The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2)

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

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"Is that--?"

"Yes," she said, "I have him sleep here. He might need me in the
night."

"I should like to see him, to embrace him."

"Come."

The old woman rose, took her lamp, led the way gravely to the alcove,
where she softly drew aside the long curtain and motioned to her son to
come, without making a noise.

He was asleep. And it was certain that something lived in him that was
not there the day before, for, instead of the flaccid immobility in
which he was mired all day, he was shaken at that moment by violent
tremors, and on his expressionless, dead face there was a wrinkle of
suffering life, a contraction as of pain. Jansoulet, profoundly moved,
gazed at that thin, wasted, earth-colored face, on which the beard,
having appropriated all the vitality of the body, grew with surprising
vigor; then he stooped, placed his lips on the forehead moist with
perspiration, and, feeling that he started, he said in a low tone,
gravely, respectfully, as one addresses the head of the family:

"Good-evening, Aine."

Perhaps the imprisoned mind heard him in the depths of its dark,
degrading purgatory. But the lips moved and a long groan made answer; a
far-off wail, a despairing appeal caused the glance Francoise and her
son exchanged to overflow with impotent tears, and drew from them both
a simultaneous cry in which their sorrows met: _Pecaire!_ the local
word expressive of all pity, all affection.

* * *

Early the next morning the uproar began with the arrival of the actors
and actresses, an avalanche of caps, chignons, high boots, short
petticoats, affected screams, veils floating over the fresh coats of
rouge; the women were in a large majority, Cardailhac having reflected
that, where a bey was concerned, the performance was of little
consequence, that one need only emit false notes from pretty lips, show
lovely arms and well-turned legs in the free-and-easy neglige of the
operetta. All the plastic celebrities of his theatre were on hand,
therefore, Amy Ferat at their head, a hussy who had already tried her
eye-teeth on the gold of several crowns; also two or three famous comic
actors, whose pallid faces produced the same effect of chalky, spectral
blotches amid the bright green of the hedgerows as was produced by the
plaster statuettes. All that motley crew, enlivened by the journey, the
unfamiliar fresh air, and the copious hospitality, as well as by the
hope of hooking something in that procession of beys, nabobs, and other
purse-bearers, asked nothing better than to caper and sing and make
merry, with the vulgar enthusiasm of a crowd of Seine boatmen ashore on
a lark. But Cardailhac did not propose to have it so. As soon as they
had arrived, made their toilets and eaten their first breakfast, out
came the books; we must rehearse!--There was no time to lose. The
rehearsals took place in the small salon near the summer gallery, where
they were already beginning to build the stage; and the noise of the
hammers, the humming of the refrains, the thin voices supported by the
squeaking of the orchestra leader's violin, mingled with the loud
trumpet-calls of the peacocks on their perches, were blown to shreds in
the mistral, which, failing to recognize the frantic chirping of its
grasshoppers, contemptuously whisked it all away on the whirling tips
of its wings.

Sitting in the centre of the porch, as if it were the proscenium of his
theatre, Cardailhac, while superintending the rehearsals, issued his
commands to a multitude of workmen and gardeners, ordered trees to be
felled which obstructed the view, drew sketches of the triumphal
arches, sent despatches and messengers to mayors, to sub-prefects, to
Arles to procure a deputation of girls of the province in the national
costume, to Barbantane, where the most skilful dancers of the
_farandole_ are to be found, to Faraman renowned for its herds of wild
bulls and Camarguese horses; and as Jansoulet's name blazed forth at
the foot of all these despatches, as the name of the Bey of Tunis also
figured in them, everybody acquiesced with the utmost eagerness, the
telegraphic messages arrived in an endless stream, and that little
Sardanapalus from Porte-Saint-Martin, who was called Cardailhac, was
forever repeating: "There is something to work with;" delighted to
throw gold about like handfuls of seed, to have a stage fifty leagues
in circumference to arrange, all Provence, of which country that
fanatical Parisian was a native, and thoroughly familiar with its
resources in the direction of the picturesque.

