The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2)

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

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He had conceived the idea, if you please, of opening a patriotic
subscription to erect a statue to General Paolo Paoli, a great man of
his country. The Corsicans are not rich, but they are as vain as
turkeys. So money poured into the _Territoriale_. But unfortunately it
did not last. In two months the statue was devoured, before it was
erected, and the succession of protests and summonses began again.
To-day I am used to it. But when I first came from my province, the
notices posted by order of the court, the bailiffs at the door, made a
painful impression upon me. Inside, no attention was paid to them. They
knew that at the last moment a Monpavon or a Bois-l'Hery was certain to
turn up to appease the bailiffs; for all those gentlemen, being deeply
involved in the affair, are interested to avoid a failure. That is just
what saves our evil-minded little Governor. The others run after their
money--everyone knows what that means in gambling--and they would not
be pleased to know that all the shares they have in their hands are
worth nothing more than their weight as old paper.

From the smallest to the greatest, all of us in the house are in that
plight. From the landlord, to whom we owe two years' rent and who keeps
us on for nothing for fear of losing it all, down to us poor clerks, to
myself, who am in for seven thousand francs of savings and my four
years' back pay, we are all running after our money. That is why I
persist in remaining here.

Doubtless, notwithstanding my advanced age, I might have succeeded, by
favor of my education, my general appearance and the care I have always
taken of my clothes, in getting a place in some other office. There is
a very honorable person of my acquaintance, M. Joyeuse, bookkeeper for
Hemerlingue and Son, the great bankers on Rue Saint-Honore, who never
fails to say to me whenever he meets me:

"Passajon, my boy, don't stay in that den of thieves. You make a
mistake in staying on there; you'll never get a sou out of it. Come to
Hemerlingue's. I'll undertake to find some little corner for you. You
will earn less, but you'll receive very much more."

I feel that he is right, the honest fellow. But it's stronger than I
am, I cannot make up my mind to go. And yet this is not a cheerful life
that I lead here in these great cold rooms where no one ever comes,
where every one slinks into a corner without speaking. What would you
have? We know one another too well, that's the whole of it. Up to last
year we had meetings of the council of supervision, meetings of
stockholders, stormy, uproarious meetings, genuine battles of savages,
whose yells could be heard at the Madeleine. And subscribers used to
come too, several times a week, indignant because they had never heard
anything from their money. Those were the times when our Governor came
out strong. I have seen people go into his office, monsieur, as fierce
as wolves thirsty for blood, and come out, after a quarter of an hour,
milder than sheep, satisfied, reassured, and their pockets comforted
with a few bank-notes. For there was the cunning of the thing: to ruin
with money the poor wretches who came to demand it. To-day the
shareholders of the _Caisse Territoriale_ never stir. I think that they
are all dead or resigned to their fate. The council never meets. We
have sessions only on paper; it is my duty to make up a so-called
balance-sheet--always the same--of which I make a fresh copy every
three months. We never see a living soul, except that at rare intervals
some subscriber to the Paoli statue drops down on us from the wilds of
Corsica, anxious to know if the monument is progressing; or perhaps
some devout reader of the _Verite Financiere_, which disappeared more
than two years ago, comes with an air of timidity to renew his
subscription, and requests that it be forwarded a little more
regularly, if possible. There is a confidence which nothing weakens.
When one of those innocent creatures falls in the midst of our
half-starved band, it is something terrible. We surround him, we
embrace him, we try to get his name on one of our lists, and, in case
he resists, if he will subscribe neither to the Paoli monument nor to
the Corsican railways, then those gentry perform what they call--my pen
blushes to write it--what they call "the drayman trick."

This is how it is done: we always have in the office a package prepared
beforehand, a box tied with stout string which arrives, presumably from
some railway station, while the visitor is there. "Twenty francs cartage,"
says the one of us who brings in the package. (Twenty francs, or some
times thirty, according to the victim's appearance.) Every one at once
begins to fumble in his pocket. "Twenty francs cartage! I haven't
it."--"Nor I--What luck!" Some one runs to the counting-room.--Closed!
They look for the cashier. Gone out. And the hoarse voice of the
drayman waxing impatient in the ante-room: "Come, come, make haste." (I
am generally selected for the drayman's part, because of my voice.)
What is to be done? Send back the package? the Governor won't like
that. "Messieurs, I beg you to allow me," the innocent victim ventures
to observe, opening his purse.--"Ah! monsieur, if you would."--He pays
his twenty francs, we escort him to the door, and as soon as his back
is turned we divide the fruit of the crime, laughing like brigands.

