The Mystery of Orcival, Émile Gaboriau [fiction novels to read TXT] 📗

be chivalrous to breakfast with his inamorata and make her a present of this money at dessert. During the meal he would be full of nervous gayety, of cynical humor, and then he would announce his intention to kill himself. The girl would not fail to narrate the scene everywhere; she would repeat his last conversation, his last will and gift; all the cafés would buzz with it at night; the papers would be full of it.

This idea strangely excited him, and comforted him at once. He was going out, when his eyes fell upon the mass of papers in his desk. Perhaps there was something there which might dim the positiveness of his resolution. He emptied all the drawers without looking or choosing, and put all the papers in the fire. He looked with pride upon this conflagration; there were bills, love letters, business letters, bonds, patents of nobility, deeds of property. Was it not his brilliant past which flickered and consumed in the fireplace?

The bailiff occurred to him, and he hastily descended. He was the most polite of bailiffs, a man of taste and wit, a friend of artists, himself a poet at times. He had already seized eight horses in the stables with all their harness and trappings, and five carriages with their equipage, in the carriage-house.

“I’m going on slowly, Count,” said he bowing. “Perhaps you wish to arrest the execution. The sum is large, to be sure, but a man in your position⁠—”

“Believe that you are here because it suits me,” interrupted Hector, proudly, “this house doesn’t suit me; I shall never enter it again. So, as you are master, go on.”

And wheeling round on his heel he went off.

The astonished bailiff proceeded with his work. He went from room to room, admiring and seizing. He seized cups gained at the races, collections of pipes and arms, and the library, containing many sporting-books, superbly bound.

Meanwhile the Count de Trémorel, who was resolved more than ever on suicide, ascending the boulevards came to his inamorata’s house, which was near the Madeleine. He had introduced her some six months before into the demimonde as Jenny Fancy. Her real name was Pélagie Taponnet, and although the count did not know it, she was his valet’s sister. She was pretty and lively, with delicate hands and a tiny foot, superb chestnut hair, white teeth, and great impertinent black eyes, which were languishing, caressing, or provoking, at will. She had passed suddenly from the most abject poverty to a state of extravagant luxury. This brilliant change did not astonish her as much as you might think. Forty-eight hours after her removal to her new apartments, she had established order among the servants; she made them obey a glance or a gesture; and she made her dressmakers and milliners submit with good grace to her orders. Jenny soon began to languish, in her fine rooms, for new excitement; her gorgeous toilets no longer amused her. A woman’s happiness is not complete unless seasoned by the jealousy of rivals. Jenny’s rivals lived in the Faubourg du Temple, near the barrier; they could not envy her splendor, for they did not know her, and she was strictly forbidden to associate with and so dazzle them. As for Trémorel, Jenny submitted to him from necessity. He seemed to her the most tiresome of men. She thought his friends the dreariest of beings. Perhaps she perceived beneath their ironically polite manner, a contempt for her, and understood of how little consequence she was to these rich people, these high livers, gamblers, men of the world. Her pleasures comprised an evening with someone of her own class, card-playing, at which she won, and a midnight supper. The rest of the time she suffered ennui. She was wearied to death: A hundred times she was on the point of discarding Trémorel, abandoning all this luxury, money, servants, and resuming her old life. Many a time she packed up; her vanity always checked her at the last moment.

Hector de Trémorel rang at her door at eleven on the morning in question. She did not expect him so early, and she was evidently surprised when he told her he had come to breakfast, and asked her to hasten the cook, as he was in a great hurry.

She had never, she thought, seen him so amiable, so gay. All through breakfast he sparkled, as he promised himself he would, with spirit and fun. At last, while they were sipping their coffee, Hector spoke:

“All this, my dear, is only a preface, intended to prepare you for a piece of news which will surprise you. I am a ruined man.”

She looked at him with amazement, not seeming to comprehend him.

“I said⁠—ruined,” said he, laughing bitterly, “as ruined as man can be.”

“Oh, you are making fun of me, joking⁠—”

“I never spoke so seriously in my life. It seems strange to you, doesn’t it? Yet it’s sober truth.”

Jenny’s large eyes continued to interrogate him.

“Why,” he continued, with lofty carelessness, “life, you know, is like a bunch of grapes, which one either eats gradually, piece by piece, or squeezes into a glass to be tossed off at a gulp. I’ve chosen the latter way. My grape was four million francs; they are drunk up to the dregs. I don’t regret them, I’ve had a jolly life for my money. But now I can flatter myself that I am as much of a beggar as any beggar in France. Everything at my house is in the bailiff’s hands⁠—I am without a domicile, without a penny.”

He spoke with increasing animation as the multitude of diverse thoughts passed each other tumultuously in his brain. And he was not playing a part. He was speaking in all good faith.

“But⁠—then⁠—” stammered Jenny.

“What? Are you free? Just so⁠—”

She hardly knew whether to rejoice or mourn.

“Yes,” he continued, “I give you back your liberty.”

Jenny made a gesture which Hector misunderstood.

“Oh! be quiet,” he added quickly, “I shan’t leave you thus; I would not