his father are crazy. I know it. But I know something -else, by an experience of many, many years! Monsieur de Claviers and -Landri, with all their failings and their prejudices and their follies -and their absurdities, are perfectly honorable men, incapable of -wronging any one knowingly. If they suspected you of this, it was -because they believed that they had the right to. It must be that you -and the marquis broke off your relations for some reason of which I know -nothing. I insist on knowing it. Yes, why did Monsieur de Claviers, who -finds it so hard to discharge his employés,—you used to complain of -it so often!—why did he part with you so abruptly, so brutally? Ah!" -he concluded in a heart-rending tone, "if the reason was what you told us, -Landri would never have come here, he would never have left me with that -evasive reply, after he had seen how I was suffering, and what I -thought—never!" -</p> -<p> -"I told your mother and sister and you the exact truth," said Chaffin, -pretending to be angry at last. -</p> -<p> -He could not assume any other attitude, but the contrast was too great -between this sudden outburst and the carefully guarded attention of a -few moments before. They who simulate emotions always miss their -imitation of reality in some detail. They exaggerate the symptoms or -distort them. For instance, the impostors who feign an attack of -vertigo, and who fall with their hands extended to protect themselves. -The genuine epileptic, being hurled to the ground as it were, has no -time to take that precaution. The error, in this case, was the sudden -change from premeditated indifference to extreme rage, without -transition. The protest, too emphatic in his too abrupt somersault, was -not sincere. -</p> -<p> -"Yes," the dishonest steward persisted none the less, "I told you the -truth, and it is incredible to me that you, my son, should be the one to -take sides against me with these great nobles whom you know only by -hearsay! I know them, I do, from having undergone innumerable -humiliations at their hands which I have always concealed from you. In -their eyes a man is of no account when he doesn't belong to their caste. -They wouldn't do you a material injury. They are very careful in that -respect, from pride. But as to other injuries, no. I expected better -things from Landri. Evidently he's no better than his father. Papers are -missing from Jaubourg's apartments, certificates of stock, I suppose? They -think at once of <i>us</i>, of <i>us</i>, mind you, of you as well as -myself! Do I conclude from that that they mean to accuse you of dishonesty? -Not at all. But you conclude that they do mean to accuse me! It is -incredible! But the dishonesty was in coming here to insult you and your -father! And you listened to my gentleman? And when he proved to you, by -the mere fact of coming here, his absolute lack of perspicacity, you -questioned him about me?—How many times must I tell you that Monsieur -de Claviers did not part with me, but I parted with him, and for the -reason that Landri admitted: he talked about confusion in my accounts, -when there was no confusion in anything but his expenditure, which was -insane! What Landri did not tell you is that I warned him personally of -the marquis's impending ruin, in order to save his fortune. Just ask him -about that. We will see whether he will dare to deny that conversation -at Grandchamp when I gave him the exact figures. I swear it, on your -mother's head and your sister's. If he had listened to me he wouldn't -have lost a sou. And this is how he rewards me! But he isn't my son, and -you, Pierre, have been too unjust to me, too ungrateful. I have only -lived and worked for you all, for you especially. I have tried to spare -you all the miseries of the breadwinner which crushed me at your age. -You were intelligent and hard-working. I kept you at home, so that you -could give your time to science as you chose, and prepare for your -examinations, while your comrades were wearing themselves out with -patients; and you have forgotten all my sacrifices!—Ah! it's too -horrible!" -</p> -<p> -"For the very reason that I am living on your benefactions," replied the -physician with savage asperity, "I cannot endure certain ideas. And -those ideas," he continued still more harshly, "let us admit that it is, -as you say, horrible to entertain them. It is a fact that I do entertain -them. Would you like me to tell you why? Landri de Claviers' conduct has -nothing to do with it. The change in you that I have noticed these last -weeks has given them to me, nothing else. Since you left Grandchamp you -are not the same man. I see it with my eyes. I see that you are -suffering. You are growing thin. You don't eat. You don't sleep. You -have some persistent trouble that you cannot hide, and I too am beginning -to have one, I feel it growing and taking possession of me—it -is suspicion. I do not want it. We must not both play at madness. Let us -have more pride. A father and son should not exchange such words as -these twice. There is one way of putting an end to them. It is too late -to-day," he added, looking at the clock; "but to-morrow, at eleven, -after the Hôtel-Dieu, I'll call for you, and we will go together to Rue -du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. We will ask to speak with the marquis. You -will tell him, or, if you prefer, I will, that there are rumors abroad. -And it is true. Louvet has changed his manner to me since you left the -Claviers. These rumors have reached our ears. We have come to ask him to -cut them short by declaring publicly, and first of all before me, that -he has nothing to reproach you with in your stewardship that affects -your honor. I will demand that he put that declaration in writing for -me, if necessary." -</p> -<p> -"I will not do it!" cried Chaffin, his eyes bulging out with terror as, -in imagination, they saw M. de Claviers. "I will not do it! You talk -about pride, and yet you don't see that you are proposing to me a -nameless humiliation, worse than all the rest!" -</p> -<p> -"What, pray?" his son quickly retorted. "What humiliation is there in -going to a man as to whom you have nothing to reproach yourself with, -and claiming from him reparation for involuntary injustice? Tell me, -when Louvet and I—and how many others that I don't know!—may -have received an unfavorable impression of your quarrel with Monsieur de -Claviers, is not that an injustice, if the quarrel was a mere caprice on -his part? And is he not responsible for it by the exaggerated -indignation which you claim that he has shown?" -</p> -<p> -"People may think what they choose," interposed Chaffin. "I won't go up -that man's stairs. I won't go to his house. I won't go." -</p> -<p> -"Very good," said Pierre, "then I shall go alone." -</p> -<p> -"You won't put that affront on me?" the father implored. "You shall not -go! I forbid you. To humiliate yourself is to humiliate me. We are one -as to that. You must obey me." -</p> -<p> -"Because of that very identity of interest, I shall not obey you," -rejoined the son. "Your honor is my honor. I propose to know whether the -money I am living on is pure. At eleven o'clock to-morrow I shall be -there. I hope you will be there too. But if you are not, I shall go in -alone. Nothing on earth, you understand, nothing shall prevent my having -an explanation with Monsieur de Claviers, unless—" -</p> -<p> -"Unless what?" queried Chaffin breathlessly. "Go on." -</p> -<p> -"Unless you tell me that your leaving his service was for a different -reason, and what it was." -</p> -<p> -"I can't invent one," the father replied. -</p> -<p> -"Then I can't understand your objections to a step which, I tell you -once more, I must take in order to put an end to an intolerable state of -mind." -</p> -<p> -"Well!" said Chaffin, after a pause, "do it, since you no longer believe -in your father; but remember this, that I will never forgive you." -</p> -<p> -An awkward and ill-timed attempt at paternal dignity, which lacked the -accent, the expression, the gesture, in a word the inimitable and -irresistible reality, which Pierre craved as he craved bread and water, -air and light! Chaffin resorted to it, however, as a desperate effort to -prevent that visit, the threat of which had sent a stream of fire -running through his veins. What an evening and night he passed under the -apprehension of that hour, which every minute brought nearer, when his -shamefully wronged employer and his idolized son should be face to face! -</p> -<p> -The young man did not dine at home, in order to avoid meeting his -father. The latter heard him come in about midnight. A mad temptation -assailed him, as he heard that well-known step, to rise and go to him -and confess everything. But no. Pierre's terrible words were still -ringing in his ears: "I propose to know whether the money I am living on -is pure." How could he bear to tell that boy, whose probity was so -absolute, that that money was not pure, that the little fortune, by -virtue of which he was pursuing his studies, almost without practising, -was, in part, stolen! For that was really one of the motives that had -led Chaffin into rascality: his passionate desire to assure his son -Pierre immunity from his own laborious life was his revenge for his -semi-menial position. He had imagined him physician to the hospitals, -professor in the Faculty, member of the Académie de Medicine, perhaps -of the Institute. -</p> -<p> -This excitation of his paternal love was due to the same malevolence, -born of his abortive destiny, that filled him with implacable hatred of -his noble and magnificent employer. That most excellent sentiments can -exist in the same heart with evil sentiments, and criminal