Fie! Monsieur Passajon. Such performances at your time of life! Oh!
_Mon Dieu_! I know all about it. I know that I should honor myself
much more if I left this vile place. But, what then? why, I must
abandon all that I have at stake here. No, it is not possible. It is
urgently necessary that I remain, that I keep a close watch, that I am
always on hand to have the advantage of a windfall, if one should come.
Oh! I swear by my ribbon, by my thirty years of academic service, if
ever an affair like this of the Nabob makes it possible for me to
recoup my losses, I will not wait a moment, I will take myself off in
hot haste to look after my little vineyard near Monbars, cured forever
of my speculative ideas. But alas! that is a very chimerical
hope,--played out, discredited, well known as we are on 'Change, with
our shares no longer quoted at the Bourse, our obligations fast
becoming waste paper, such a wilderness of falsehood and debts, and the
hole that is being dug deeper and deeper. (We owe at this moment three
million five hundred thousand francs. And yet that three millions is
not what embarrasses us. On the other hand it is what keeps us up; but
we owe the concierge a little bill of a hundred and twenty five francs
for postage stamps, gas and the like. That's the dangerous thing.) And
they would have us believe that a man, a great financier like this
Nabob, even though he was just from the Congo or had come from the moon
this very day, is fool enough to put his money in such a trap.
Nonsense! Is it possible? Tell that story elsewhere, my dear Governor.

IV.

A DEBUT IN SOCIETY.

"Monsieur Bernard Jansoulet!"

That plebeian name, proudly announced by the liveried footman in a
resounding voice, rang through Jenkins's salons like the clash of
cymbals, like one of the gongs that announce fantastic apparitions in a
fairy play. The candles paled, flames flashed from every eye, at the
dazzling prospect of Oriental treasures, of showers of pearls and
sequins let fall by the magic syllables of that name, but yesterday
unknown.

Yes, it was he, the Nabob, the richest of the rich, the great Parisian
curiosity, flavored with that spice of adventure that is so alluring to
surfeited multitudes. All heads were turned, all conversation was
interrupted; there was a grand rush for the door, a pushing and
jostling like that of the crowds on the quay at a seaport, to watch the
arrival of a felucca with a cargo of gold.

Even the hospitable Jenkins, who was standing in the first salon to
receive his guests, despite his usual self-possession abruptly left the
group of men with whom he was talking and bore away to meet the
galleons.

"A thousand times, a thousand times too kind. Madame Jenkins will be
very happy, very proud. Come and let me take you to her."

And in his haste, in his vainglorious delight, he dragged Jansoulet
away so quickly that the latter had no time to present his companion,
Paul de Gery, whom he was introducing into society. The young man was
well pleased to be overlooked. He glided into the mass of black coats
which was forced farther and farther back by every new arrival, and was
swallowed up in it, a prey to the foolish terror that every young
provincial feels on his first appearance in a Parisian salon,
especially when he is shrewd and intelligent and does not wear the
imperturbable self-assurance of the bumpkin like a coat of mail beneath
his linen buckler.

You, Parisians of Paris, who, ever since you were sixteen have
exhibited your youth at the receptions of all classes of society, in
your first black coat with your crush-hat on your hip,--you, I say,
have no conception of that anguish, compounded of vanity, timidity and
recollections of romantic books, which screws our teeth together,
embarrasses our movements, makes us for a whole evening a statue
between two doors, a fixture in a window-recess, a poor, pitiful,
wandering creature, incapable of making his existence manifest
otherwise than by changing his position from time to time, preferring
to die of thirst rather than go near the sideboard, and going away
without having said a word, unless we may have stammered one of those
incoherent absurdities which we remember for months, and which makes
us, when we think of it at night, utter an _ah!_ of frantic shame and
bury our face in the pillow.

Paul de Gery was a martyr of that type. In his province he had always
lived a very retired life, with a pious, melancholy old aunt, until the
time when, as a student of law, originally destined for a profession in
which his father had left an excellent reputation, he had been induced
to frequent the salons of some of the counsellors of the court,
old-fashioned, gloomy dwellings, with dingy hangings, where he made a
fourth hand at whist with venerable ghosts. Jenkins' evening party was
therefore a debut in society for that provincial, whose very ignorance
and Southern adaptability made him first of all a keen observer.