Dispossessed of her functions, the old lady seldom appeared, gave her
attention solely to the farm and her invalid, terrified by that crowd
of visitors, those insolent servants whom one could not distinguish
from their masters, those women with brazen, coquettish manners, those
closely-shaven old villains who resembled wicked priests, all those mad
creatures who chased one another through the halls at night with much
throwing of pillows, wet sponges, and curtain tassels which they tore
off to use as projectiles. She no longer had her son in the evening,
for he was obliged to remain with his guests, whose number increased as
the time for the fetes drew near; nor had she even the resource of
talking about her grandsons with "Monsieur Paul," whom Jansoulet,
always the kindest of men, being a little awed by his friend's
seriousness of manner, had sent away to pass a few days with his
brothers. And the careful housekeeper, to whom some one came every
moment and seized her keys to get spare linen or silverware, to open
another room, thinking of the throwing open of her stores of treasures,
of the plundering of her wardrobes and her sideboards, remembering the
condition in which the visit of the former bey had left the chateau,
devastated as by a cyclone, said in her patois, feverishly moistening
the thread of her distaff:

"May God's fire devour all beys and all future beys!"

At last the day arrived, the famous day of which people still talk
throughout the whole province. Oh! about three o'clock in the
afternoon, after a sumptuous breakfast presided over by the old mother
with a new Cambrai cap on her head,--a breakfast at which, side by side
with Parisian celebrities, prefects were present and deputies, all in
full dress, with swords at their sides, mayors in their scarfs of
office, honest cures cleanly shaven,--when Jansoulet, in black coat and
white cravat, surrounded by his guests, went out upon the stoop and
saw, framed in that magnificent landscape, amid flags and arches and
ensigns, that swarm of heads, that sea of brilliant costumes rising
tier above tier on the slopes and thronging the paths; here, grouped
in a nosegay on the lawn, the prettiest girls of Arles, whose little
white faces peeped sweetly forth from lace neckerchiefs; below, the
_farandole_ from Barbantane, its eight tambourines in a line, ready for
the word, hand in hand, ribbons fluttering in the wind, hats over one
ear, the red _taillote_ about the loins; still lower, in the succession
of terraces, the choral societies drawn up in line, all black beneath
their bright-hued caps, the banner-bearer in advance, serious and
resolved, with clenched teeth, holding aloft his carved staff; lower
still, on an immense _rond-point_, black bulls in shackles, and
Camargue gauchos on their little horses with long white manes, their
leggings above their knees, brandishing their spears; and after them
more flags and helmets and bayonets, reaching to the triumphal arch at
the entrance; then, as far as the eye could see on the other side of
the Rhone,--over which two gangs of workmen had just thrown a bridge of
boats, so that they could drive from the station to Saint-Romans in a
straight line,--was an immense crowd, whole villages pouring down from
all the hills, overflowing on the Giffas road in a wilderness of noise
and dust, seated on the edge of the ditches, swarming among the elms,
piled upon wagons, a formidable living lane for the procession to pass
through; and over it all a huge white sun whose arrows a capricious
breeze sent in every direction, from the copper of a tambourine to the
point of a spear and the fringe of a banner, while the mighty Rhone,
high-spirited and free, bore away to the ocean the shifting tableaux of
that royal fete. In presence of those marvels, in which all the gold in
his coffers shone resplendent, the Nabob felt a thrill of admiration
and pride.

"It is fine," he said, turning pale, and his mother, standing behind
him, as pale as he, but from indescribable terror, murmured:

"It is too fine for any man. One would think that God was coming."

The feeling of the devout old peasant woman was much the same as that
vaguely experienced by all those people who had assembled on the roads
as if to watch the passage of a colossal procession on Corpus Christi,
and who were reminded by that visit of an Oriental prince to a child of
the province, of the legends of the Magian kings, the arrival of
Gaspard the Moor bringing to the carpenter's son the myrrh and the
crown.

Amid the heartfelt congratulations that were showered on Jansoulet,
Cardailhac, who had not been seen since morning, suddenly appeared,
triumphant and perspiring.

"Didn't I tell you that there was something to work with! Eh? Isn't
this _chic_? There's a grouping for you! I fancy our Parisians would
pay something handsome to attend a first performance like this."

He lowered his voice because the mother was close by:

"Have you seen our Arles girls? No, look at them more carefully--the
first one, the one standing in front to offer the bouquet."

"Why, that's Amy Ferat!"

"_Parbleu!_ you can see yourself, my dear fellow, that if the bey
throws his handkerchief into that bevy of pretty girls, there must be
at least one who knows enough to pick it up. Those innocent creatures
wouldn't know what it meant! Oh! I have thought of everything, you'll
see. It's all mounted and arranged as if it were on the stage. Farm
side, garden side."