resolutions -inspired by the latter justify themselves by the former, is a fact of -every-day observation, as disconcerting as it is indisputable. It -explains why the great legislators, who were also great psychologists, -always strove to punish acts in themselves, without seeking the intent -with which they were committed. The decadence of civic justice began -with this search for the intent, which, in healthy societies, is left to -religion to deal with. The Church can still find reasons for pardoning a -Chaffin for his crimes, when human tribunals, taking cognizance of his -case, owe him naught save the galleys. -</p> -<p> -"If he ever finds that out," said the guilty father to himself, in that -vigil of anguish, "he will leave me. He will go away from the house. His -mother and sister will insist on knowing, too. They will guess the -truth. At any price, Pierre must remain in ignorance. But how?" -</p> -<p> -Then it was that in that mind, already exhausted by the stings of -conscience, an idea began to take root. It occurred to him to go -himself, about nine o'clock, while his son was at the Hôtel-Dieu, and -throw himself at the marquis's feet. He would implore him not to -dishonor him in Pierre's eyes. M. de Claviers was generous. He would -take pity on him. He would promise not to speak. He would not speak. But -to appear before Madame de Claviers' husband after he had, like a -dastard, dealt him that despicable blow of the anonymous letter, was -beyond the Judas's courage. He could not even endure the thought. There -had been, in the attitude maintained by that proud man since he had -received the letter of his wife, testifying to her liaison with Jaubourg -and the illegitimacy of the child, a mystery which terrified Chaffin. He -divined therein a bottomless abyss of suffering over which it would be -too horrible for him to lean. -</p> -<p> -Landri's visit to Pierre had intensified that puzzled sensation. His -inquiries concerning papers said to have been stolen from Jaubourg -implied that the young count was informed of the anonymous letter. Had -M. de Claviers shown it to him? If so, why? Why, so that Landri might -institute this inquiry, of course! And with what object, if not to -unearth the holder of the "other documents"? Chaffin recalled those -words in his letter, which was written in the paroxysm of nervous -excitement caused by the gratification of long-cherished hate. He had -added to it, in pure wantonness, a threat of blackmail which he had -never intended to put in execution. -</p> -<p> -That recollection suggested a second plan: since his threat had produced -such an effect on the two men, he had a certain means of obtaining from -them a promise of silence with respect to his son. It was to Landri that -the marquis had entrusted the mission of seeking those documents. It was -to Landri that he must appeal. The anticipation of that interview was -painful to the dishonored tutor. But it was not unendurable, like the -other. But would Landri give way under that pressure? Would he not, on -the other hand, reply: "You threaten us with a scandal? Very good. We -propose to apply for a warrant against you." -</p> -<p> -No, he must not take that risk. Chaffin devised a safer method of -procedure. He thought that he was well acquainted with his pupil of so -many years. He believed him to be very weak, but he knew his absolute -loyalty and the noble elements of his character. The better way was to -go to him and say: "It was I who wrote that outrageous denunciation in a -moment of insanity. I am sorry for it. I have the other papers. Here -they are. I place them in your hands. I ask you, in return, to induce -Monsieur de Claviers not to tell Pierre the real reason for my leaving -him." The acceptance of that restitution would create the most sacred of -obligations in the eyes of the noble-hearted young man. -</p> -<p> -Such are the disconcerting contradictions of human nature, that, upon -representing to himself that scene of confession, although dictated -entirely by self-interest, Chaffin had a sense of relief, almost as of -rehabilitation. At all events he should have spoken, should have -confessed his crime, which was suffocating him. -</p> -<p> -Once determined upon this course, he was in such feverish haste to carry -it out that he left the house before nine o'clock, as soon as his son -had started for the Hôtel-Dieu. He had not reckoned upon the working of -Pierre's mind in a direction parallel to his own. The physician had said -to himself, on leaving his father:— -</p> -<p> -"To-morrow he will have reflected. He will decide to go to Monsieur de -Claviers with me if there's nothing wrong; and if there is anything, he -will confess." -</p> -<p> -When he found, in the morning, that Chaffin did not mention the subject -again, he reasoned thus:— -</p> -<p> -"My father has devised some expedient. What can it be? If he is guilty, -there is only one: to go there first, in order to implore the marquis to -spare him with regard to me. But is it possible?" -</p> -<p> -The physician had resolved to go to all lengths now, to put an end to -the torture of suspicion, which, to his horror, was already changing -from a recurrent to a fixed idea. He dreaded too keenly the form of -monomania so well defined by one of his confrères of ancient times: -<i>Animi angor in una cogitatione defixus et inhœrens</i>. He had acted at -once therefore. Instead of going to the hospital, he had stationed -himself at the corner of Rue des Deux-Ponts and Quai de Béthune. He had -seen his father leave the house, look about him like one who fears that -he is watched, and then bend his steps, with an air of feigned -indifference, toward Pont Sully, where he took a cab. Pierre himself -hailed the first cab that passed. He gave the driver a five-franc piece, -telling him to drive as fast as possible to the corner of Rue -d'Aguesseau and Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where he arrived in time -to see Chaffin's cab stop in front of the hôtel de Claviers. He waited -a few moments, then rang and asked the concierge:— -</p> -<p> -"Is my father with Monsieur le Marquis?" -</p> -<p> -"No, Monsieur le Docteur," the man replied, "Monsieur Chaffin came to -see Monsieur le Comte." -</p> -<p> -"Very well! I beg you to send and ask Monsieur le Marquis if he can -receive me," said Pierre, after a moment's hesitation. -</p> -<p> -He had fancied that he could read in the concierge's eyes the same -constraint that he had noticed of late in Professor Louvet's. He was -only partly mistaken. Naturally, the magnanimous M. de Claviers had -confided to no one in his entourage his grievances against his -secretary. But his servants were well aware of his unalloyed kindness of -heart. They had imagined the reason of Chaffin's abrupt dismissal, the -more readily because they were not ignorant of his daily peculation. But -they were not officially informed. Pierre had sufficient proof of that, -for Landri's door was not closed to his father, and he himself was -admitted to the presence of M. de Claviers. The concierge called up the -speaking-tube that connected his lodge with the house. An affirmative -answer was returned. The bell rang, announcing the visitor, and the -doctor was ushered into the presence of the marquis five minutes after -Chaffin's humble and suppliant figure had passed through Landri's door. -</p> -<p> -"There may be nothing wrong after all," thought the doctor, "as they -receive us both. If it were only true! What a weight would be taken from -my heart! However, I shall soon know." -</p> -<p> -The <i>grand seigneur</i>, with whom the son of the unfaithful steward, of -the villainous informer, ventured to adopt this tragic step, was in the -vast, severe library, which had been the scene, a fortnight before, of a -no less tragic explanation, that with Landri. He was seated at his table -this time, engaged in a task which would have seemed most strange to one -who was not aware of the secret resolutions of his mind. He was -transcribing himself, upon detached sheets, the number of which was -already very great, a schedule of all the artistic treasures preserved -in the château of Grandchamp. He had proceeded methodically, room by -room, and he was at that moment, as was indicated by the line written at -the top of the sheet, in the apartment of the deceased marchioness. He -had kept it till the last. The reason will be only too readily -understood. -</p> -<p> -The work, begun several weeks before, was nearing its end. The old -gentleman's handwriting had always resembled himself. It was bold, free -and distinct, with an air of the great century. But a slight -tremulousness in some letters testified how painful a task it had been -to him to write the lines of that page. A box stood open on his desk, -containing documents relating to the treasures. The "Genealogy of the -House of Claviers-Grandchamp" was also there with a mark at the famous -Appendix number 44, upon which Altona had formerly based his offer. The -last, in blood, of the magnificent Claviers was drawing up the -death-certificate of his family, in a form determined upon by himself. -He had, that very morning, been assailed by distressing emotions, the -reflection of which made his noble countenance more imposing than ever. -</p> -<p> -His old-fashioned courtesy brought him to his feet to receive the son of -the corrupt steward. He waved him to a chair—without offering him his -hand; a slight circumstance which Pierre interpreted as confirming his -suspicions: the marquis was punishing his father's sins in him. -</p> -<p> -Pierre's visit was, in fact, a surprise to M. de Claviers, and a most -painful surprise, but for a reason very different from that which the -young man