From the place where he stood he watched the interesting procession,
still in progress at midnight, of Jenkins' guests, the whole body of
the fashionable physician's patients; the very flower of society, a
large sprinkling of politics and finance, bankers, deputies, a few
artists, all the jaded ones of Parisian high life, pale and wan, with
gleaming eyes, saturated with arsenic like gluttonous mice, but
insatiably greedy of poison and of life. Through the open salon and the
great reception-room, the doors of which had been removed, he could see
the stairway and landing, profusely decorated with flowers along the
sides, where the long trains were duly spread, their silky weight
seeming to force back the decollete busts of their wearers in that
graceful ascending motion which caused them to appear, little by
little, until they burst upon one in the full bloom of their splendor.
As the couples reached the top of the stairs they seemed to make their
entrance on the stage; and that was doubly true, for every one left on
the last step the frowns, the wrinkles of deep thought the air of
weariness and all traces of anger or depression, to display a tranquil
countenance, a smile playing over the placid features. The men
exchanged hearty grasps of the hand, warm fraternal greetings; the
women, thinking only of themselves, with little affected shrugs, with a
charming simper and abundant play of the eyes and shoulders, murmured a
few meaningless words of greeting:

"Thanks! Oh! thanks--how kind you are."

Then the couples separated, for an evening party is no longer, as it
used to be, an assemblage of congenial persons, in which the wit of the
women compelled the force of character, the superior knowledge, the
very genius of the men to bow gracefully before it, but a too numerous
mob in which the women, who alone are seated, whisper together like
captives in the harem, and have no other enjoyment than that of being
beautiful or of seeming to be. De Gery, after wandering through the
doctor's library, the conservatory and the billiard room, where there
was smoking, tired of dull, serious conversation, which seemed to him
to be out of keeping in such a festal scene and in the brief hour of
pleasure--some one had asked him carelessly and without looking at him,
what was doing at the Bourse that day--approached the door of the main
salon, which was blockaded by a dense mass of black coats, a surging
sea of heads packed closely together and gazing.

An enormous room, handsomely furnished, with the artistic taste
characteristic of the master and mistress of the house. A few old
pictures against the light background of the draperies. A monumental
chimney-piece, decorated with a fine marble group, "The Seasons" by
Sebastien Ruys, about which long green stalks, with lacelike edges, or
of the stiffness of carved bronze, bent toward the mirror as toward a
stream of limpid water. On the low chairs groups of women crowded
together, blending the vaporous hues of their dresses, forming an
immense nosegay of living flowers, above which gleamed bare white
shoulders, hair studded with diamonds, drops of water on the brunettes,
glistening reflections on the blondes, and the same intoxicating
perfume, the same confused, pleasant buzzing, made by waves of heat and
intangible wings, that caresses all the flowers in the garden in
summer. At times a little laugh, ascending in that luminous atmosphere,
a quicker breath, made plumes and curls tremble, and attracted
attention to a lovely profile. Such was the aspect of the salon.

A few men were there, very few, all persons of distinction, laden with
years and decorations, talking on the arm of a divan or leaning over
the back of a chair with the condescending air we assume in conversing
with children. But amid the placid murmur of the private conversations,
one voice rang out, loud and discordant, the voice of the Nabob, who
was threading his way through that social conservatory with the
self-assurance due to his immense fortune and a certain contempt for
woman which he had brought with him from the Orient.

At that moment, sprawling upon a chair, with his great yellow-gloved
hands awkwardly clasped, he was talking with a very beautiful woman,
whose unusual face--much animation upon features of a severe cast--was
noticeable by reason of its pallor among the surrounding pretty faces,
just as her dress, all white, classic in its draping and moulded to her
graceful, willowy figure, contrasted with much richer costumes, not one
of which had its character of bold simplicity. De Gery, from his
corner, gazed at that smooth, narrow forehead beneath the fringe of
hair brushed low, those long, wide-open eyes of a deep blue, an abysmal
blue, that mouth which ceased to smile only to relax its classic
outline in a weary, spiritless expression. All in all, the somewhat
haughty aspect of an exceptional being.

Some one near him mentioned her name--Felicia Ruys. Thereupon he
understood the rare attraction of that girl, inheritress of her
father's genius, whose new-born celebrity had reached as far as his
province, with the halo of a reputation for great beauty. While he was
gazing at her, admiring her slightest movement, a little puzzled by the
enigma presented by that beautiful face, he heard a whispered
conversation behind him.

"Just see how affable she is with the Nabob! Suppose the duke should
come!"

"Is the Duc de Mora expected?"

