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

corridor; the first-night public which is always the same, that brigand-like _tout Paris_ which goes everywhere, carrying those envied places by storm when a favour or a claim by right of some official position fails to secure them.
In the stalls are low-cut waistcoats, clubmen, shining bald heads, wide partings in scanty hair, light-coloured gloves, big opera-glasses raised and directed towards various points. In the galleries a mixture of different social sets and all kinds of dress, all the people well known as figuring at this kind of solemnity, and the embarrassing promiscuity which places the modest smile of the virtuous woman along-side of the black-ringed eyes, the vermilion-painted lips of her who belongs to another category. White hats, pink hats, diamonds and paint. Above, the boxes present the same confusion; actresses and women of the demi-monde, ministers, ambassadors, famous authors, critics--these last wearing a grave air and frowning brow, sitting crosswise in their _fauteuils_ with the impassive haughtiness of judges whom nothing can corrupt. The boxes near the stage especially stand out in the general picture brilliantly lighted, occupied by celebrities of the financial world, the women _decollete_ and with bare arms, glittering with jewels like the Queen of Sheba on her visit to the King of Judea. But on the left, one of these large boxes, entirely empty, attracts attention by reason of its curious decoration, lighted from the back by a Moorish lantern. Over the whole assembly is an impalpable and floating dust, the flickering of the gas, that odour that mingles with all the pleasures of Paris, its little sputterings, sharp and quick like the breaths drawn by a consumptive, accompanying the movement of opened fans. And then, too, _ennui_, a gloomy _ennui_, the _ennui_ of seeing the same faces always in the same places, with their defects or their poses, that uniformity of fashionable gatherings which ends by establishing in Paris each winter a spiteful and gossiping provincialism more petty than that of the provinces themselves.
Maranne observed this ill-humour, this lassitude of the public, and thinking of all the changes which the success of his play might bring about in his simple life, he asked himself, full of a great anxiety, what he could do to bring his ideas home to those thousands of people, to pluck them away from their preoccupation, and to send through this crowd a single current which should draw to himself those absent glances, those minds of every different calibre, so difficult to move to unison. Instinctively his eyes sought friendly faces, a box facing the stage occupied by the Joyeuse family; Elise and the younger girls seated in the front, Aline and the father in the row behind--a charming family group, like a bouquet wet with dew amid a display of artificial flowers. And while all Paris was disdainfully asking, "Who are those people there?" the poet instrusted his fate to those little fairy hands, new gloved for the occasion, which very soon would boldly give the signal for applause.
The curtain is going up! Maranne has barely time to spring into the wings; and suddenly he hears as from far, very far away, the first words of his play, which rise, like a flight of timid birds, into the silence and immensity of the theatre. A terrible moment. Where should he go? What should he do? Remain there leaning against a wing, with straining ear and beating heart? Encourage the actors when he himself stood in so much need of encouragement? He prefers rather to look the peril in the face; and by the little door communicating with the corridor behind the boxes he slips out to a corner box, which he orders to be opened for him softly. "Sh! It is I." Some one is seated in the shadow--a woman, she whom all Paris knows and who is hiding herself from the public gaze. Andre sits down by her side, and so, close to one another, mother and son tremblingly watch the progress of the play.
It astonished the audience at first. This Theatre des Nouveautes, situated in the very heart of the boulevard, where its portico glitters all illuminated among the great restaurants of the smart clubs; this theatre, to which people were accustomed to come in parties after a luxurious dinner to listen until supper-time to an act or two of some suggestive piece, had become in the hands of its clever manager the most fashionable of all Parisian entertainments, without any very precise character of its own, and partaking something of all, from the fairy-operetta which exhibits undressed women, to the serious modern drama. Cardailhac was especially anxious to justify his title of "Manager of the Nouveautes," and, since the Nabob's millions had been at the back of the undertaking, had made a point of preparing for the boulevardiers the most dazzling surprises. That of this evening surpassed them all; the piece was in verse--and moral.
A moral play!
The old rogue had realized that the moment had arrived to try that effect, and he was trying it. After the astonishment of the first minutes, a few disappointed exclamations here and there in the boxes, "Why, it is in verse!" the house began to feel the charm of this invigorating and healthy piece, as if there had been sprinkled on it, in its rarefied atmosphere, some fresh and pungent essence, an elixir of life perfumed with thyme from the hillside.
"Ah! this is nice--it is restful."
Such was the general sense, a thrill of ease, a spasm of pleasure accompanying each line. That fat old Hemerlingue found it restful, puffing in his stage-box on the ground floor as in a trough of cerise satin. It was restful also to that tall Suzanne Bloch, her hair dressed in the antique way, ringlets flowing over a diadem of gold; and near her, Amy Ferat, all in white like a bride and with sprigs of orange-blossom in her fluffy hair, it was restful to her also, you may be sure.
