The Nabob Volume Ii Part 8

Silent embraces, long searching glances, melting or pa.s.sionate, blissful moments which one would like to detain forever by the tips of their fragile wings! They talk, they laugh softly as they recall certain incidents. M. Joyeuse tells how the secret was revealed to him at first by rapping spirits, one day when he was alone in Andre's room. "How is business, Monsieur Maranne?" the spirits inquired, and he answered in Maranne's absence: "Not so bad for the season, Messieurs Spirits." You should see the mischievous air with which the little man repeats: "Not so bad for the season," while Mademoiselle elise, sadly confused at the thought that it was her father with whom she was corresponding that day, disappears beneath her flaxen curls.

After the first excitement has pa.s.sed and their voices are steady once more, they talk more seriously. It is certain that Madame Joyeuse, _nee_ de Saint-Amand, would never have consented to the marriage. Andre Maranne is not rich, far less of n.o.ble blood; but luckily the old book-keeper has not the same ideas of grandeur that his wife had. They love each other, they are young, healthy and virtuous, qualities which const.i.tute a handsome dowry and one which the notary will not make a heavy charge for recording. The new household will take up its abode on the floor above. They will continue the photographing business unless the receipts from _Revolte_ are enormous. (The _Imaginaire_ can be trusted to attend to that.) In any event, the father will be always at hand, he has a good place with his broker and some expert work at the Palais de Justice; if the small vessel sails always in the wake of the larger one, all will go well, with the help of the waves, the wind and the stars.

A single question disturbs M. Joyeuse: "Will Andre's parents consent to this marriage? How can Dr. Jenkins, rich and famous as he is--"

"Let us not speak of that man," exclaims Andre, turning pale; "he's a miserable villain to whom I owe nothing, who is nothing to me."

He pauses, a little embarra.s.sed by this explosion of wrath, which he could not hold back and cannot explain, and continues in a milder tone:

"My mother, who comes to see me sometimes, although she has been forbidden to do so, was the first to be informed of our plans. She already loves Mademoiselle elise like her own daughter. You will see, Mademoiselle, how good she is, and how lovely and charming. What a misfortune that she belongs to such a vile man, who tyrannizes over her and tortures her so far as to forbid her mentioning her son's name!"

Poor Maranne heaves a sigh which tells the whole story of the great sorrow he conceals in the depths of his heart. But what melancholy can endure before the dear face illumined by fair curls and the radiant outlook for the future? The serious questions decided, they can open the door and recall the banished children. In order not to fill those little heads with thoughts beyond their years, they have agreed to say nothing of the prodigious event, to tell them nothing except that they must dress in haste and eat their breakfast even more hurriedly, so that they can pa.s.s the afternoon at the Bois, where Maranne will read his play to them, awaiting the hour to go to Suresnes for a fish-dinner at Kontzen's; a long programme of delights in honor of the acceptance of _Revolte_ and of another piece of good news which they shall know later.

"Ah! indeed. What can it be?" query the two children with an innocent air.

But if you fancy that they do not know what is in the wind, if you think that, when Mademoiselle elise struck three blows on the ceiling, they believed that she did it for the special purpose of inquiring about the photographing business, you are even more ingenuous than Pere Joyeuse.

"Never mind, never mind, mesdemoiselles. Go and dress."

Thereupon another refrain begins:

"What dress must I wear, Grandmamma? The gray?"

"Grandmamma, there's a ribbon gone from my hat."

"Grandmamma, my child, I haven't any starched cravat."

For ten minutes there is a constant going and coming around the charming Grandmamma, constant appeals to her. Every one needs her, she keeps the keys to everything, distributes the pretty, finely fluted white linen, the embroidered handkerchiefs, the best gloves, all the treasures which, when produced from bandboxes and cupboards and laid out upon the beds, spread throughout a house the suns.h.i.+ny cheerfulness of Sunday.

The laboring men, the people who work with their hands, alone know the joy that comes with the end of each week, consecrated by the custom of a nation. For those people, prisoners throughout the week, the crowded lines of the almanac open at equal intervals in luminous s.p.a.ces, in refres.h.i.+ng whiffs of air. Sunday, the day that seems so long to worldly people, to the Parisians of the boulevard, whose fixed habits it deranges, and so melancholy to exiles without a family, is the day which const.i.tutes to a mult.i.tude of people the only recompense, the only goal of six days of toil. Neither rain nor hail makes any difference to them; nothing will prevent them from going out, from closing the door of the deserted workshop or the stuffy little lodging behind them. But when the springtime takes a hand, when a May sun is s.h.i.+ning as it is s.h.i.+ning this morning and Sunday can array itself in joyous colors, then indeed it is the holiday of holidays.

If you would appreciate it to the full, you must see it in the laboring quarters, in those dismal streets which it illumines, which it makes broader by closing the shops, housing the great vans, leaving the s.p.a.ce free for the romping of children with clean faces and in their best clothes, and games of battledore mingled with circling flocks of swallows under some porch in old Paris. You must see it in the swarming, fever-stricken faubourgs where from early morning you feel it hovering, soothing and grateful, over the silent factories, pa.s.sing with the clang of bells and the shrill whistle of the locomotives, which give the impression of a mighty hymn of departure and deliverance arising from all the suburbs. Then you appreciate it and love it.