"To be sure. The party is given for him; to have him meet Jansoulet."

"And you think that the duke and Mademoiselle Ruys--"

"Where have you come from? It's a liaison known to all Paris. It dates
from the last Salon, for which she did his bust."

"And what about the duchess?"

"Pshaw! she has seen many others. Ah! Madame Jenkins is going to sing."

There was a commotion in the salon, a stronger pressure in the crowd
toward the door, and conversation ceased for a moment. Paul de Gery
drew a long breath. The words he had just overheard had oppressed his
heart. He felt as if he himself were spattered, sullied by the mud
unsparingly thrown upon the ideal he had formed for himself of that
glorious youth, ripened in the sun of art and endowed with such
penetrating charm. He moved away a little, changed his position. He
dreaded to hear some other calumny. Madame Jenkins' voice did him good,
a voice famous in Parisian salons, a voice that, with all its
brilliancy, was in no sense theatrical, but seemed like speech,
thrilling with emotion, striking resonant, unfamiliar chords. The
singer, a woman of from forty to forty-five years of age, had
magnificent hair of the color of ashes, refined, somewhat weak
features, and an expression of great amiability. Still beautiful, she
was dressed with the costly taste of a woman who has not abandoned the
idea of pleasing. Nor had she abandoned it; she and the doctor--she was
then a widow--had been married some ten years, and they seemed still to
be enjoying the first months of their joint happiness. While she sang a
Russian folk-song, as wild and sweet as the smile of a Slav, Jenkins
artlessly manifested his pride without attempt at concealment, his
broad face beamed expansively; and she, every time that she leaned
forward to take breath, turned in his direction a timid, loving glance
which sought him out over the music she held in her hand. And when she
had finished, amid a murmur of delight and admiration, it was touching
to see her secretly press her husband's hand, as if to reserve for
herself a little corner of private happiness amid that great triumph.
Young de Gery was taking comfort in the sight of that happy couple,
when suddenly a voice murmured by his side--it was not the same voice
that had spoken just before:

"You know what people say--that the Jenkinses are not married."

"What nonsense!"

"True, I assure you--it seems that there's a genuine Madame Jenkins
somewhere, but not this one who has been exhibited to us. By the way,
have you noticed--"

The conversation continued in an undertone. Madame Jenkins approached,
bowing and smiling, while the doctor, stopping a salver as it passed,
brought her a glass of bordeaux with the zeal of a mother, an
impresario, a lover. Slander, slander, ineffaceable stain! Now Jenkins'
attentions seemed overdone to the provincial. He thought that there was
something affected, studied in them, and at the same time he fancied
that he noticed in the thanks she expressed to her husband in a low
tone a dread, a submissiveness derogatory to the dignity of a lawful
wife, happy and proud in an unassailable position. "Why, society is a
hideous thing!" said de Gery to himself in dismay, his hands as cold as
ice. The smiles that encompassed him seemed to him like mere grimacing.
He was ashamed and disgusted. Then suddenly his soul rose in revolt:
"Nonsense! it isn't possible!" And, as if in answer to that
exclamation, the voice of slander behind him continued carelessly:
"After all, you know, I am not sure. I simply repeat what I hear. Look,
there's Baronne Hemerlingue. He has all Paris here, this Jenkins."

The baroness came forward on the doctor's arm; he had rushed forward to
meet her, and, despite his perfect control over his features, he seemed
a little perturbed and disconcerted. It had occurred to the excellent
Jenkins to take advantage of his party to make peace between his friend
Hemerlingue and his friend Jansoulet, his two wealthiest patients, who
embarrassed him seriously with their internecine warfare. The Nabob
asked nothing better. He bore his former chum no malice. Their rupture
had come about as a result of Hemerlingue's marriage with one of the
favorites of the former bey. "A woman's row, in fact," said Jansoulet;
and he would be very glad to see the end of it, for any sort of
ill-feeling was burdensome to that exuberant nature. But it seemed that
the baron was not anxious for a reconciliation; for, notwithstanding
the promise he had given Jenkins, his wife appeared alone, to the
Irishman's great chagrin.