imagined. He had been Jaubourg's physician. He had been -present during his last moments, when the patient had undoubtedly -spoken. Although M. de Claviers knew nothing of the learned theories of -modern specialists concerning "ecmnesia" and "onirism," he had seen -people die. He knew what confessions the excitation of fever sometimes -extorts from lips previously dumb. He explained in that way the -declaration of paternity made by Jaubourg. Perhaps Pierre Chaffin had -been present at that horrible scene of which the young man had told him. -That was the reason that the heroic marquis had consented to receive -him. He had not chosen to seem to fear the meeting. -</p> -<p> -Another detail impressed the doctor—the truly extraordinary change in -that imposing countenance. M. de Claviers had aged, within the last few -weeks, as much as his ex-secretary. But it was the aging of a man -consumed by grief without remorse,—the despair, with undimmed eyes, -of him who has naught to blame himself for in the suffering that is killing -him; whereas Chaffin had exhibited to his son the mask of the unhappy -wretch with sombre, veiled glance, the conscious architect of his own -misery. This comparison shaped itself involuntarily in the physician's -mind, as he was saying:— -</p> -<p> -"You will excuse me for disturbing you. Monsieur le Marquis, and at such -an early hour. It will not be for very long." -</p> -<p> -"It is your time that is valuable, doctor, not mine," replied M. de -Claviers, now wholly master of himself. He was trying to divine the -motive of this unexpected visit. "Probably he isn't satisfied with his -fees, as Métivier fixed them," he thought, and the other continued:— -</p> -<p> -"I shall not try to play at diplomacy with you, Monsieur le Marquis. -That is not my style, and I know that it isn't yours, either. I will go -straight to the goal. This then, in few words, and very simply, is the -object of my visit. You parted with my father after you had had him in -your service more than fifteen years. The separation was very sudden. It -has caused talk. I myself have had the impression that I do not know the -whole truth. My father has refused to explain himself clearly to me -thereon. Or, rather, he has explained himself, but in terms which do not -satisfy me, and I have come to say to you, knowing your ideas and how -high you rank the family spirit, I cannot endure the idea that my father -is suspected, still less to suspect him myself. If you parted for -reasons which do not involve his honor, as I believe, as I wish to -believe, I ask you to say so publicly two or three times, under -circumstances which will cut short all rumors, especially before -Monsieur le Professeur Louvet, my chief. I ask you to say so to me, too. -If, on the other hand—" And in a heart-rending tone: "I must know -it." -</p> -<p> -M. de Claviers had listened to the young man with a more and more -distressed expression in his clouded eyes. The resemblance was too -striking between the grief of this son who suspected his father and the -anguish with which he had seen Landri overwhelmed, in that same place, -because of his mother's sin,—the same Landri whom he continued to -love so dearly even while hardening his heart against him! He was too -entirely, too genuinely religious not to recognize the justice of a -higher power in this punishment visited, as the Book promises, on the -second generation. This view of the moral side of life harmonized -perfectly with his view of its social side. He was too humane not to -pity the young man whose toilsome and honorable career he had followed -from childhood. On the other hand, his indignation against Chaffin was too -fresh, too well-deserved.—And he was still ignorant of the wretched -creature's crowning infamy!—He could not give him the certificate of -honorable conduct which the son demanded. Moreover, he abhorred -falsehood. These diverse feelings were reflected in his reply, which he -did not make until he had taken what seemed to his visitor a very long -time for reflection. -</p> -<p> -"Pierre," he said at last, addressing him in the familiar tone that he -had formerly used with him, "give me your hand." And he suited the -action to the word. "You are a very noble fellow. I have always known -it. I felt it more profoundly than ever while you were speaking to me. -But for the very reason that you are a very noble fellow, how could you -fail to realize the enormity of this appeal you are making to me? And -you say that you know my ideas! Remember, my boy, a son doesn't judge -his father. He does not institute an investigation concerning his -father. I shall not, by answering you, associate myself with what I -consider a deplorable mistake on your part, an aberration of the mind. -If I had spoken to any person whomsoever of my reasons for depriving -myself of your father's services, I might, by straining a point, permit -you to come and ask me to explain my words. But I have said nothing. -Your father left me because he mismanaged my affairs. That is all. It is -all that I have said or shall ever say about him, to you or to any one -else." -</p> -<p> -"Mismanage has two meanings, Monsieur le Marquis," rejoined the -physician nervously; and, anticipating M. de Claviers' protest, "if I -insist it is because you have acknowledged my right to do so. Yes. You -say that you would permit my question if you had spoken to any one. You -meant by that, any stranger. You forgot your son. Monsieur le Comte de -Claviers came to my house yesterday afternoon to question me, in his own -name and yours, concerning certain papers which have been stolen, it -seems, from Monsieur Charles Jaubourg's apartment. He accused my father -of the theft, with my assistance. He probably knows now that he was -mistaken. But it is none the less true that such a suspicion justified -me in finding out upon what ground he could have conceived it. It must -have been upon what you had told him. He was under arrest when the thing -happened. He confronted me with that alibi when I questioned him. There -was nothing left for me to do but to apply to you. Tell me what you have -told him about my father. Is it unfair to ask you?" -</p> -<p> -"My son is another myself," M. de Claviers replied. To learn, even in -this vague way, of the scene of the day before between the two young men -wounded him where his susceptibility was tenderest. What indications had -led Landri to invite an explanation which might well have been so -dangerous? It might arouse suspicions concerning the nature and -importance of the papers stolen at Jaubourg's. To maintain to the end -the rôle of a father on perfectly cordial terms with his child, the -marquis must neither ask a question upon that subject, nor seem to -disavow the young man's act. But the news affected him profoundly, and -his voice trembled as he continued: "You surely do not claim that I must -detail to you my interviews with Landri alone? Nor that I should take -you to my new man of affairs and inform you as to the details of my -receipts and expenditure? And observe that that is exactly what you -presume to demand of me! I excuse you because of the motive that impels -you. But let us stop here." -</p> -<p> -He had risen, with contracted eyebrows and haughty bearing, thus -constraining his interlocutor to do likewise, and he pressed the -electric button on his desk. -</p> -<p> -"I have told you that Monsieur Chaffin had mismanaged my affairs. -Wherein? How? That concerns him and myself, and us alone. I shall not -add a word. So that it is useless for us to prolong a discussion which -henceforth would have no meaning. You have your patients, and -I"—he pointed to the table—"have to finish this urgent -task.—Garnier," he added, as the maître d'hôtel for whom he had -rung entered the room, "show Monsieur le Docteur Chaffin to the -door.—Monsieur, I have the honor to salute you." -</p> -<p> -"No, we will not stop here," said Pierre to himself, while yielding, in -spite of himself, to the extraordinary authority that emanated from the -old noble when he was in a certain state of concentrated -irritation.—"I am to go to Monsieur le Comte's apartments and get -my father," he said to the servant; "will you take me there?" -</p> -<p> -As he followed the maître d'hôtel through the glass gallery which his -father had passed through a quarter of an hour before, another person -was on his way, by an interior passage, to that same room in which -Landri was talking with Chaffin. It was the Marquis de Claviers. He -wished to learn, and without loss of time, Landri's reasons for going to -Quai de Béthune, and whether he had at last discovered a way to solve -the mystery of the anonymous denunciation which had been a constant -source of anxiety to him for so many days. Thus it was that he knocked -at one door of the young man's smoking-room, at almost the same instant -that Pierre entered at the other door. -</p> -<p> -This simultaneous double appearance, which had the air of being -concerted, almost extorted a shriek from the two occupants of the room, -between whom a scene had just taken place almost more distressing than -that between the marquis and Pierre. Their arrival brought about a -terrible dénouement. -</p> -<p> -At the moment that they entered, Chaffin was seated at a table. He had -just laid aside a pen with which he had written upon an envelope before -him the following address: "Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp." -He was about to rise. The sight of his son caused him to fall back upon -his chair, and that of the marquis, the next instant, to spring up -again. He retreated backward, so demoralized by terror that his legs -gave way and he had to lean against the wall. -</p> -<p> -M. de Claviers, thunderstruck himself by the presence of his former -secretary, and of his son, whom he had just left, gazed at them both and -at Landri. Then, addressing the latter,— -</p> -<p> -"I have to talk with you," he said, "when you have finished with these -gentlemen." -</p> -<p> -At that moment his eye fell on the envelope lying on the desk. He -recognized his own name. He took it up and opened it. Chaffin had not -had time to seal it, a circumstance which made more striking the exact -parallel between that moment and another, when the betrayed husband had -compelled the adulterine son to read the proof of their common shame. -The envelope contained the three letters from Jaubourg to Madame de -Claviers stolen by the tutor, and, on a separate sheet, these lines in -his hand, written at Landri's dictation:— -</p> -<p> -"The wretch who, in a moment of insanity, sent an anonymous letter to M. -le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp, restores to him the other papers -mentioned in that letter, and, while asking his forgiveness, appeals to -his generosity not to dishonor him in the eyes of his son." -</p> -<p> -The marquis read the note. He recognized on the other sheets the -detested handwriting of his wife's lover, his villainous friend. He -looked at Chaffin and said: "So it was you!"