A crowd of demi-mondaines were present, some very fat, with a dirty greasiness acquired in a hundred seraglios, three chins, and an air of stupidity; others absolutely green in spite of their paint, as if they had been dipped in a bath of that arsenate of copper which is called in the shops "Paris green." These were wrinkled, faded to such a degree that they hid in the back of their boxes, only allowing a portion of a white arm to be seen, a rounded shoulder protruding. Then there were young men about town, flabby and without backbone, those who at that time used to be called _petits creves_, creatures worn out by dissipation, with stooping necks and drooping lids, incapable of standing erect or of articulating a single word perfectly. And all these people exclaimed with one accord: "This is nice--it is restful." The handsome Moessard murmured it like a refrain beneath his little fair mustache, while his queen in the stage-box translated it into the barbarism of her foreign tongue. Positively they found it restful. They did not say after what--after what heart-breaking labour, after what forced, idle and useless task.
All these friendly murmurs, united and mingled, began to give to the house an eventful appearance. Success was felt in the air, faces became serene again, the women seemed the more beautiful for reflecting enthusiasm, for being moved to glances that were as exciting as applause. Andre, at his mother's side, thrilled with such an unknown pleasure, with that proud delight which a man feels when he stirs the multitude, be he only a singer in a suburban back-yard, with a patriotic refrain and two pathetic notes in his voice. Suddenly the whisperings redoubled, were transformed into a tumult. People were chuckling and fidgeting with excitement. What had happened? Some accident on the stage? Andre, leaning terrified towards the actors as astonished as himself, saw every opera-glass turned towards the big stage-box which had remained empty until then, and which some one had just entered, who sat down immediately with both his elbows on the velvet ledge, and with his opera-glass drawn from its case, taking his place in gloomy solitude.
In ten days the Nabob had aged twenty years. Violent southern natures like his, if they are rich in enthusiasms, become also more utterly prostrate than others. Since his unseating the unfortunate man had shut himself up in his bedroom, with drawn curtains, no longer wishing even to see the light of day nor to cross over the threshold beyond which life was waiting for him, with the engagements he had undertaken, the promises he had made, a mass of protested bills and writs. The Levantine, gone off to some spa accompanied by her _masseur_ and her negress, was totally indifferent to the ruin of the establishment; Bompain--the man in the fez--in frightened bewilderment amid the demands for money, not knowing how to approach his ill-starred master, who persistently kept his bed and turned his face to the wall as soon as business matters were mentioned. His old mother alone remained behind to face the disaster, with the knowledge born of her narrow and straitened experience as a village woman, who knows what a stamped document--a signature--is, and thinks honour is the greatest and best thing in the world. Her peasant's cap made its appearance on every floor of the mansion, examining bills, reforming the domestic arrangements, and fearing neither outcries or humiliation. At all hours the good woman might be seen striding about the Place Vendome, gesticulating, talking to herself, and saying aloud: "_Te_, I will go and see the bailiff." And never did she consult her son about anything save when it was indispensable, and then only in a few discreet words, while avoiding even a glance at him. To rouse Jansoulet from his torpor it had required de Gery's telegram, dated from Marseilles, announcing that he was on his way back, bringing ten million francs. Ten millions!--that is to say, bankruptcy averted, the possibility of recovering his position--of starting life afresh. And behold our southerner rebounding from the depth of his fall, intoxicated with joy, and full of hope. He ordered the windows to be opened and newspapers to be brought to him. What a magnificent opportunity was this first night of _Revolt_ to show himself to the Parisians, who were believing him to have gone under, to enter the great whirlpool once more through the swing door of his box at the Nouveautes! His mother, warned by some instinct, did indeed try to hold him back. Paris now terrified her. She would have liked to carry off her child to some unknown corner of the Midi, to nurse him along with his elder brother--stricken down both of them by the great city. But he was the master. Resistance was impossible to that will of a man spoiled by wealth. She helped him to dress for the occasion, "made him look nice," as she said laughing, and watched him not without a certain pride as he departed, dignified, full of new life, having almost got over the prostration of the preceding days.
After his arrival at the theatre, Jansoulet quickly perceived the commotion which his presence caused in the house. Accustomed to similar curious ovations, he acknowledged them ordinarily without the least embarrassment, with a frank display of his wide and good-natured smile; but this time the manifestation was hostile, almost indignant.
"What! It is he?"
"There he is."
"What impudence!"
Such exclamations from the stalls confusedly rose among many others. The retirement in which he had taken refuge for some days past had left him in ignorance of the public exasperation, of the homilies, the statements broadcast in the newspapers, with the corrupting influence of his wealth as their text--articles written for effect, hypocritical phraseology by the aid of which opinion avenges itself from time to time on the innocent for all its own concessions to the guilty.