At that point, to give an idea of the perfectness of his organization,
the manager raised his cane; his gesture was instantly repeated from
end to end of the park, with the result that all the musical societies,
all the trumpets, all the tambourines burst forth in unison in the
majestic strains of the familiar song of the South: _Grand Soleil de
la Provence_. The voices, the brazen notes ascended into the light,
swelling the folds of the banners, giving the signal to the dancers of
the _farandole_, who began to sway back and forth, to go through their
first antics where they stood, while, on the other side of the river, a
murmur ran through the crowd like a breeze, caused doubtless by the
fear that the bey had arrived unexpectedly from another direction. A
second gesture from the manager and the great orchestra subsided, more
gradually, with _rallentando_ passages and meteoric showers of notes
scattered among the foliage; but nothing better could be expected from
a company of three thousand persons.

Just then the carriages appeared, the state carriages which had figured
in the festivities in honor of the former bey, two great pink and gold
chariots _a la mode de Tunis_, which Mother Jansoulet had taken care of
as precious relics, and which came forth from the carriage-house with
their varnished panels, their hangings and gold fringe as bright and
fresh as when they were new. There again Cardailhac's ingenuity had
exerted itself freely, and instead of horses, which were a little heavy
for those fragile-looking, daintily decorated vehicles, the white reins
guided eight mules with ribbons, plumes, and silver bells upon their
heads, and caparisoned from head to foot with those marvellous
_sparteries_, of which Provence seems to have borrowed the secret
from the Moors and to have perfected the cunning art of manufacturing.
If the bey were not satisfied with that!

The Nabob, Monpavon, the prefect and one of their generals entered the
first carriage, the others took their places in the second and
following ones. The cures and mayors, all excited by the wine they had
drunk, ran to place themselves at the head of the singing societies of
their respective parishes, which were to go to meet the procession; and
the whole multitude set forth on the Giffas road.

It was a superbly clear day, but warm and oppressive, three months in
advance of the season, as often happens in those impetuous regions
where everything is in a hurry, where everything arrives before its
time. Although there was not a cloud to be seen, the deathlike
stillness of the atmosphere, the wind having fallen suddenly as one
lowers a veil, the dazzling expanse, heated white-hot, a solemn silence
hovering over the landscape, all indicated that a storm was brewing in
some corner of the horizon. The extraordinary torpidity of the
surrounding objects gradually affected the persons. Naught could be
heard save the tinkling bells of the mules as they ambled slowly along,
the measured, heavy tread, through the burning dust, of the bands of
singers whom Cardailhac stationed at intervals in the procession, and
from time to time, in the double, swarming line of human beings that
bordered the road as far as the eye could see, a call, the voices of
children, the cry of a peddler of fresh water, the inevitable
accompaniment of all open-air fetes in the South.

"For heaven's sake, open the window on your side, General, it's
stifling," said Monpavon, with crimson face, fearing for his paint; and
the lowered sashes afforded the worthy populace a view of those exalted
functionaries mopping their august faces, which were terribly flushed
and wore the same agonized expression of anticipation,--anticipation of
the bey's arrival, of the storm, of something.

Another triumphal arch. Giffas and its long stony street strewn with
green palm leaves, its old, dirty houses covered with flowers and
decorations. Outside of the village the station, a square white
structure, planted like a die at the side of the track, a genuine type
of the little country station lost among vineyards, its only room
always empty, except for an occasional old woman with a quantity of
parcels, waiting in a corner, three hours too early for her train.