—Then he took two -steps towards him with an expression so threatening that the unhappy -wretch—ah! he well deserved that title at that cruel -moment!—fell on his knees, crying, "Pardon!" -</p> -<p> -The doctor rushed between his father and M. de Claviers. The marquis -stopped, plainly struggling against himself, to refrain from revenging -himself with his own hands. At last, pointing to the door, he commanded: -"Go! go, I say!" in so imperative a tone that his former secretary, -still on his knees, crawled towards the door. His nerveless fingers had -difficulty in opening it. He escaped at last, while Landri said to the -horrified Pierre, who no longer needed to have any one tell him the -truth about his father:— -</p> -<p> -"Follow him. Do not leave him alone." -</p> -<p> -"You're afraid that he'll kill himself," said M. de Claviers, when the -door had closed on the two men. "I suppose that he played that comedy -for you," he continued with a bitter smile. "It is not he, but his son, -who should not be left alone. Cowards live. It's the men of courage who -think of suicide in the presence of disgrace. And when one does not -believe in God! On that boy's account, I tried to control myself. I -could not do it.—But no," he continued, with a fierce energy wherein -the stern inheritance of a warlike race reappeared. "We are too much -afraid of suffering and of causing others to suffer. The grief of the -sons is the redemption of the fathers in this world and the next. We -must learn to atone for the sins that we did not commit, as we profit by -virtues that we never had." -</p> -<p> -He had spoken as if to himself, and he seemed to have forgotten the -existence of Landri, who watched him pace the floor, silent now. -Chaffin's note and Jaubourg's three letters still lay on the table, -where he had left them when he rushed upon the traitor. The young man -trembled lest, when he emerged from that fit of excited meditation, the -sight of those sheets should increase the smart of the wound from which -his noble heart was bleeding. So that he was amazed by the calm tone in -which M. de Claviers, upon returning to himself and spying the papers, -said to him, pointing to them as he spoke: "Do as you did before!" He -resumed his walk while the proofs of the terrible secret were being -consumed. At last, halting in front of Landri, he said to him:— -</p> -<p> -"You have done what you promised. It is well. It is very well. I am -relieved of a horrible weight. We are entitled to think that all the -letters are destroyed. The Chaffins will not talk. They cannot talk. Our -honor is safe, thanks to you. Once more, it is well, and I thank you." -</p> -<p> -"You thank me? O monsieur!" exclaimed Landri; and he continued, choking -with emotion: "If you really think that I have at least tried to satisfy -you, allow me to implore one favor—that you will hasten the time when -this pretence of intimacy that you have imposed upon me, that you have -rightly imposed upon me, shall come to an end. This life in society, -among all those indifferent people, is too hard. I haven't the strength -for it any longer. You must have seen that I have not shirked it. I -venture to say that no one can have guessed what I have suffered these -last weeks. But I am at the end. I can do no more." -</p> -<p> -"And I?" said the marquis; "do you think that I am not weary of it, -too?—But it is true: the test has been a severe one. The world will -never dream now of supposing that we parted on a pretence. Your marriage -will suffice to explain everything. The author of that infamous -anonymous letter is unmasked and disarmed. We have nothing more to fear -now. We can put an end to it.—These are my wishes," he continued -after another pause: "You will write me a letter that I can show. You will -inform me of your purpose to marry Madame Olier, despite my prohibition, -and to employ such legal measures as the Code places at your disposal. I -don't know what they are, so you will specify them. You will leave the -house this very day, and let me know your address, so that I can -communicate with you at once in case of urgent need. I do not anticipate -such a contingency. Métivier, in conformity with my orders, should have -turned into cash by this time the property that you inherit from your -mother. It is fully understood that the share that she left me by her -will is to be added to it. I ask you to deposit the money at the Bank of -France, until further orders. In that way it will be easier for me to -turn over to your account, without intermediary, another fortune, which -you know about and which you accept. You have pledged yourself to do it. -Last of all, I ask you not to settle in Paris, so long as I last. It -won't be very long." -</p> -<p> -"I will repeat what I said the first day," Landri replied: "I have no -wish but to obey you. As to the last point, I propose, not only not to -live in Paris, but to leave France, to undertake the farming business in -Canada. On my return from Saint-Mihiel, you said to me—I remember -your exact words: 'It is a horrible thing to me that the family you will -found will bear the name of mine.' It would be no less horrible to me, -knowing that that name is not my own. I cannot change it in France, -without causing people to seek the cause of such a resolution. By -expatriating myself, to engage in a new business in an absolutely new -country, I shall escape all comments. I intend to adopt one of the names -which belonged to my mother's family, and which no one has borne for -more than a hundred years. You spoke of legal measures. If there is any -possible means by which the title of Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp can -pass, after you, to some one of your young kinsmen, I will assent to it, -in whatever form you prefer." -</p> -<p> -"You would do that?" cried M. de Claviers. The trembling born of an -emotion stronger than all his resolutions strangled his voice in his -throat. "You would change your name? But she—that woman—" -</p> -<p> -"Madame Olier?" Landri interrupted. "I have told her of my plan. She -assented to it in advance, without asking for any explanation." -</p> -<p> -"Yes," continued the marquis. "It is the truth. That is the true -remedy." He was no longer able to control himself, and his words echoed -his thoughts. "I saw it, from the first moment. But the suggestion could -not come from me.—Adopt another son,—who is not you? -Never!—Ah!" he continued, with increasing excitement, "I can truly -say, like that widow of the Middle Ages: 'You were stolen from -me.'—No, I will have no other son. The Claviers-Grandchamps will -die with me. I shall be the last of the name, as I am the last of the -race. It is what they would have wished, if they could have looked -ahead. Our house will end, as it has lived, nobly. By assisting therein, -you have wiped out the insult. For your sake, I can forgive.—We -must do our duty to the end," he added, at the conclusion of another -pause, during which Landri waited, hoping for a different word, a -gesture, an embrace, a kiss. But the old nobleman considered, doubtless, -that he had said too much already, and, too, he was doubtless afraid of -himself, of that wave of affection which was rushing from his heart, -drowning every other sentiment; for he concluded abruptly: "Go you to -your goal. I go to mine. Adieu!" -</p> -<p> -"Adieu," Landri replied. -</p> -<p> -The marquis hesitated another second. He had his hand on the door-knob. -He opened the door and disappeared, without even turning his head. He -walked with the inert step that had characterized him since the ghastly -discovery had stricken him in his magnificent vitality—his head bent -forward, his back slightly bowed. When he was in his library once more, -and alone, his prostration was so complete that he let himself drop into -the first arm-chair within his reach and sat there an indefinite time, -gazing at—what? a portrait of Landri as a child that he had had in -that room for years. All that past of paternal love throbbed in his heart, -and he reflected that at that very moment the young man, who was the -object of his passionate affection, was preparing to go away, and -forever. -</p> -<p> -But when he roused himself from that savage immobility, it was not to -return to the apartment where Landri undoubtedly still was. No. He took -from the table once more the bulky volume in which he had written the -history of his family, and opened it at the genealogical tree. He had to -unfold the enormous sheet on which were inscribed more than four hundred -names. The first two, Geoffroy and Aude, had above them the date 1060. -The blue eyes of Geoffroy IX, of 1906, embraced with a burning glance -that table which was, as it were, the imaginary cemetery of all his -dead. When he closed the book, he was calm. His hand traced, this time -without a tremor, the lines of a note which evidently represented a -decisive episode in a fully matured resolution. For he read it twice -before sealing it and writing the address on the envelope. -</p> -<p> -"Is the automobile in the courtyard?" he asked Garnier, who appeared in -answer to another ring. "Let Auguste take this line to Monsieur le Comte -de Bressieux at once. If Monsieur de Bressieux is at home, let him bring -him back. If not, let him leave the note."