The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2)

A >> Alphonse Daudet >> The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2)

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And here he is.

He alights with Jenkins and Jansoulet from a magnificent carriage with
the Nabob's red and gold livery. Feigning the utmost astonishment,
Pondevez rushes forward to meet his visitors.

"Ah! Monsieur Jenkins, what an honor! What a surprise!"

Salutations are exchanged on the stoop, reverences, handshakings,
introductions. Jenkins, his coat thrown back from his loyal breast,
indulges in his heartiest, most engaging smile; but a meaning furrow
lies across his brow. He is anxious concerning the surprises that the
establishment may have in store, for he knows its demoralized
condition. If only Pondevez has taken proper precautions! It begins
well, however. The somewhat theatrical aspect of the approach to the
house, the white fleeces gambolling among the shrubbery, have enchanted
M. de La Perriere, who, with his innocent eyes, his straggling white
beard and the constant nodding of his head, is not himself unlike a
goat escaped from its tether.

"First of all, messieurs, the most important room in the house, the
Nursery," says the manager, opening a massive door at the end of the
reception-room. The gentlemen follow him, descend a few steps and find
themselves in an enormous basement room, with tiled floor, formerly the
kitchen of the chateau. The thing that impresses one on entering is a
huge, high fireplace of the old pattern, in red brick, with two stone
benches facing each other under the mantel, and the singer's crest--an
immense lyre with a roll of music--carved on the monumental pediment.
The effect was striking; but there came from it a terrible blast of
air, which, added to the cold of the floor, to the pale light falling
through the windows on a level with the ground, made one shudder for
the well-being of the children. What would you have? They were obliged
to use that unhealthy apartment for the Nursery because of the
capricious, country-bred nurses who were accustomed to the
unconstrained manners of the stable; one had only to see the pools of
milk, the great reddish spots drying on the floor, to inhale the acrid
odor that assailed your nostrils as you entered, mingled with whey and
moist hair and many other things, to be convinced of that absolute
necessity.

The dark walls of the room were so high that at first the visitors
thought that the Nursery was deserted. They distinguished, however, at
the farther end, a bleating, whining, restless group. Two countrywomen,
with surly, brutish, dirty faces, two "dry-nurses," who well deserved
their name, were sitting on mats with their nurslings in their arms,
each having a large goat before her, with legs apart and distended
udders. The manager seemed to be agreeably surprised:

"On my word, messieurs, this is a lucky chance. Two of our children are
having a little lunch. We will see how nurses and nurslings agree."

"What's the matter with the man? He is mad," said Jenkins to himself,
in dire dismay.

But the manager was very clear-headed, on the contrary, and had himself
shrewdly arranged the scene, selecting two patient, good-natured
beasts, and two exceptional subjects, two little idiots who were
determined to live at any price, and opened their mouths to nourishment
of any sort, like little birds still in the nest.

"Come, messieurs, and see for yourselves."

The cherubs were really nursing. One of them, cuddled under the goat's
belly, went at it so heartily that you could hear the _glou-glou_ of
the warm milk as it went down, down into his little legs, which
quivered with satisfaction. The other, more calm, lay indolently in his
Auvergnat nurse's lap, and required some little encouragement from her.

"Come, suck, I tell you, suck, _bougri_!"

At last, as if he had formed a sudden resolution, he began to drink so
greedily that the woman, surprised by his abnormal appetite, leaned
over him and exclaimed, with a laugh;

"Ah! the scamp, what a mischievous trick! it's his thumb he's sucking
instead of the goat."

He had thought of that expedient, the angel, to induce them to leave
him in peace. The incident produced no ill effect; on the contrary, M.
de La Perriere was much amused at the nurse's idea that the child had
tried to play a trick on them. He left the Nursery highly delighted.
"Positively de-de-delighted," he repeated as they ascended the grand
echoing staircase, decorated with stags' antlers, which led to the
dormitory.