She was a tall, thin, fragile personage, with eyebrows like a bird's
feathers, a youthful, frightened manner, thirty years striving to seem
twenty, with a head-dress of grasses and grain drooping over jet black
hair thickly strewn with diamonds. With her long lashes falling over
white cheeks of the wax-like tint of women who have lived long in the
seclusion of a cloister, a little embarrassed in her Parisian garb, she
bore less resemblance to a former occupant of a harem than to a nun who
had renounced her vows and returned to the world. A touch of devotion,
of sanctity in her carriage, a certain ecclesiastical trick of walking
with downcast eyes, elbows close to the sides and hands folded, manners
which she had acquired in the ultra-religious environment in which she
had lived since her conversion and her recent baptism, completed the
resemblance. And you can imagine whether worldly curiosity was rampant
around that ex-odalisque turned fervent Catholic, as she entered the
room, escorted by a sacristan-like figure with a livid face and
spectacles, Maitre Le Merquier, Deputy for Lyon, Hemerlingue's man of
business, who attended the baroness when the baron was "slightly
indisposed," as upon this occasion.

When they entered the second salon, the Nabob walked forward to meet
her, expecting to descry in her wake the bloated face of his old
comrade, to whom it was agreed that he should offer his hand. The
baroness saw him coming and became whiter than ever. A steely gleam
shot from under her long lashes. Her nostrils dilated, rose and fell,
and as Jansoulet bowed, she quickened her pace, holding her head erect
and rigid, letting fall from her thin lips a word in Arabic which no
one else could understand, but in which the poor Nabob, for his part,
understood the bitter insult; for when he raised his head his swarthy
face was of the color of terra-cotta when it comes from the oven. He
stood for a moment speechless, his great fists clenched, his lips
swollen with anger. Jenkins joined him, and de Gery, who had watched
the whole scene from a distance, saw them talking earnestly together
with a preoccupied air.

The attempt had miscarried. The reconciliation, so cleverly planned,
would not take place. Hemerlingue did not want it. If only the duke did
not break his word! It was getting late. La Wauters, who was to sing
the "Night" aria from the _Magic Flute_, after the performance at
her theatre, had just arrived all muffled up in her lace hood.

And the minister did not come.

But it was a promise and everything was understood. Monpavon was to
take him up at the club. From time to time honest Jenkins drew his
watch, as he tossed an absent-minded _bravo_ to the bouquet of limpid
notes that gushed from La Wauters' fairy lips, a bouquet worth three
thousand francs, and absolutely wasted, in common with the other
expenses of the festivity, if the duke did not come.

Suddenly both wings of the folding-doors were thrown open:

"His Excellency the Duc de Mora!"

A prolonged thrill of excitement greeted him, respectful curiosity
drawn up in a double row, instead of the brutal crowding that had
impeded the passage of the Nabob.

No one could be more skilled than he in the art of making his
appearance in society, of walking gravely across a salon, ascending the
tribune with smiling face, imparting solemnity to trifles and treating
serious matters lightly; it was a resume of his attitude in life, a
paradoxical distinction. Still handsome, despite his fifty-six
years,--a beauty attributable to refined taste and perfect proportion,
in which the grace of the dandy was intensified by something of a
soldierly character in the figure and the haughty expression of the
face,--he appeared to admirable advantage in the black coat, whereon,
in Jenkins' honor, he had placed a few of his decorations, which he
never displayed except on days of official functions. The sheen of the
linen and the white cravat, the unpolished silver of the decorations,
the softness of the thin, grayish hair, gave added pallor to the face,
the most bloodless of all the bloodless faces assembled that evening
under the Irishman's roof.

He led such a terrible life! Politics, gambling in every form, on the
Bourse and at baccarat, and the reputation of a lady-killer which he
must maintain at any price. Oh! he was a typical patient of Jenkins,
and he certainly owed that visit in princely state to the inventor of
the mysterious Pearls, which gave to his eyes that glance of flame, to
his whole being that extraordinary pulsing vivacity.

[Illustration: "'_His Excellency, the Due de Mora!_'"]

"My dear duke, allow me to present to you--"

Monpavon, solemn of face, with padded calves, attempted to make the
introduction so anxiously expected; but His Excellency, in his
preoccupation, did not hear and kept on toward the large salon, borne
onward by one of those electric currents that break the monotony of
social life. As he passed, and while he paid his respects to the fair
Madame Jenkins, the women leaned forward with alluring glances, soft
laughter, intent upon making a favorable impression. But he saw only
one, Felicia, who stood in the centre of a group of men, holding forth
as if in her own studio, and tranquilly sipping a sherbet as she
watched the duke's approach. She welcomed him with perfect naturalness.
Those who stood by discreetly withdrew. But, in spite of what de Gery
had overheard concerning their alleged relations, there seemed to be
only a good-fellowship entirely of the mind between them, a playful
familiarity.

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