—And, alone once more, -"If any one can resume the negotiations for the sale of the furniture of -Grandchamp with that Altona, he is the man," he said to himself. "Altona -will give four millions merely for the articles enumerated in Appendix -number 44. If I add all the rest, he will give five."—And he put -in order the papers on his desk, which were nothing less than a schedule -prepared by him of "the rest": plate, Dresden ware, weapons, books, -linen—in a word, all the furniture of the château.—"That -wretched money is to be returned. Suppose that, while I am waiting for -Bressieux, I write to Charlus to announce the marriage? Poor Marie! She -loved Landri. It's fortunate, however, that he did not love her as well. -I should have had to prevent their union. Should I have had the -strength? One has strength for anything when the honor of the name is at -stake. And all the great names stand together. The Claviers would not -have inflicted upon the Charluses, by my hand, the outrage of vitiating -their blood." -</p> -<p> -As the suddenly evoked vision of the treachery restored his energy, he -began the letter to Marie's father which should justify his quarrel with -his supposititious son, in the eyes of the world; and this new upheaval -of resentment neutralized for a moment his misery at that parting. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap10"></a></p> - -<h4>X -<br /><br /> -EPILOGUE -</h4> - -<p> -In the early days of March of this year, 1907, several of the guests who -had taken part, some months' before, in the last hunting dinner that the -châtelain of Grandchamp was destined ever to give, were assembled after -luncheon in one of the small salons of the hôtel Charlus. There were -Florimond de Charlus himself, and his daughter Marie, who had done the -honors of the repast, in the absence of her mother, who was perennially -ill, to the Sicards and Louis de Bressieux. With the coffee had appeared -little de Travers, the too intimate friend of little Madame de Sicard, -and the <i>alter ego</i> of her diminutive husband. You will remember the -wretched pun on the size and names of the members of this family of -three: "The Three Halves." -</p> -<p> -Elzéar de Travers, with his pink pug-nose, his pointed mustache, and -his great blue eyes on a level with his face, was a finished exemplar of -the peddler of scandal, who runs from club to club, from salon to salon, -with a "Have you heard the news?" ordinarily followed by the most -insignificant of tales. On the afternoon in question, he did not abandon -that habit. -</p> -<p> -"Guess whom I met last night, on his way to England, at the Gare du -Nord, where I went to escort Lady Semley, who told me to give you her -compliments?"—He turned to Simone de Sicard, who smiled at -him.—"Geoffroy de Claviers, who is going there to buy horses!" -</p> -<p> -"Doesn't he think himself sufficiently ruined, for Heaven's sake?" said -Sicard. "It seems that with the Jaubourg inheritance and the sale of the -pictures and furniture at Grandchamp, he still owes ten millions." -</p> -<p> -"You ought to know all about it, Monsieur de Bressieux," observed Marie -de Charlus insolently, addressing the fashionable broker, whom she hated -twice over. As a young woman of noble birth and very proud of her rank, -she was, despite her "modernism," in a constant state of irritation -against those of her own caste who fell away either socially or morally; -and then too everybody who was involved, closely or distantly, in -Landri's marriage to Madame Olier, was insufferable to her. Now there -was a rumor, partly justified indeed, that, but for the subtle mediation -of the Seigneur de la Rochebrocante, the Marquis de Claviers would have -been unable to turn over to his son his mother's fortune. With the -slanderous imagination of a rival, Marie believed that, if that payment -had been delayed, the scheming Madame Olier would certainly have -preferred to delay the ceremony until the final settlement of the -accounts. She said to herself that Landri's eyes would have been opened -by such base conduct, that the marriage would not have taken place—in -short, all the follies of frantic jealousy. Bressieux had to pay the -bill. -</p> -<p> -"I?" he replied, without irritation. He was not sensitive except when he -chose to be, and he was too dependent on the Charluses not to lower his -flag before the witty Marie. "It is true that I had the good fortune to -prevent poor Geoffroy from being robbed too outrageously in the sale of -the wonders of Grandchamp. Thanks to my advice, he got six millions in -all. Altona offered four, and he wanted to ask five. The tapestries alone -were worth eighteen hundred thousand francs.—This talk about ten -millions of debts is all fable. If you want my opinion, he is absolutely -free from debt, and has a good hundred thousand francs a year. Evidently -the blow was a hard one." -</p> -<p> -"It seems that Landri, by that woman's advice, demanded interest on -interest," said Madame de Sicard. -</p> -<p> -"I will never believe that of him," said Marie de Charlus hastily. "As -to her, it's true enough that she doesn't take very well. It's well -deserved. She'll have to work hard to get into society." -</p> -<p> -"And so she won't try," rejoined Bressieux. "Geoffroy told me that the -couple were going to settle in America." -</p> -<p> -"Aha! so Landri plays the <i>coup du 'ranch'</i> on us!" said little -Sicard. "We know all about that. You'll see them coming back within a -year, to Paris-les-Bains, where life is so happy, even under the -Republic. And he'll present his wife, and we shall receive her, and we -shall be jolly well in the right. Between ourselves, the excellent -Claviers has shown no common sense in this whole business. One can't -live in opposition to his time to that extent." -</p> -<p> -"Would you prefer that he should live in opposition to his name?" -interposed Charlus. To him, too, Landri's marriage had been an -over-bitter disappointment. "Upon my word!" he continued, "it's most -astonishing to me that Claviers' conduct, judicious and wise and -legitimate as it has been, should be criticized. And among ourselves! -But everything is going the same way, from great to small. Dine out, no -matter where: people to-day don't even know how to place their guests at -table. Claviers set a superb example." -</p> -<p> -"I agree with you," said Bressieux. "If we do not defend our names, what -shall we defend?"—Then, with his characteristic dissembled irony: -"Evidently Geoffroy is ruining the market. But don't be alarmed, Sicard. -The title-exchange isn't in danger of being closed yet—even under the -Republic, to adopt your expression." -</p> -<p> -"All the same," said Elzéar de Travers, coming to the rescue of -Simone's husband, "there's one pack of hounds less! And such a pack! How -it was kept up!" -</p> -<p> -"And what a table!" said Sicard. -</p> -<p> -"For my part," said Simone, "I am for the lovers. If I had been in -Monsieur de Claviers' place, I'd have scolded a little, on principle, -and then I'd have given one of those parties that he knew how to give." -</p> -<p> -"Look you, my dear," interposed Charlus angrily, "when I hear you and -Jean talk like this, I wonder whether we oughtn't to long for another -'93, to bring you all to a realizing sense of what you are and what you -should be." -</p> -<p> -"Oh!" laughed Madame de Sicard, "now you're just like my grandmother de -Prosny, who used to prophesy the guillotine every night." -</p> -<p> -"I know," Marie de Charlus broke in, "and you replied: 'You hope for the -staircase of the nobles, but you'll get the wall.'