Very light and airy was that great room, occupying the whole of one
side of the house, with numerous windows, cradles at equal intervals,
with curtains as white and fleecy as clouds. Women were passing to and
fro in the broad passage-way in the centre, with piles of linen in
their arms, keys in their hands, overseers or "movers." Here they had
tried to do too much, and the first impression of the visitors was
unfavorable. All that white muslin, that waxed floor, in which the
light shone without blending, the clean window-panes reflecting the
sky, which wore a gloomy look at sight of such things, brought out more
distinctly the thinness, the sickly pallor of those little
shroud-colored, moribund creatures. Alas! the oldest were but six
months, the youngest barely a fortnight, and already, upon all those
faces, those embryotic faces, there was an expression of disgust, an
oldish, dogged look, a precocity born of suffering, visible in the
numberless wrinkles on those little bald heads, confined in linen caps
edged with tawdry hospital lace. From what did they suffer? What
disease had they? They had everything, everything that one can have;
diseases of children and diseases of adults. Offspring of poverty and
vice, they brought into the world when they were born ghastly phenomena
of heredity. One had a cleft palate, another great copper-colored
blotches on his forehead, and all were covered with humor. And then
they were starving to death. Notwithstanding the spoonfuls of milk and
sugared water that were forced into their mouths, and the
sucking-bottle that was used more or less in spite of the prohibition,
they were dying of inanition. Those poor creatures, exhausted before
they were born, needed the freshest, the most strengthening food; the
goats might perhaps have supplied it, but they had sworn not to suck
the goats. And that was what made the dormitory lugubrious and silent,
without any of the little outbursts of anger emphasized by clenched
fists, without any of the shrieks that show the even red gums, whereby
the child makes trial of his strength and of his lungs; only an
occasional plaintive groan, as if the soul were tossing and turning
restlessly in a little diseased body, unable to find a place to rest.

Jenkins and the manager, noticing the unfavorable impression produced
upon their guests by the visit to the dormitory, tried to enliven the
situation by talking very loud, with a good-humored, frank,
well-satisfied manner. Jenkins shook hands warmly with the overseer.

"Well, Madame Polge, are our little pupils getting on?"

"As you see, Monsieur le Docteur," she replied, pointing to the beds.

Very funereal in her green dress was tall Madame Polge, the ideal of
dry nurses; she completed the picture.

But where had the Empress's secretary gone? He was standing by a
cradle, which he was scrutinizing sadly, shaking his head.

"_Bigre de Bigre!_" whispered Pompon to Madame Polge. "It's the
Wallachian."

The little blue card, hanging above the cradle as in hospitals, set
forth the nationality of the child within: "Moldo-Wallachian." What
cursed luck that Monsieur le Secretaire's eye should happen to light
upon him! Oh! the poor little head lying on the pillow, with cap all
awry, nostrils contracted, lips parted by a short, panting breath, the
breath of those who are just born and of those who are about to die.

"Is he ill?" the secretary softly asked the manager, who had drawn
near.

"Not in the least," replied the audacious Pompon, and he walked to the
cradle, poked the little one playfully with his finger, rearranged the
pillow, and said in a hearty, affectionate voice, albeit a little
roughly: "Well, old fellow?" Roused from his stupor, emerging from the
torpor which already enveloped him, the little fellow opened his eyes
and looked at the faces bending over him, with sullen indifference,
then, returning to his dream which he deemed more attractive, clenched
his little wrinkled hands and heaved an inaudible sigh. Oh! mystery!
Who can say for what purpose that child was born? To suffer two months
and to go away without seeing or understanding anything, before anyone
had heard the sound of his voice!

"How pale he is!" muttered M. de La Perriere, himself as pale as death.
The Nabob, too, was as white as a sheet. A cold breath had passed over
them. The manager assumed an indifferent air.

"It's the reflection. We all look green."

"To be sure--to be sure," said Jenkins, "it's the reflection of the
pond. Just come and look, Monsieur le Secretaire." And he led him to
the window to point out the great sheet of water in which the willows
dipped their branches, while Madame Polge hastily closed the curtains
of his cradle upon the little Wallachian's never-ending dream.

They must proceed quickly to inspect other portions of the
establishment in order to do away with that unfortunate impression.

