The Project Gutenberg Etext of Fromont and Risler by Alphonse Daudet, v4 #66 in our series The French Immortals Crowned by the French Academy #7 in our series by Alphonse Daudet
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Title: Fromont and Risler, v4
Author: Alphonse Daudet
Release Date: April, 2003 [Etext #3979]
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[The actual date this file first posted = 09/23/01]
Edition: 10
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The Project Gutenberg Etext of Fromont and Risler by Alphonse Daudet, v4
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FROMONT AND RISLER
By ALPHONSE DAUDET
BOOK 4.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DAY OF RECKONING
The great clock of Saint-Gervais struck one in the morning. It was so cold that the fine snow, flying through the air, hardened as it fell, covering the pavements with a slippery, white blanket.
Risler, wrapped in his cloak, was hastening home from the brewery through the deserted streets of the Marais. He had been celebrating, in company with his two faithful borrowers, Chebe and Delobelle, his first moment of leisure, the end of that almost endless period of seclusion during which he had been superintending the manufacture of his press, with all the searchings, the joys, and the disappointments of the inventor. It had been long, very long. At the last moment he had discovered a defect. The crane did not work well; and he had had to revise his plans and drawings. At last, on that very day, the new machine had been tried. Everything had succeeded to his heart's desire. The worthy man was triumphant. It seemed to him that he had paid a debt, by giving the house of Fromont the benefit of a new machine, which would lessen the labor, shorten the hours of the workmen, and at the same time double the profits and the reputation of the factory. He indulged in beautiful dreams as he plodded along. His footsteps rang out proudly, emphasized by the resolute and happy trend of his thoughts.
Quickening his pace, he reached the corner of Rue des Vieilles- Haudriettes. A long line of carriages was standing in front of the factory, and the light of their lanterns in the street, the shadows of the drivers seeking shelter from the snow in the corners and angles that those old buildings have retained despite the straightening of the sidewalks, gave an animated aspect to that deserted, silent quarter.
"Yes, yes! to be sure," thought the honest fellow, "we have a ball at our house." He remembered that Sidonie was giving a grand musical and dancing party, which she had excused him from attending, by the way, knowing that he was very busy.
Shadows passed and repassed behind the fluttering veil of the curtains; the orchestra seemed to follow the movements of those stealthy apparitions with the rising and falling of its muffled notes. The guests were dancing. Risler let his eyes rest for a moment on that phantasmagoria of the ball, and fancied that he recognized Sidonie's shadow in a small room adjoining the salon.
She was standing erect in her magnificent costume, in the attitude of a pretty woman before her mirror. A shorter shadow behind her, Madame Dobson doubtless, was repairing some accident to the costume, retieing the knot of a ribbon tied about her neck, its long ends floating down to the flounces of the train. It was all very indistinct, but the woman's graceful figure was recognizable in those faintly traced outlines, and Risler tarried long admiring her.
The contrast on the first floor was most striking. There was no light visible, with the exception of a little lamp shining through the lilac hangings of the bedroom. Risler noticed that circumstance, and as the little girl had been ailing a few days before, he felt anxious about her, remembering Madame Georges's strange agitation when she passed him so hurriedly in the afternoon; and he retraced his steps as far as Pere Achille's lodge to inquire.
The lodge was full. Coachmen were warming themselves around the stove, chatting and laughing amid the smoke from their pipes. When Risler appeared there was profound silence, a cunning, inquisitive, significant silence. They had evidently been speaking of him.
"Is the Fromont child still sick?" he asked.
"No, not the child, Monsieur."
"Monsieur Georges sick?"
"Yes, he was taken when he came home to-night. I went right off to get the doctor. He said that it wouldn't amount to anything—that all Monsieur needed was rest."
As Risler closed the door Pere Achille added, under his breath, with the half-fearful, half-audacious insolence of an inferior, who would like to be listened to and yet not distinctly heard:
"Ah! 'dame', they're not making such a show on the first floor as they are on the second."
This is what had happened.
Fromont jeune, on returning home during the evening, had found his wife with such a changed, heartbroken face, that he at once divined a catastrophe. But he had become so accustomed in the past two years to sin with impunity that it did not for one moment occur to him that his wife could have been informed of his conduct. Claire, for her part, to avoid humiliating him, was generous enough to speak only of Savigny.
"Grandpapa refused," she said.
The miserable man turned frightfully pale.
"I am lost—I am lost!" he muttered two or three times in the wild accents of fever; and his sleepless nights, a last terrible scene which he had had with Sidonie, trying to induce her not to give this party on the eve of his downfall, M. Gardinois' refusal, all these maddening things which followed so closely on one another's heels and had agitated him terribly, culminated in a genuine nervous attack. Claire took pity on him, put him to bed, and established herself by his side; but her voice had lost that affectionate intonation which soothes and persuades. There was in her gestures, in the way in which she arranged the pillow under the patient's head and prepared a quieting draught, a strange indifference, listlessness.
"But I have ruined you!" Georges said from time to time, as if to rouse her from that apathy which made him uncomfortable. She replied with a proud, disdainful gesture. Ah! if he had done only that to her!
At last, however, his nerves became calmer, the fever subsided, and he fell asleep.
She remained to attend to his wants.
"It is my duty," she said to herself.