In the bey's honor the little building was decked with flags and
banners, furnished with rugs and divans and a splendid buffet, on which
was a light lunch and water ices all ready for his Highness. When he
had arrived and alighted from his carriage, the Nabob shook off the
species of haunting disquiet which had oppressed him for a moment past,
without his knowing why. Prefects, generals, deputies, black coats and
embroidered military coats stood on the broad inner platform, in
impressive, solemn groups, with the pursed lips, the shifting from one
foot to the other, the self-conscious starts of a public functionary
who feels that he is being stared at. And you can imagine whether noses
were flattened against window-panes in order to obtain a glimpse of
those hierarchic embroideries, of Monpavon's breastplate, which
expanded and rose like an omelette soufflee, of Cardailhac gasping for
breath as he issued his final orders, and of the beaming face of
Jansoulet, their Jansoulet, whose eyes, sparkling between the bloated,
sunburned cheeks, resembled two great gilt nails in a piece of Cordova
leather. Suddenly the electric bells began to ring. The station-agent
rushed frantically out to the track: "The train is signalled,
messieurs. It will be here in eight minutes." Everybody started. Then a
general instinctive impulse caused every watch to be drawn from its
fob. Only six minutes more. Thereupon, in the profound silence, some
one exclaimed: "Look there!" On the right, in the direction from which
the train was to come, two high vine-covered hills formed a tunnel into
which the track plunged and disappeared, as if swallowed up. At that
moment the whole sky in that direction was as black as ink, obscured by
an enormous cloud, a threatening wall cutting the blue as with a knife,
rearing palisades, lofty cliffs of basalt on which the light broke like
white foam with the pallid gleam of moonlight. In the solemn silence of
the deserted track, along that line of rails where one felt that
everything, so far as the eye could see, stood aside for the passage of
his Highness, that aerial cliff was a terrifying spectacle as it
advanced, casting its shadow before it with that illusion of
perspective which gave to the cloud a slow, majestic movement and to
its shadow the rapid pace of a galloping horse. "What a storm we are
going to have directly!" That was the thought that came to them all;
but they had not time to express it, for an ear-piercing whistle was
heard and the train appeared in the depths of the dark tunnel. A
typical royal train, short and travelling fast, decorated with French
and Tunisian flags, its groaning, puffing locomotive, with an enormous
bouquet of roses on its breast, representing the maid of honor at a
wedding of Leviathans.

It came rushing on at full speed, but slackened its pace as it drew
near. The functionaries formed a group, drawing themselves up,
arranging their swords, adjusting their false collars, while Jansoulet
walked along the track toward the train, the obsequious smile on his
lips and his back already bent for the "Salem alek!" The train
continued to move, very slowly. Jansoulet thought that it had stopped,
and placed his hand on the door of the royal carriage glittering with
gold under the black sky; but the headway was too great, doubtless, for
the train still went forward, the Nabob walking beside it, trying to
open that infernal door which resisted all his efforts, and with the
other hand making a sign of command to the machine. But the machine did
not obey. "Stop, I tell you!" It did not stop. Impatient at the delay,
he sprang upon the velvet-covered step, and with the somewhat
presumptuous impetuosity, which used to please the former bey so much,
he cried out, thrusting his great curly head in at the window:

"Station for Saint-Romans, your Highness!"

You know that sort of vague light peculiar to dreams, that colorless,
empty atmosphere, in which everything assumes a ghostly aspect? well,
Jansoulet was suddenly enveloped, made prisoner, paralyzed by it. He
tried to speak, but the words would not come; his nerveless fingers
clung so feebly to their support that he nearly fell backward. In
heaven's name, what had he seen? Half reclining on a divan which
extended across one end of the car, his fine head with its dead-white
complexion and its long, silky black beard resting on his hand, the
bey, buttoned to the chin in his Oriental frock-coat, without other
ornament than the broad ribbon of the Legion of Honor across his breast
and the diamond clasp in his cap, was fanning himself impassively with
a little fan of _spartum_, embroidered with gold. Two aides-de-camp
were standing near him and an engineer of the French company. Opposite
him, upon another divan, in a respectful attitude, but one indicating
high favor, as they alone remained seated in presence of the bey, both
as yellow as saffron, their long whiskers falling over their white
cravats, sat two owls, one fat, the other thin. They were the
Hemerlingues, father and son, who had reconquered his Highness and were
carrying him in triumph to Paris. A ghastly dream! All those people,
although they knew Jansoulet well, stared coolly at him as if his face
conveyed no idea to them. Pitiably pale, with the perspiration standing
on his brow, he stammered: "But, your Highness, do you not mean to
leave--" A livid flash, like that of a sabre stroke, followed by a
frightful peal of thunder, cut him short. But the flash that shot from
the monarch's eyes seemed far more terrible to him. Rising to his feet
and stretching out his arm, the bey crushed him with these words,
prepared in advance and uttered slowly in a rather guttural voice
accustomed to the harsh Arabic syllables, but in very pure French:

"You may return home, Mercanti. The foot goes where the heart leads it,
mine shall never enter the door of the man who has robbed my country."