—Wall or staircase, -it's always blood that flows, and I agree with old Claviers, let us try -to see to it that it's pure blood; and his grandchildren's won't be -that. He did all he could to prevent it, and he did well. That's what I -call <i>chic</i> and not <i>chiqué</i>." -</p> -<p> -And upon this conclusion of the "emancipated <i>gratin</i>," the -conversation took another turn, Bressieux having asked Simone, with an air -of indifference, whether she had seen the new play at the Français, in -order not to prolong the discussion of such dangerous topics. They -talked in undertones of a proposed marriage between Sicard's brother and -a Demoiselle Mosé, and the satirical personage almost regretted having -yielded to the temptation to bury his poisonous fang in the self-esteem -of the happiest of the "Three Halves." The commission he had received in -the second Altona deal—two hundred thousand francs, for the Chaffins -who are in society are more expensive than the others—had put him on -his feet for some time. But who could say? The future Sicard-Mosé -ménage might need advice about furnishing their abode. And so he tried -to repair with the young wife the bad turn he had done himself with her -husband by his epigram. He tried without energy, however. Contradictory -as it may appear, Geoffroy de Claviers' misfortune saddened him, despite -the two hundred thousand francs so quickly earned. He had pocketed the -money, but had actually made Sieur Altona pay another million. Moreover, -as there was in him a man of race, compared with the dealer, he had -admired the demeanor of the châtelain of Grandchamp during a trial of -which he alone understood the hidden side. In fact it was Jean de -Sicard's little attack on the chivalrous marquis that had drawn his -<i>mot</i> from him; and while the salon discussed the actors on Rue -Richelieu, he was elsewhere in thought. -</p> -<p> -"Claviers in England?" he said to himself. "To buy horses? Nonsense! He -probably wanted to see Landri once more. How he loved him! No one will ever -make me believe that he was not told the truth by that Chaffin,—to -whom the infamous performance didn't bring luck, however, for Altona -tells me he has had a paralytic shock. It's another piece of luck for -me, that shock. The rascal would have claimed a percentage, on the -ground that he baited the hook!" -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p> -Observers of the type of Bressieux, those disguised tradesmen, who earn -their bread—or their luxuries—by studying the characters of -their dupes or their rivals, really do possess a second sight. At the very -moment when these comments, neither very intelligent nor very foolish, -very kindly or very unkindly, were being exchanged in the Charlus salon, -another scene was taking place many miles away; and that scene was the -veritable conclusion of this tale. -</p> -<p> -This dénouement had for its stage one of those spots where it seems -least likely that words of a certain sort can be spoken: a room in a -hotel at Liverpool, that city on the bank of the Mersey, the immense -mart of England's commerce, one of the extremities of a vast moving -street of steamships and sailing vessels, of which the other ends are -Boston and New York! City of docks and railway-stations, of smoke and -speed, panting with the travail of a world, with its irregular and -chaotic structures of brick and stone, built in haste, above which the -finest days spread only a mistily blue sky, dimmed by clouds of vapor. -</p> -<p> -It was such a veiled, uncertain sky that Landri and Valentine saw -through the bow-window of a small parlor in that hotel, at which they -had alighted the day before. They were awaiting the time to go on board -the boat that was to take them in six days to New York, whence they were -to journey, via Montreal, to Ottawa, to prepare for their permanent -establishment. Little Ludovic had insisted upon going with his tutor on -board the steamer, which the husband and wife—they had been married -ten days—could see at the dock, within a few rods of the hotel. The -huge vessel was called the Cambria, the Latin name of the principality of -Wales. She was of thirty-two thousand five hundred tons, with engines of -seventy thousand horse-power; seven hundred and eighty feet long and -eighty-eight feet beam. Her vast black hull towered above the gray water -of the river, swollen by the rising of the tide. A floating palace, -pierced by innumerable port-holes, and dominated by four huge -smoke-stacks, reared its white walls above the waterline. Locomotives -whistled. Tram-cars ran along their electric wires, with a snapping -noise. Between the hotel and the landing-stage were travellers going to -and fro, giving orders, looking after their trunks, or hailing porters. -</p> -<p> -Valentine had sent her maid on before, so that not even a package was -left in that empty parlor whose dark mahogany furniture emphasized its -depressing commonness. How far away they were, she from her homelike -little sanctuary on Rue Monsieur, he from the magnificence of Grandchamp -and Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré! That contrast was the anticipatory -reflection of the exile that Landri had desired and she had agreed to. -The melancholy aspect of their surroundings intensified the distress -with which the young man was weighed down. He was thinking of M. de -Claviers, and he said to his wife:— -</p> -<p> -"You see, he has not even given me a sign of life. If he had intended to -write he would have written to London. He knew my whole route, day by -day, hour by hour, but not a word, not a sign that he retains even a -little of the old affection!" -</p> -<p> -"He retains it all," Valentine replied. She had taken her husband's -hand, and pressed it gently, as if to make the compassion with which she -was overflowing pass into his heart to whom she had given her whole -life. She saw him bleeding from a deep, deep wound, even in his -happiness, and she loved him with a love that was the more profound and -passionate therefor. "There is still an hour and a half before we sail," -she added. "Let us wait." -</p> -<p> -"Wait?" rejoined Landri. "I have done nothing but that since that -horrible moment when he went out of the door without glancing at me, -without turning his head. I ought to have gone to his house and asked -for him, tried to see him." -</p> -<p> -"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed. "If only I didn't give you bad advice when I -advised you simply to write! I had such a strong belief that we should -let him return of his own motion! But I shall hope till the last second. -You'll get a letter, a message,—something." -</p> -<p> -They said no more, listening intently to the faintest sounds -on the staircase, echoing with the hurried footsteps of the guests -of the hotel, where people live after the fashion of a railway -station—between the swift ocean steamers like the Cambria, and the -boat-trains—"specials" as they are called in England—that run -constantly from Liverpool to London and from London to Liverpool. At -every such sound Landri had a convulsive shudder which Valentine soothed -with a warmer pressure. The steps did not stop at the door, and all the -visions of the past two months rushed back into Landri's mind, to -increase twofold the craving for another farewell from him whom, in his -thoughts, he still called his father. -</p> -<p> -He saw himself once more, leaving the mansion on Rue de -Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, after their last, distressing interview, and his -quest of a furnished apartment in which to take up his abode for a few -weeks. He lived through the days which had followed, when he was -arranging the preliminaries of his marriage and his departure, avoiding -familiar streets and faces. Several episodes stood out more clearly than -the rest: visits to Métivier, one especially, when the notary, gazing -at him with such inquisitive eyes, despite professional discretion, had -spoken of the sale at Grandchamp—of a chance meeting with Pierre -Chaffin, who had turned his face away, an innocent victim of his -father's shame;—another with Altona, when the future baron had -saluted him with a familiar, almost patronizing, <i>coup de chapeau</i>, -as from one gentleman to another! -</p> -<p> -He saw himself receiving an envelope directed in the marquis's -well-known hand, which contained a receipt for nearly three million -francs deposited to his account in the Bank of France. It was Jaubourg's -fortune. And he felt again the beating of the heart that he had had -when, after much reflection, he went to a priest at the church of -Saint-François Xavier, who was Madame Olier's confessor. What a -contrast to the morning when, jumping from his automobile, he ascended -the steps of the same church, to throw the chauffeur off the scent! He -entered the church on this second occasion, beset by more serious -anxieties than that of assuring the secrecy of his visits to Rue -Monsieur! He had gone thither to request the priest to be his -intermediary in an anonymous gift of that money to the "Society for the -Relief of Soldiers Wounded in the Armies of Sea and Shore." How proud he -had been and how hopeful, when, a week later, that difficult project -once realized, he had been able to send with his own hand to M. de -Claviers, in a letter, the documents which attested that investment! -This "French Red Cross" was still the army. How sad he had been when the -marquis did not reply! -</p> -<p> -Nor had he replied to a second letter, in which Landri informed him of -his wedding and the date of his sailing. And the young man saw himself, -too, in one of the chapels of the same church of Saint-François, -kneeling before the altar with Madame Olier, in the presence of no -others than his wife's two witnesses, relations from the provinces, and -his own two, Captain Despois and Lieutenant Vigouroux. Last of all, he -saw himself writing to the Marquis de Claviers a last letter, in which -he set down the details of his journey: the date of his arrival at -London, the length of his stay and the address of his hotel; the date of -his arrival at Liverpool and the address of his hotel there, and the day -and hour of sailing; and he told him also the name he had chosen among -the ancient patronymics of the Candales—Saint-Marc. -</p> -<p> -When he signed "M. and Mme. de Saint-Marc" on the hotel register at -London, for the first time, what a strange emotion had assailed him, -made up of relief and of sorrow together! And he had said to himself, -possessed still by the persistent image of the man whose son he had for -so many years believed himself to be: "The word of farewell that he -denied to Landri de Claviers, who was not a Claviers, he will not deny -to Landri de Saint-Marc, who, through his mother, is a genuine -Saint-Marc." -</p> -<p> -Vain reasoning! That supreme sacrifice had not triumphed over inexpiable -resentment. And in the excess of suffering caused by that silence, now -evidently final, Landri looked at Valentine, who was looking at him. In -her travelling costume she was very slender and youthful. Her fathomless -eyes expressed such boundless devotion! Her fragile grace seemed to -appeal so for protection! And, drawing her to him, he held her long in a -close embrace, with the sensation that he could still live, for her and -through her. -</p> -<p> -Strange mystery of memory! While his lips were pressed upon his dear -wife's, he remembered M. de Clavier's remarks concerning those exiles -who leave their city, "carrying their gods with them." In his -imagination he heard the "Émigré's" loud, clear voice saying those -words in his room at Saint-Mihiel.