The Nabob, Alphonse Daudet [new books to read .txt] 📗

as to see them no longer; rather than them I would have the prison, the sewer, the streets. And yet it is your deceit, O sublime Jenkins, which horrifies me most. You have mingled our French hypocrisy, all smiles and politeness, with your large English shakes of the hand, with your cordial and demonstrative loyalty. They have all been caught by it. They said, 'The good Jenkins; the worthy, honest Jenkins.' But I--I knew you, and in spite of your fine motto on the envelopes of your letters, on your seal, your sleeve-links, your hat-bands, the doors of your carriage, I always saw the rascal you are."
Her voice hissed through her teeth, clinched by an incredible ferocity of expression, and Paul expected some furious revolt of Jenkins under so many insults. But this hate and contempt of the woman he loved must have given him more sorrow than anger, for he answered softly, in a tone of wounded gentleness:
"Oh! you are cruel. If you knew the pain you are giving me! Hypocrite! yes, it is true; but I was not born like that. One is forced into it by the difficulties of life. When one has the wind against one, and wishes to advance, one tacks. I have tacked. Lay the blame on my miserable beginnings, my false entry into existence, and agree at least that one thing in me has never lied--my passion! Nothing has been able to kill it--neither your disdain, nor your abuse, nor all that I have read in your eyes, which for so many years have not once smiled at me. It is still my passion which gives me the strength, even after what I have just heard, to tell you why I am here. Listen! You told me once that you wanted a husband--some one who would watch over you during your work, who would take over some of the duties of the poor Crenmitz. Those were your own words, which wounded me then because I was not free. Now all that is changed. Will you marry me, Felicia?"
"And your wife?" cried the young girl, while Paul was asking himself the same question.
"My wife is dead."
"Dead? Mme. Jenkins? Is it true?"
"You never knew her of whom I speak. The other was not my wife. When I met her I was already married in Ireland--years before. A horrible forced marriage. My dear, when I was twenty-five I was confronted with this alternative: a debtor's prison or Miss Strang, an ugly and gouty old maid, sister of the usurer who had lent me five hundred pounds to pay for my medical studies. I preferred the prison; but after weeks and months I came to the end of my courage, and I married Miss Strang, who brought me for dowry--my note of hand. You can guess what my life was between these two monsters who adored each other. A jealous, impotent wife. The brother spied on me, following me everywhere. I should have gone away, but one thing kept me there. The usurer was said to be very rich. I wished to have some return for my cowardice. You see, I tell you all. Come now, I have been punished. Old Strang died insolvent; he used to gamble, had ruined himself without saying a word. Then I put my wife and her rheumatism in a hospital, and came to France. I had to begin existence again, more struggles and misery. But I had experience on my side, hatred and contempt for men, and my newly conquered liberty, for I did not dream that the horrible weight of this cursed union was going to hinder my getting on, at that distance. Happily, it is over--I am free."
"Yes, Jenkins, free. But why do you not make your wife the poor creature who has shared your life so long, so humble and devoted as she is?"
"Oh!" said he, with an outburst of sincerity, "between my two prisons I would prefer the other, where I could be frankly indifferent. But the atrocious comedy of conjugal love, of unwearying happiness, when for so long I had loved you and thought of you alone! There is not such a torture on earth. If I can guess, the poor woman must have uttered a cry of relief and happiness at the separation. It is the only adieu I hoped for from her."
"But who forced you to such a thing?"
"Paris, society, the world. Married by its opinion, we were held by it."
"And now you are held no longer?"
"Now something comes before all--it is the idea of losing you, of seeing you no longer. Oh! when I learned of your flight, when I saw the bill over your door TO LET, I felt sure that it was all up with poses and grimaces, that I had nothing else to do but to set out, to run quickly after my happiness, which you were taking away. You were leaving Paris--I have left it. Everything of yours was being sold; everything of mine will be sold."
"And she?" said Felicia trembling. "She, the irreproachable companion, the honest woman whom no one has ever suspected, where will she go? What will she do? And it is her place you have just offered me. A stolen place, think what a hell! Well, and your motto, good Jenkins, virtuous Jenkins, what shall we do with it? '_Le bien sans esperance_,' eh!"
At this sneer, cutting his face like a whip, the wretch answered panting:
"That will do! Do not sneer at me so. It is too horrible now. Does it not touch you, then, to be loved as I love you in sacrificing everything to you--fortune, honour, respect? See, look at me. I have snatched my mask off for you, I have snatched if off before all. And now, see, here is the hypocrite."