First they show M. de La Perriere the magnificent laundry, with
presses, drying machines, thermometers, huge closets of polished walnut
full of caps and nightgowns, tied together and labelled by dozens. When
the linen was well warmed the laundress passed it out through a little
wicket in exchange for the number passed in by the nurse. As you see,
the system was perfect, and everything, even to the strong smell of
lye, combined to give the room a healthy, country-like aspect. There
were garments enough there to clothe five hundred children. That was
the capacity of Bethlehem, and everything was provided on that basis:
the vast dispensary, gleaming with glass jars and Latin inscriptions,
with marble pestles in every corner; the hydropathic arrangements with
the great stone tanks, the shining tubs, the immense apparatus
traversed by pipes of all lengths for the ascending and descending
_douches_, in showers, in jets, and in whip-like streams; and the
kitchens fitted out with superb graduated copper kettles, with
economical coal and gas ovens. Jenkins had determined to make it a
model establishment; and it was an easy matter for him, for he had
worked on a grand scale, as one works when funds are abundant. One
could feel everywhere, too, the experience and the iron hand of "our
intelligent overseer," to whom the manager could not forbear to do
public homage. That was the signal for general congratulations. M. de
La Perriere, delighted with the equipment of the establishment,
congratulated Dr. Jenkins upon his noble creation, Jenkins
congratulated his friend Pondevez, who in his turn thanked the
secretary for having condescended to honor Bethlehem with a visit. The
good Nabob chimed in with that concert of laudation and had a pleasant
word for every one, but was somewhat astonished all the same that no
one congratulated him too, while they were about it. To be sure, the
best of all congratulations awaited him on the 16th of March at the
head of the _Journal Officiel_, in a decree which gleamed before his
eyes in anticipation and made him squint in the direction of his
buttonhole.

These pleasant words were exchanged as they walked through a long
corridor where their sententious phrases were repeated by the echoes;
but suddenly a horrible uproar arrested their conversation and their
footsteps. It was like the miaouwing of frantic cats, the bellowing of
wild bulls, the howling of savages dancing the war-dance--a frightful
tempest of human yells, repeated and increased in volume and prolonged
by the high, resonant arches. It rose and fell, stopped suddenly, then
began again with extraordinary intensity. The manager was disturbed,
and started to make inquiries. Jenkins' eyes were inflamed with rage.

"Let us go on," said the manager, really alarmed this time; "I know
what it is."

He did know what it was; but M. de La Perriere proposed to know, too,
and before Pondevez could raise his hand, he pushed open the heavy door
of the room whence that fearful concert proceeded.

In a vile kennel which the grand scouring had passed by, for they had
no idea of exhibiting it, some half score little monstrosities lay
stretched on mattresses laid side by side on the floor, under the
guardianship of a chair unoccupied save by an unfinished piece of
knitting, and a little cracked kettle, full of hot wine, boiling over a
smoking wood fire. They were the leprous, the scrofulous, the outcasts
of Bethlehem, who had been hidden away in that retired corner--with
injunctions to their dry nurse to amuse them, to pacify them, to sit on
them if necessary, so that they should not cry--but whom that stupid,
inquisitive countrywoman had left to themselves while she went to look
at the fine carriage standing in the courtyard. When her back was
turned the urchins soon wearied of their horizontal position; and all
the little, red-faced, blotched _croute-leves_ lifted up their robust
voices in concert, for they, by some miracle, were in good health,
their very disease saved and nourished them. As wild and squirming as
cockchafers thrown on their backs, struggling to rise with the aid of
knees and elbows,--some unable to recover their equilibrium after
falling on their sides, others sitting erect, bewildered, their little
legs wrapped in swaddling-clothes, they spontaneously ceased their
writhings and their cries when they saw the door open; but M. de La
Perriere's shaking beard reassured them, encouraged them to fresh
efforts, and in the renewed uproar the manager's explanation was almost
inaudible: "Children that are kept secluded--contagion--skin diseases."
Monsieur le Secretaire inquired no farther; less heroic than Bonaparte
when he visited the plague-stricken wretches at Jaffa, he rushed to the
door, and in his confusion and alarm, anxious to say something and
unable to think of anything appropriate, he murmured, with an ineffable
smile: "They are cha-arming."

The inspection concluded, they all assembled in the salon on the ground
floor, where Madame Polge had prepared a little collation. The cellars
of Bethlehem were well stocked. The sharp air of the high land, the
going upstairs and downstairs had given the old gentleman from the
Tuileries such an appetite as he had not had for many a day, so that he
talked and laughed with true rustic good-fellowship, and when they were
all standing, the visitors being about to depart, he raised his glass,
shaking his head the while, to drink this toast: "To Be-Be-Bethlehem!"