—Suddenly—was it an -illusion?—he thought that he heard that voice, in very truth, -speaking in the corridor. -</p> -<p> -"Listen!" he said, grasping Valentine's arm. "Some one is coming. Why, -it's he!" -</p> -<p> -"It is he!" she repeated, turning pale; and, as some one knocked at the -door, "I will leave you alone. It's better so." And, on the threshold of -the adjoining room, she turned, with her hand on her heart, to repress -its throbbing: "I told you to hope." -</p> -<p> -She had hardly left the room when the door opened and, behind the -bell-boy, appeared the form of the Marquis de Claviers. Aged even more -in the last two months, his face more haggard and more hollow, he was -more than ever the Seigneur, the man of lofty lineage, who, wherever he -goes, is a Master. He was profoundly moved at that moment, when he was -taking a step so directly contrary, it seemed, to his recent attitude; -but he found a way to maintain, in his whole person, that species of -haughty bonhomie which was characteristic of him. He saw Landri, and -simply, without a word, held out his arms. The young man responded to -that gesture, which betrayed such deep affection, and they embraced, as -if they were still in those days when, as they rode together through the -forest of Hez, they believed themselves of the same blood, offshoots of -the same trunk, a father and son who might differ in ideas, but who were -bound together by a chain as indissoluble as their own persons. A father -and son! They had not ceased to be so in heart, and in that moment of -passionate impulse, after they had forbidden themselves to show their -affection during so many days, they listened to naught save that heart. -</p> -<p> -"Ah!" said M. de Claviers, "you have not gone! I have come in -time!—No. I could not let you go away so. I could not. I wrote -you. I prepared a despatch. I sent neither. It was the sight of you that -I craved—to hear your voice, to speak to you once more. I resisted -up to the last moment. I knew that it would cost me so dear to lose you -again! And then, when I saw the hour for the last train for England draw -near, after which it would be too late, I held out no longer. I went to -your hotel in London, thinking that you might have postponed your -departure.—However, here I am and here you are. You have behaved -so admirably! That very last act, too—your refusal to keep that -money! I shall at least have told you again that I thank you. I shall -have told you that I have never ceased to love you." -</p> -<p> -"I am the one who has to thank you," replied Landri, "for understanding -the appeal of my letters. It is true: to go so far away without seeing -you again was very hard. I would have endured that grief, like the -others, without rebelling. But I think that I did not deserve it. I, -too, have always loved you so dearly, revered you so—" -</p> -<p> -"You deserved no grief at all," the marquis hastily interrupted. Then, -dropping into a chair, and in an attitude of utter dejection, "none at -all," he repeated, "and you were justified in thinking me terribly -cruel." -</p> -<p> -"Cruel?" cried the young man. "Don't say that. Don't think it." -</p> -<p> -"I do think it," M. de Claviers replied. "I felt that you were -wretchedly unhappy when we parted. You stood there, I saw, loving me -with all your heart, awaiting a word from me. I did not say it, because -I too loved you too well. If I had spoken to you then, I should not have -had the strength to go on to the end of what I had to do. That money -must be repaid. I must sell the treasures of Grandchamp. I must place an -indestructible barrier between you and myself, in the eyes of the world, -so that it might suspect nothing. I was obliged to stifle that paternal -feeling which I could not succeed in destroying. But it was I who formed -your character! If I had not been the heir of the Claviers-Grandchamps, -the depositary of the name, the representative of the race, I should -have held my peace for love of you when I received that anonymous -letter. If I alone had been involved, I would have swallowed the insult. -You would never have known what I knew. Because of them, in the interest -of their house, I had to act as I did. But I was able to measure your -grief by my own. And I had my dead to encourage me, while you—" -</p> -<p> -"I had you," interrupted Landri. "I had your example. You say that you -formed my character. That is much truer than you have any idea; and I -myself did not know myself, did not understand to what degree I thought -as you think concerning matters of moment, until I was taught by this -sorrow. You remember that, in that conversation after the hunt, the last -afternoon of intimacy that we ever had, you spoke of the indestructible -connections, the unbreakable tie between ourselves and those from whom -we descend. And I argued with you. I maintained the right of the -individual to live his own life, to seek his own happiness. The instant -that I learned the secret of my birth, I realized how entirely in the -right you were in that discussion. Your right to demand satisfaction -from me, although I was not personally culpable, appeared to me so -clearly established! And so of my duty to give you that satisfaction, -entire, complete. I felt that the very quintessence of man is in this -solidarity between the present and a past which was his before he -himself existed. I realized all that nobility meant. All your ideas, -against which I had fought so long, revealed themselves to me in their -living truth. I made them my guide in the conduct which you are kind -enough to approve. When you said to me, 'For your sake I can forgive,' -what a healing balm you poured into my heart, and upon what an aching -wound! Even in my misery, I felt a peace of mind which has not abandoned -me. That is what has upheld me." -</p> -<p> -"Ah, my child!" returned the marquis. "Yes, I can call you my child! You -talk of balm poured upon wounds, but who, pray, allayed the pain of my -wound a little, if not you? Your thoughts, your resolutions, your -actions—I have loved everything that came from you, and everything -has helped to prove to me that this at least had not been -wasted—my efforts during so many years, to inculcate my opinions -in you, to make you a man. Ah! I too have learned many things through -this suffering. You say that you fought a long while against my ideas. -That was because, in prosperity, they were mixed up with too many other -things. Yes, I yielded to too many temptations. I was too proud of my -name, and too fond of life. You might well have thought that there was -more pride than reflection, more emotion than reason in the principles -whose real force you discovered when the test came. I did not derive -from them, when I was fortunate, all that I should have done. In the -rank in which Providence had placed me, I did not see clearly enough the -good that one might do. Because of that I deserved to be punished, and, -no doubt, my dear ones through me. In a race which has endured for -centuries, many secret sins must have been committed, which demand -expiation. I interpreted this terrible misfortune in that sense. I -accepted it and offered it to God; and, as I told you, I forgave. And -now," in a tone of infinite melancholy, "I must offer Him my solitary -old age.—How solitary it will be without you! Without you!" he -repeated; and, with more and more emotion, "and yet, if we -chose!—You spoke the other day of my adopting a son. There have -been families on the point of becoming extinct that have prolonged their -existence in that way!—I am dreaming.—Suppose I should adopt -you? Then you would not leave me. The world, having known nothing of -what has happened, would not know of the secret compact between us. -People would say: 'Claviers is crazy. It wasn't worth while to make such -an outcry, only to give way finally.'