O thou Parisian Sunday, Sunday of the working man and the humble, I have often cursed thee without reason, I have poured out floods of abusive ink upon thy noisy, effervescent joy, the dusty railway stations filled with thy uproar, and the lumbering omnibuses which thou takest by a.s.sault, upon thy wine-shop ballads roared forth in spring-carts bedecked with green and pink dresses, thy barrel-organs wheezing under balconies in deserted court-yards; but to-day, renouncing my errors, I exalt thee and bless thee for all the joy and relief thou bringest to courageous, honorable toil, for the laughter of the children who acclaim thee, for the pride of happy mothers dressing their little ones in thy honor, for the dignity which thou dost keep alive in the dwellings of the lowliest, for the gorgeous apparel put aside for thee in the depths of the old crippled wardrobe; above all I bless thee for all the happiness which thou didst bring in full measure that morning to the great new house on the outskirts of the old faubourg.

The toilets completed, the breakfast hastily swallowed,[3] they are putting on their hats in front of the mirror in the salon. Grandmamma is casting her eye around for the last time, sticking in a pin here, retying a ribbon there, adjusting the paternal cravat; but, while all the little party are pawing the floor impatiently, beckoned out of doors by the beauty of the day, suddenly their gayety is clouded by a ring at the door-bell.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] There is in the text at this point a play upon words which it is impossible to render in English. "Les toilettes terminees, le dejeuner fini, pris sur le pouce--et sur le pouce de ces demoiselles vous pensez ce qu'il peut tenir," etc., that is to say: "the breakfast at an end, taken upon the thumb--and you can imagine how much the thumbs of those young ladies would hold." To eat _sur le pouce_ (eat upon the thumb) means to eat hastily, without taking time to sit down.

"Suppose we don't go to the door?" the children suggest.

And what relief, what a shout of joy when friend Paul appears!

"Come quick, quick; let us tell you the good news!"

He knew before anybody else that the play was accepted. He had had difficulty enough in making Cardailhac read it, for at the first sight of the "little lines," as he called the verses, he wanted to send the ma.n.u.script to the Levantine and her _ma.s.seur_, as he did with all the rubbish that was sent to him. But Paul was careful not to speak of his intervention. As for the other great event, which was not mentioned because of the children, he guessed it without difficulty from the tremulous happiness of Maranne, whose fair hair stood straight on end over his forehead,--because the poet constantly thrust both hands through it, as he always did in his moments of joy,--from the slightly embarra.s.sed demeanor of elise, and from the triumphant airs of M.

Joyeuse, who stood proudly erect in his spotless linen, with all the happiness of his dear ones written on his face.

Grandmamma alone preserved her usual tranquil bearing; but one detected in her, in the zeal with which she waited upon her sister, a more affectionate warmth than usual, a wish to make her attractive. And it was delightful to see that girl of twenty intent upon beautifying another, without envy or regret, with something of the sweet renunciation of a mother celebrating her daughter's young love in memory of her own bygone happiness. Paul saw it, indeed he was the only one who saw it; but, while he gazed in admiration at Aline, he asked himself sadly if there would ever be room in that motherly heart for other than family attachments, for interests outside of the tranquil circle of light in which Grandmamma presided so prettily over the work-table in the evening.

Love, as we know, is a poor blind boy, bereft of speech and hearing as well, and with no other guide than prescience, divination, the nervous faculties of the invalid. Really, it is pitiful to see him wander about, feeling his way, faltering at every step, tapping with his fingers the projections upon which he depends for guidance, with the distrustful awkwardness of an infirm old man. At the very moment when he was mentally casting a doubt upon Aline's susceptibility, Paul, having informed his friends that he was about to leave Paris for a journey of several days, of several weeks perhaps, did not notice the girl's sudden pallor, did not hear the sorrowful exclamation from her discreet lips:

"You are going away?"

He was going away, he was going to Tunis, very uneasy at the idea of leaving his poor Nabob in the midst of his bloodthirsty pack of pursuers; however, Mora's friends.h.i.+p rea.s.sured him somewhat, and, moreover, the journey was absolutely necessary.

"And what about the _Territoriale_?" asked the old book-keeper, always recurring to his fixed idea. "How does that stand? I see that Jansoulet's name is still at the head of the administrative council.

Can't you get him out of that Ali Baba's cave? Beware, beware!"

"Ah! I know it, Monsieur Joyeuse. But in order to get out of it with honor, we must have money, much money, must sacrifice two or three millions more; and we haven't them. That is why I am going to Tunis, to try and extort from the bey's rapacity a small portion of the great fortune which he so unjustly withholds. At this moment I have some chance of success, whereas a little later perhaps--"

"Go at once then, my dear boy, and if you return with a bag full of money as I trust you will, attend first of all to the Paganetti gang.