The others were much affected, there was a clinking of glasses, and
then the carriage bore the party swiftly along the avenue of lindens,
where a cold, red, rayless sun was setting. Behind them the park
relapsed into its gloomy silence. Great dark shadows gathered at the
foot of the hedges, invaded the house, crept stealthily along the paths
and across their intersections. Soon everything was in darkness save
the ironical letters over the entrance gate, and, at a window on the
ground-floor, a flickering red glimmer, the flame of a taper burning by
the pillow of the dead child.

"_By decree of March 12, 1865, promulgated at the recommendation
of the Minister of the Interior, Monsieur le Docteur Jenkins,
founder and president of the Work of Bethlehem, is appointed
chevalier of the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honor. Exemplary
devotion to the cause of humanity._"

When he read these lines on the first page of the _Journal Officiel_,
on the morning of the 16th, the poor Nabob had an attack of vertigo.

Was it possible?

Jenkins decorated and not he!

He read the announcement twice, thinking that his eyes must have
deceived him. There was a buzzing in his ears. The letters, two of
each, danced before his eyes with the red circles caused by looking at
the sun. He had been so certain of seeing his name in that place; and
Jenkins--only the day before--had said to him so confidently: "It is
all settled!" that it still seemed to him that he must be mistaken. But
no, it was really Jenkins. It was a deep, heart-sickening, prophetic
blow, like a first warning from destiny, and was the more keenly felt
because, for years past, the man had been unaccustomed to
disappointments, had lived above humanity. All the good that there was
in him learned at that moment to be distrustful.

"Well," he said to de Gery, entering his room, as he did every morning,
and surprising him with the paper in his hand and evidently deeply
moved, "I suppose you have seen,--my name is not in the _Officiel_?"

He tried to smile, his features distorted like those of a child
struggling to restrain his tears. Then, suddenly, with the frankness
that was so attractive in him, he added: "This makes me feel very
badly,--I expected too much."

As he spoke, the door opened and Jenkins rushed into the room,
breathless, panting, intensely agitated.

"It's an outrage--a horrible outrage. It cannot, shall not be."

The words rushed tumultuously to his lips, all trying to come out at
once; then he seemed to abandon the attempt to express his thoughts and
threw upon the table a little shagreen box and a large envelope, both
bearing the stamp of the chancellor's office.

"There are my cross and my letters patent," he said. "They are yours,
my friend, I cannot keep them."

In reality that did not mean much. Jansoulet arraying himself in
Jenkins' ribbon would speedily be punished for unlawfully wearing a
decoration. But a _coup de theatre_ is not necessarily logical; this
particular one led to an effusion of sentiment, embraces, a generous
combat between the two men, the result being that Jenkins restored the
objects to his pocket, talking about protests, letters to the
newspapers. The Nabob was obliged to stop him again.

"Do nothing of the kind, you rascal. In the first place, it would
stand in my way another time. Who knows? perhaps on the 15th of next
August--"

"Oh! I never thought of that," cried Jenkins, jumping at the idea. He
put forth his arm, as in David's _Serment_: "I swear it by my sacred
honor!"

The subject dropped there. At breakfast the Nabob did not refer to it
and was as cheerful as usual. His good humor lasted through the day;
and de Gery, to whom that scene had been a revelation of the real
Jenkins, an explanation of the satirical remarks and restrained wrath
of Felicia Ruys when she spoke of the doctor, asked himself to no
purpose how he could open his dear master's eyes concerning that
scheming hypocrite. He should have known, however, that the men of the
South, all effusiveness on the surface, are never so utterly blind, so
deluded as to resist the wise results of reflection. That evening the
Nabob opened a shabby little portfolio, badly worn at the corners, in
which for ten years past he had manoeuvred his millions, minuting his
profits and his expenses in hieroglyphics comprehensible to himself
alone. He calculated for a moment, then turned to de Gery.

"Do you know what I am doing, my dear Paul?" he asked.

"No, monsieur."

"I have just been reckoning"--and his mocking glance, eloquent of his
Southern origin, belied his good-humored smile--"I have just been
reckoning that I have spent four hundred and thirty thousand francs to
obtain that decoration for Jenkins."

Four hundred and thirty thousand francs! And the end was not yet.

IX.

GRANDMAMMA.