—What do I care? I should -have you. You would close my eyes." -</p> -<p> -"No," the young man replied with extraordinary decision, "it is -impossible. One adopts a stranger, a kinsman, but not one like me." -Lowering his eyes, the child of sin repeated: "Not one like me! At this -moment it is your affection that is stirring and that speaks, not your -mind. These are not your—I make bold to say, -our—convictions. To-day I represent to you some one who is dear to -you, and whom you are about to lose. To-morrow, day after to-morrow, if -we should be so weak, the thing that I should soon come to represent to -you again, would horrify you, and me as well. I cannot consent. That -name to which I have no right, and which I bore so long, that stolen -name, I will not take again, not even from your hands." And, -sorrowfully, he added: "Besides, even if I had a right to it, I could -not bear to live in France, now that I have left the service. You say -that you did not see clearly enough the good that one in your station -might do. The real truth is that, because of that very station, you are -condemned to inaction. But when you were of my age, could a Claviers -hope to see a government established in France in which he could find -employment? Such an expectation to-day would be insane. And I need to be -doing something. I long to work, to exert my faculties. Where I am -going, in that new country, I shall begin my life anew, I shall found a -family, without having to undergo the social ostracism which seemed so -cruel to me when I believed myself to be what I was not. That again -would prevent me from accepting, even if there were not that falsehood, -which you would never be able to endure. I appeal to you yourself, to -the head of the family, whom I have always known as so unyielding, so -irreconcilable, so hostile to any compromise." -</p> -<p> -"You are right," said M. de Claviers in a broken voice. "The Spirit is -strong and the Heart is weak! Let us say adieu then, Landri. If I miss -you too much, and if I live, nothing will prevent my joining you, -wherever you may be. And if I do not live!" He shook his aged head with -an air of supreme weariness. Then, as firmly as the other had spoken a -moment earlier: "Yes, I must learn to consider myself the last of the -line, to close the list worthily. You are right," he repeated, "too -wofully right! I shall have worn out my life in one long expectation, -always unfulfilled: the King come again, the Revolution driven out, our -houses restored, the Church triumphant, France regenerated, and resuming -her place in Europe, with her traditions and her natural -frontiers—what empty dreams! And nothing has happened, nothing, -nothing, nothing! I shall have been one of the vanquished. I shall have -defended naught but tombs. You told me so, justly enough; and, to end it -all, this tragedy in which my last hope is wrecked!—No, I cannot -adopt you—that is true. The Claviers-Grandchamps will die with me, -and it is better so. They will die as all the great families of France -are dying, one after another. We are passing away, like the old monarchy -that made us and that we made. But there will be no stain on the shield. -I shall know how to make a fitting end.—And now," he added after a -pause, in the tone of one who has made up his mind, manfully, and will -lament no more, "let us part. At what time does your boat sail?" -</p> -<p> -"At half-past four," said Landri. -</p> -<p> -"It is nearly four," exclaimed the marquis. "You must go aboard. Adieu!" -</p> -<p> -He took the young man in his arms again and pressed him to his heart -with extraordinary force, but without a tear. Then, he seemed to -hesitate a second. An indescribable light of affection shone in his -eyes, and he said, almost in a whisper:— -</p> -<p> -"I should not like to go away without seeing your wife." -</p> -<p> -"I will go and call her," said Valentine's husband, likewise almost in a -whisper, so profoundly moved was he by that last proof of an affection -which he thought that he had lost forever. To measure its depth, was to -measure the depth of the abyss of bitter sorrow into which that man had -descended, and where he was preparing to make a fitting end, as he had -said with sublime simplicity. -</p> -<p> -When Landri reappeared, holding his young wife's hand, he was actually -unable to utter a word of introduction. She was very pale, very -tremulous, and with her noble, straightforward glance, as if to say, -"Read my heart," she looked at the <i>grand seigneur</i>, who was unknown -to her even in his physical aspect, but whose whole soul she knew. He gazed -at her for some moments, likewise without speaking. How could he not -feel the charm of that delicate, proud creature, whose every feature, -every movement, every breath revealed a nature ardent and refined, -loving and pure? And how could he not feel, in her presence, a reopening -of the secret, incurable wound? How could he not compare her with -another? But no. Those eyes could not lie. The graceful, trembling -woman, whose blue eyes were raised to his with such fervor and purity, -would be to him who had chosen her the faithful companion, the friend of -every hour, she who divines and soothes all cares, who supports every -noble effort. He could let Landri go away with her, without any -apprehension. She would know how to assist him in the heroic rebuilding -of a home, amid such a mass of ruins, which he was about to attempt! -Such was the thought that the old man expressed aloud, incapable at that -solemn moment of uttering conventional phrases, and obliged to refrain -from uttering others which would have been too true. -</p> -<p> -"I was most anxious to salute you, madame, before you sailed. The past -is past. I see in you now only the wife of the man whom I love best on -earth. I desired to know to what sort of hands he had entrusted his -happiness. I know now, and it is a great joy to me, the last of my life. -I owe it to you." -</p> -<p> -"And I, monsieur," said Valentine, "shall never forget this moment. We -should have missed your blessing too sadly! You bring it to us. That too -is a very great joy, and one which I needed, as Landri did." -</p> -<p> -She had taken the marquis's hand in hers, and, with filial respect, was -about to put it to her lips. He drew her to him and kissed her on the -forehead—a kiss of respect, of affection, of blessing, as she had -said. He gave a last glance at Landri, a friendly wave of the hand, and -left the room, where the young people remained, side by side, stirred to -the lowest depths of their being by all that there was of human suffering -and loftiness of soul in that despairing but uncomplaining adieu. -</p> -<p> -"What a great thing is a great heart!" said Valentine at last. -</p> -<p> -"You understand now how hard it was for me to contend against his -influence in the old days, don't you?" said Landri. "And to think that I -shall never see him again on earth, perhaps!" -</p> -<p> -"He'll be there to see you off," she replied. -</p> -<p> -Three quarters of an hour later, in fact, when the Cambria began to -move, and as Valentine and Landri, leaning on the rail near the stern, -were watching the crowd on the pier, already some distance away, of -those who had come to take leave of the passengers, they espied at the -end of the pier a man standing apart from the rest, with his face turned -towards them, and in that haughty countenance they recognized the -marquis. He had stationed himself there to obtain a last glimpse of -Landri, and to be seen by him. At that distance, and in the misty -twilight, it was impossible to distinguish his features. The sea breeze -blew his dark cloak about him as he stood there motionless, in an almost -superhuman immobility; and although Valentine was by his side, -breathing, living, loving, Landri felt the chill of death creep into his -heart at the sight. The last of the Claviers-Grandchamps, standing there -on English soil, alone, on that foggy evening, watching all that he had -loved and had sacrificed to the honor of his name sail away into the -darkness, was in very truth the "Émigré," he who is not of his country -or of his epoch. The private drama, of which this station of the old -French gentleman on the planks of the Liverpool pier, was the crowning -episode, expanded into a broader and more pathetic symbolism. Behind -that living phantom arose the phantoms of all his ancestors. That heir -of a long line of nobles, whose race would die out with him, became for -a moment, in Landri's eyes, the incarnation of all the melancholy of a -vanquished caste. And what was he himself but another "Émigré"? Was -not he about to try to reconstruct, beyond the sea, an existence which, -with his fortune and with the name which the law recognized as his, he -should have passed upon his native soil peacefully and happily? He had -sacrificed that destiny, so enviable in the eyes of many people,—to -what? To a principle. It was to uphold that principle that he was -leaving his fatherland, ceasing to bear a name which was not his, and at -the same time to safeguard his mother's memory. Another remark made by -M. de Claviers in their discussion at Saint-Mihiel, after his refusal to -assist in taking the inventory, came to his mind: "One must sometimes -lay down one's life in order to keep intact the germ of the future!" -Landri realized all its force, and what a store-house of honor is -represented by a genuine aristocrat like him whose form was becoming -more and more indistinct in the distance. -</p> -<p> -Bringing his mind back to his country, he reflected with much sadness -that France no longer employs those exemplars of an unchanging and -superior type. She paralyzes them by persecution. She degrades them by -idleness. She ruins them by her laws concerning inheritance. All her -efforts are directed toward destroying the conditions in which others -might grow great. -</p> -<p> -The Cambria was about to leave the Mersey. The great swell of the -Channel rose and fell about the steamship's mighty hull. The Channel -lights pierced the thickening mist with a duller gleam. Around the exile -voices arose in a strange tongue, that of the rivals of centuries, who -have been wise enough to retain all of the past, the better to control -the present; and the ex-lieutenant mingled pity for that France which he -should never again make his home, perhaps, with pity for the old -nobleman for whom he should never cease to feel the affection of a son; -and he strained his eyes in a vain effort to see once more, across the -space that lay between them, the haughty and motionless figure that had -disappeared in the darkness—doubtless forever! -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>THE END.</h4> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEIGHT OF THE NAME ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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