Remember that one shareholder less patient than the rest will be enough to blow the whole thing into the air, to demand an inquiry; and you know as well as I what an inquiry would disclose. On reflection," added M.

Joyeuse, wrinkling his brow, "I am surprised that Hemerlingue in his hatred of you has not secretly procured a few shares--"

He was interrupted by the concert of maledictions, of imprecations which the name of Hemerlingue always called forth from all those young people, who hated the corpulent banker for the injury he had done their father and for the injury he wished to do the worthy Nabob, who was adored in that household for Paul de Gery's sake.

"Hemerlingue, the heartless creature! Villain! Wicked man!"

But, amid that chorus of outcries, the _Imaginaire_ worked out his theory of the stout baron becoming a shareholder in the _Territoriale_ in order to drag his enemy before the courts. And we can imagine Andre Maranne's stupefaction, knowing absolutely nothing of the affair, when he saw M. Joyeuse turn toward him, his face purple and swollen with rage, and point his finger at him with these terrible words:

"The greatest rascal here is yourself, monsieur!"

"O papa, papa! what are you saying?"

"Eh? What's that?--Oh! I beg your pardon, my dear Andre. I imagined that I was in the examining magistrate's office, confronting that villain. It's my infernal brain that is forever rus.h.i.+ng off to the devil."

A roar of laughter rang out through all the open windows, mingling with the rumbling of innumerable carriages and the chatter of gayly-dressed crowds on Avenue des Ternes; and the author of _Revolte_ took advantage of the diversion to inquire if they did not propose to start soon. It was late--the good places in the Bois would all be taken.

"The Bois de Boulogne, on Sunday!" exclaimed Paul de Gery.

"Oh! our Bois is not the same as yours," replied Aline with a smile.

"Come with us, and you will see."

Has it ever happened to you, when you were walking alone and in contemplative mood, to lie flat on your face in the gra.s.sy underbrush of a forest, amid the peculiar vegetation, of many and varying species, that grows between the fallen autumn leaves, and to let your eyes stray along the level of the earth before you? Gradually the idea of height vanishes, the interlaced branches of the oaks above your head form an inaccessible sky, and you see a new forest stretching out beneath the other, opening its long avenues pierced by a mysterious green light and lined by slender or tufted shrubs ending in round tops of exotic or wild aspect, stalks of sugar-cane, the graceful rigidity of palms, slender cups holding a drop of water, girandoles bearing little yellow lights which flicker in the pa.s.sing breeze. And the miraculous feature of it all is that beneath those slender stalks live miniature plants and myriads of insects whose existence, seen at such close quarters, reveals all its mysteries to you. An ant, staggering like a woodcutter under his burden, drags a piece of bark larger than himself; a beetle crawls along a blade of gra.s.s stretched like a bridge from trunk to trunk; while, beneath a tall fern standing by itself in a clearing carpeted with velvety moss, some little blue or red creature waits, its antennae on the alert, until some other beast, on its way thither by some deserted path, arrives at the rendezvous under the gigantic tree. It is a small forest beneath the large one, too near the ground for the latter to perceive it, too humble, too securely hidden to be reached by its grand orchestra of songs and tempests.

A similar phenomenon takes place in the Bois de Boulogne. Behind those neat, well-watered gravelled paths, where long lines of wheels moving slowly around the lake draw a furrow by constant wear throughout the day, with the precision of a machine, behind that wonderful stage-setting of verdure-covered walls, of captive streams, of flower-girt rocks, the real forest, the wild forest, with its luxuriant underbrush, advances and recedes, forming impenetrable shadows traversed by narrow paths and rippling brooks. That is the forest of the lowly, the forest of the humble, the little forest under the great. And Paul, who knew nothing of the aristocratic resort save the long avenues, the gleaming lake as seen from the back seat of a carriage or from the top of a break in the dust of a return from Longchamps, was amazed to see the deliciously secluded nook to which his friends escorted him.

It was on the edge of a pond that lay mirrorlike beneath the willows, covered with lilies and lentils, with great patches of white here and there, where the sun's rays fell upon the gleaming surface, and streaked with great tendrils of _argyronetes_ as with lines drawn by diamond points.

They had seated themselves, to listen to the reading of the play, on the sloping bank, covered with verdure already dense, although made up of slender plants, and the pretty attentive faces, the skirts spread out upon the gra.s.s made one think of a more innocent and chaste Decameron in a reposeful atmosphere. To complete the picture of nature at its loveliest, the distant rustic landscape, two windmills could be seen through an opening between the branches, turning in the direction of Suresnes, while, of the dazzling gorgeous vision to be seen at every cross-road in the Bois, naught reached them save a confused endless rumbling, to which they finally became so accustomed that they did not hear it at all. The poet's voice alone, fresh and eloquent, rose in the silence, the lines came quivering forth, repeated in undertones by other deeply-moved lips, and there were murmured words of approval, and thrills of emotion at the tragic pa.s.sages. Grandmamma, indeed, was seen to wipe away a great tear. But that was because she had no embroidery in her hand.