Jansoulet tried to say a word. The bey waved his hand: "Begone!" And
the engineer having pressed the button of an electric bell, to which a
whistle replied, the train, which had not come to a full stop,
stretched and strained its iron muscles and started ahead under full
steam, waving its flags in the wind of the storm amid whirling clouds
of dense smoke and sinister flashes.

He stood by the track, dazed, staggering, crushed, watching his fortune
recede and disappear, heedless of the great drops of rain that began to
fall upon his bare head. Then, when the others rushed toward him,
surrounded him and overwhelmed him with questions: "Isn't the Bey going
to stop?" he stammered a few incoherent words: "Court intrigues--infamous
machinations." And suddenly, shaking his fist at the train which had
already disappeared, with bloodshot eyes and the foam of fierce wrath
on his lips, he cried with the roar of a wild beast:

"Vile curs!"

"Courage, Jansoulet, courage."

You can guess who said that, and who, passing his arm through the
Nabob's, tried to straighten him up, to make him throw out his breast
as he did, led him to the carriages amid the stupefied silence of the
braided coats, and helped him to enter, crushed and bewildered, as a
relative of the deceased is hoisted into a mourning carriage at the
close of the lugubrious ceremony. The rain was beginning to fall, the
peals of thunder followed one another rapidly. They crowded into the
carriages, which started hurriedly homeward. Thereupon a heart-rending,
yet comical thing took place, one of those cruel tricks which cowardly
destiny plays upon its victims when they are down. In the fading light,
the increasing obscurity caused by the squall, the crowd that filled
all the approaches to the station believed that it could distinguish a
Royal Highness amid such a profusion of gold lace, and as soon as the
wheels began to revolve, a tremendous uproar, an appalling outcry which
had been brewing in all those throats for an hour past, arose and
filled the air, rebounded from hill to hill and echoed through the
valley: "Vive le Bey!" Warned by that signal, the first flourishes rang
out, the singing societies struck up in their turn, and as the noise
increased from point to point, the road from Giffas to Saint-Romans was
naught but one long, unbroken wave of sound. In vain did Cardailhac,
all the gentlemen, Jansoulet himself, lean out of the windows and make
desperate signs: "Enough! enough!" Their gestures were lost in the
confusion, in the darkness; what was seen of them seemed an
encouragement to shout louder. And I give you my word that it was in no
wise needed. All those Southerners, whose enthusiasm had been kept at
fever heat since morning, excited still more by the tedium of the long
wait and by the storm, gave all that they had of voice, of breath, of
noisy energy, blending with the national hymn of Provence that
oft-repeated cry, which broke in upon it like a refrain: "Vive le Bey!"
The majority had no sort of idea what a bey might be, did not even
picture him to themselves, and gave a most extraordinary pronunciation
to the unfamiliar title, as if it had three _b's_ and ten _y's_. But no
matter, they worked themselves into a frenzy over it, threw up their
hands, waved their hats, and waxed excited over their own antics.
Women, deeply affected, wiped their eyes; and suddenly the piercing cry
of a child came from the topmost branches of an elm: "Mamma, mamma, I
see him!" He saw him! They all saw him for that matter; to this day
they would all take their oath that they saw him.

Confronted with such delirious excitement, finding it impossible to
impose silence and tranquillity upon that mob, there was but one course
for the people in the carriages to pursue: to let them alone, raise the
windows and drive at full speed in order to abridge that unpleasant
martyrdom as much as possible. Then it was terrible. Seeing the cortege
quicken its pace, the whole road began to run with it. The _farandoleurs_
of Barbantane, hand-in-hand, bounded from side to side, to the muffled
wheezing of their tambourines, forming a human garland around the
carriage doors. The singing societies, unable to sing at that breathless
pace, but howling none the less, dragged their banner-bearers along,
the banners thrown over their shoulders; and the stout, red-faced
cures, panting, pushing their huge overburdened paunches before them,
still found strength to shout in the mules' ears, in sympathetic,
effusive tones: "Vive notre bon Bey!" And with it all, the rain, the
rain falling in bucketfuls, in sheets, soiling the pink carriages,
increasing the confusion, giving to that triumphal return the aspect of
a rout, but a laughable rout, compounded of songs, laughter, blasphemy,
frantic embraces and infernal oaths, something like the return from a
Corpus Christi procession in the storm, with cassocks tucked up,
surplices thrown over the head, and the good Lord hastily housed under
a porch.

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