Three times a week, in the evening, Paul de Gery appeared to take his
lesson in bookkeeping in the Joyeuse dining-room, not far from the
small salon where the little family had burst upon him at his first
visit; so that, while he was being initiated into all the mysteries of
"debit and credit," with his eyes fixed on his white-cravated
instructor, he listened in spite of himself to the faint sounds of the
toilsome evening on the other side of the door, longing for the vision
of all those pretty heads bending over around the lamp. M. Joyeuse
never mentioned his daughters. As jealous of their charms as a dragon
standing guard over lovely princesses in a tower, aroused to vigilance
by the fanciful imaginings of his doting affection, he replied dryly
enough to his pupil's questions concerning "the young ladies," so that
the young man ceased to mention them to him. He was surprised, however,
that he never happened to see this "Grandmamma" whose name recurred
constantly in M. Joyeuse's conversation upon every subject, in the most
trivial details of his existence, hovering over the house like the
symbol of its perfect orderliness and tranquillity.

Such extreme reserve, on the part of a venerable lady, who in all
probability had passed the age at which the adventurous spirit of a
young man is to be feared, seemed to him exaggerated. But the lessons
were very practical, given in very clear language, and the professor
had an excellent method of demonstration, marred by a single fault, a
habit of relapsing into fits of silence, broken by starts and
interjections that went off like bombs. Outside of that he was the best
of masters, intelligent, patient and faithful. Paul learned to find his
way through the complicated labyrinth of books of account and resigned
himself to the necessity of asking nothing further.

One evening, about nine o'clock, as the young man rose to go, M.
Joyeuse asked him if he would do him the honor to take a cup of tea
_en famille_, a custom of the time of Madame Joyeuse, born Saint-Amand,
who used to receive her friends on Thursdays. Since her death, and the
change in their financial position, their friends had scattered; but
they had retained that little "weekly extra." Paul having accepted, the
good man opened the door and called:

"Grandmamma."

A light step in the hall and a face of twenty years, surrounded by a
nimbus of abundant, fluffy brown hair, abruptly made its appearance. De
Gery looked at M. Joyeuse with an air of stupefaction:

"Grandmamma?"

"Yes, it's a name we gave her when she was a little girl. With her
frilled cap, and her authoritative older-sister expression, she had a
funny little face, so wise-looking. We thought that she looked like her
grandmother. The name has clung to her."

From the worthy man's tone, it was evident that to him it was the most
natural thing in the world, that grandmotherly title bestowed upon such
attractive youth. Every one in the household thought as he did, and the
other Joyeuse girls, who ran to their father and grouped themselves
about him somewhat as in the show-case on the ground-floor, and the old
servant, who brought and placed upon the table in the salon, whither
they had adjourned, a magnificent tea-service, a relic of the former
splendor of the establishment, all called the girl "Grandmamma," nor
did she once seem to be annoyed by it, for the influence of that
blessed name imparted to the affection of them all a touch of deference
that flattered her and gave to her imaginary authority a singular
attractiveness, as of a protecting hand.

It may have been because of that title, which he had learned to cherish
in his infancy, but de Gery found an indescribable fascination in the
girl. It did not resemble the sudden blow he had received from another,
full in the heart, the perturbation mingled with a longing to fly, to
escape an obsession, and the persistent melancholy peculiar to the day
after a fete, extinguished candles, refrains that have died away,
perfumes vanished in the darkness. No, in the presence of that young
girl, as she stood looking over the family table, making sure that
nothing was lacking, letting her loving, sparkling eyes rest upon her
children, her little children, he was assailed by a temptation to know
her, to be to her as an old friend, to confide to her things that he
confessed to none but himself; and when she offered him his cup, with
no worldly airs, no society affectations, he would have liked to say
like the others a "Thanks, Grandmamma," in which he might put his whole
heart.

Suddenly a cheery, vigorous knock made everybody jump.

"Ah! there's Monsieur Andre. Quick, Elise, a cup. Yaia, the little
cakes." Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Henriette, the third of the Joyeuse
girls,--who had inherited from her mother, born Saint-Amand, a certain
worldly side,--in view of the crowded condition of the salons that
evening, rushed to light the two candles on the piano.

"My fifth act is done," cried the newcomer, as he entered the room; then
he stopped short. "Ah! excuse me," and his face took on a discomfited
expression at sight of the stranger. M. Joyeuse introduced them to
each other: "Monsieur Paul de Gery--Monsieur Andre Maranne,"--not
without a certain solemnity of manner. He remembered his wife's
receptions long ago; and the vases on the mantel, the two great lamps,
the work-table, the armchairs arranged in a circle, seemed to share
the illusion, to shine brighter as if rejuvenated by that unusual
throng.

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