He heard the muffled noise of two knees falling on the floor. And stammering, distracted with love, weak before her, he begged her to consent to this marriage, to give him the right to follow her everywhere, to defend her. Then the words failed him, stifled in a passionate sob, so deep, so lacerating that it should have touched any heart, above all among this splendid impassible scenery in this perfumed heat. But Felicia was not touched. "Let us have done, Jenkins," said she brusquely. "What you ask is impossible. We have nothing to hide from each other, and after your confidences just now, I wish to make one to you, which humbles my pride, but your degradation makes you worthy. I was Mora's mistress."
Paul knew this. And yet it was so sad to hear this beautiful, pure voice laden with such a confession, in the midst of the intoxicating air, that he felt his heart contract.
"I knew it," answered Jenkins in a low voice, "I have the letters you wrote to him."
"My letters?"
"Oh, I will give them to you--here. I know them by heart. I have read and reread them. It is that which hurts one, when one loves. But I have suffered other tortures. When I think that it was I--" He stopped himself. He choked. "I who had to furnish fuel for your flames, warm this frozen lover, send him to you ardent and young--Ah! he has devoured my pearls--I might refuse over and over again, he was always taking them. At last I was mad. You wish to burn, wretched woman. Well, burn, then!"
Paul rose to his feet in terror. Was he going to hear the confession of a crime? But the shame of hearing more was not inflicted on him. A violent knocking, this time on his own door, warned him that his _calesino_ was ready.
"Is the French gentleman ready?"
In the next room there was silence, then a whisper.--There had been some one near who had heard them.--Paul de Gery hurried downstairs. He must get out of this room to escape the weight of so much infamy.
As the post-chaise swayed, he saw among the common white curtains, which float at all the windows in the south, a pale figure with the hair of a goddess, and great burning eyes fixed on him. But a glance at Aline's portrait quickly dispelled this disturbing vision, and forever cured of his old love, he travelled until evening through the magic landscape with the lovely bride of the _dejeuner_, who carried in the folds of her modest robe and mantle all the violets of Bordighera.


THE FIRST NIGHT OF "REVOLT"
"Take your places for the first act!"
The cry of the stage-manager, standing with his hand raised to his mouth to form a trumpet, at the foot of the staircase behind the scenes, echoes under the roof, rises and rolls along, to be lost in the depths of corridors full of the noise of doors banging, of hasty steps, of desperate calls to the _coiffeur_ and the dressers; while there appear one by one on the landings of the various floors, slow and majestic, without moving their heads for fear of disturbing the least detail of their make-up, all the personages of the first act of _Revolt_, in elegant modern ball costumes, with the creaking of new shoes, the silken rustle of the trains, the jingling of rich bracelets pushed up the arm while gloves are being buttoned. All these people seem excited, nervous, pale beneath their paint, and under the skilfully prepared satin-like surface of the shoulders, tremors flutter like shadows. Dry-mouthed, they speak little. The least nervous, while affecting to smile, have in their eyes and voice the hesitation that marks an absent mind--that apprehension of the battle behind the foot-lights which is ever one of the most powerful attractions of the comedian's art, its piquancy, its freshness.
The stage is encumbered by the passage to and fro of machinists and scene-builders hastening about, running into one another in the dim, pallid light falling from above, which will give place directly, as soon as the curtain rises, to the dazzling of the foot-lights. Cardailhac is there in his dress-coat and white tie, his opera hat on one side, giving a final glance to the arrangement of the scenery, hurrying the workmen, complimenting the _ingenue_ who is waiting dressed and ready, beaming, humming an air, looking superb. To see him no one would ever guess the terrible worries which distract him. He is compromised by the fall of the Nabob--which entails the loss of his directorate--and is risking his all on the piece of this evening, obliged, if it be not a success, to leave the cost of this marvellous scenery, these stuffs at a hundred francs the yard, unpaid. It is a fourth bankruptcy that stares him in the face. But, bah! our manager is confident. Success, like all the monsters that feed on men, loves youth; and this unknown author, whose name is appearing for the first time on a theatre bill, flatters the gambler's superstitions.
Andre Maranne feels less confident. As the hour for the production of the piece approaches he loses faith in his work, terrified by the sight of the house, at which he looks through the hole in the curtain as through the narrow lens of a stereoscope.
A splendid house, crammed to the roof, notwithstanding the late period of the spring and the fashionable taste for early departure to the country; a house that Cardailhac, a declared enemy of nature and the country, endeavouring always to keep Parisians in Paris till the latest possible date, has succeeded in crowding and making as brilliant as in midwinter. Fifteen hundred heads are swarming beneath the great central chandelier, erect--bent forward--turning round--questioning amid a great play of shadows and reflections; some massed in the obscure corners of the floor, others in a bright light reflected through the open doors of the boxes from the white walls of the