Her duty. She had reached that point with the man whom she had adored so blindly, with the hope of a long and happy life together.
At that moment the ball in Sidonie's apartments began to become very animated. The ceiling trembled rhythmically, for Madame had had all the carpets removed from her salons for the greater comfort of the dancers. Sometimes, too, the sound of voices reached Claire's ears in waves, and frequent tumultuous applause, from which one could divine the great number of the guests, the crowded condition of the rooms.
Claire was lost in thought. She did not waste time in regrets, in fruitless lamentations. She knew that life was inflexible and that all the arguments in the world will not arrest the cruel logic of its inevitable progress. She
Such were the poor woman's thoughts during that sad vigil, a vigil of arms and tears, while she was preparing her forces for the great battle. Such was the scene lighted by the modest little lamp which Risler had seen from below, like a star fallen from the radiant chandeliers of the ballroom.
Reassured by Pere Achille's reply, the honest fellow thought of going up to his bedroom, avoiding the festivities and the guests, for whom he cared little.
On such occasions he used a small servants' staircase communicating with the counting-room. So he walked through the many-windowed workshops, which the moon, reflected by the snow, made as light as at noonday. He breathed the atmosphere of the day of toil, a hot, stifling atmosphere, heavy with the odor of boiled talc and varnish. The papers spread out on the dryers formed long, rustling paths. On all sides tools were lying about, and blouses hanging here and there ready for the morrow. Risler never walked through the shops without a feeling of pleasure.
Suddenly he spied a light in Planus's office, at the end of that long line of deserted rooms. The old cashier was still at work, at one o'clock in the morning! That was really most extraordinary.
Risler's first impulse was to retrace his steps. In fact, since his unaccountable falling-out with Sigismond, since the cashier had adopted that attitude of cold silence toward him, he had avoided meeting him. His wounded friendship had always led him to shun an explanation; he had a sort of pride in not asking Planus why he bore him ill-will. But, on that evening, Risler felt so strongly the need of cordial sympathy, of pouring out his heart to some one, and then it was such an excellent opportunity for a tete-a-tete with his former friend, that he did not try to avoid him but boldly entered the counting-room.
The cashier was sitting there, motionless, among heaps of papers and great books, which he had been turning over, some of which had fallen to the floor. At the sound of his employer's footsteps he did not even lift his eyes. He had recognized Risler's step. The latter, somewhat abashed, hesitated a moment; then, impelled by one of those secret springs which we have within us and which guide us, despite ourselves, in the path of our destiny, he walked straight to the cashier's grating.
"Sigismond," he said in a grave voice.
The old man raised his head and displayed a shrunken face down which two great tears were rolling, the first perhaps that that animate column of figures had ever shed in his life.
"You are weeping, old man? What troubles you?"
And honest Risler, deeply touched, held out his hand to his friend, who hastily withdrew his. That movement of repulsion was so instinctive, so brutal, that all Risler's emotion changed to indignation.
He drew himself up with stern dignity.
"I offer you my hand, Sigismond Planus!" he said.
"And I refuse to take it," said Planus, rising.
There was a terrible pause, during which they heard the muffled music of the orchestra upstairs and the noise of the ball, the dull, wearing noise of floors shaken by the rhythmic movement of the dance.
"Why do you refuse to take my hand?" demanded Risler simply, while the grating upon which he leaned trembled with a metallic quiver.
Sigismond was facing him, with both hands on his desk, as if to emphasize and drive home what he was about to say in reply.
"Why? Because you have ruined the house; because in a few hours a messenger from the Bank will come and stand where you are, to collect a hundred thousand francs; and because, thanks to you, I haven't a sou in the cash-box—that's the reason why!"
Risler was stupefied.
"I have ruined the house—I?"
"Worse than that, Monsieur. You have allowed it to be ruined by your wife, and you have arranged with her to benefit by our ruin and your dishonor. Oh! I can see your game well enough. The money your wife has wormed out of the wretched Fromont, the house at Asnieres, the diamonds and all the rest is invested in her name, of course, out of reach of disaster; and of course you can retire from business now."
"Oh—oh!" exclaimed Risler in a faint voice, a restrained voice rather, that was insufficient for the multitude of thoughts it strove to express; and as he stammered helplessly he drew the grating toward him with such force that he broke off a piece of it. Then he staggered, fell to the floor, and lay there motionless, speechless, retaining only, in what little life was still left in him, the firm determination not to die until he had justified himself. That determination must have been very powerful; for while his temples throbbed madly, hammered by the blood that turned his face purple, while his ears were ringing and his glazed eyes seemed already turned toward the terrible unknown, the unhappy man muttered to himself in a thick voice, like the voice of a shipwrecked man speaking with his mouth full of water in a howling gale: "I must live! I must live!"
When he recovered consciousness, he was sitting on the cushioned bench on which the workmen sat huddled together on pay-day, his cloak on the floor, his cravat untied, his shirt open at the neck, cut by Sigismond's knife. Luckily for him, he had cut his hands when he tore the grating apart; the blood had flowed freely, and that accident was enough to avert an attack of apoplexy. On opening his eyes, he saw on either side old Sigismond and Madame Georges, whom the cashier had summoned in his distress. As soon as Risler could speak, he said to her in a choking voice:
"Is this true, Madame Chorche—is this true that he just told me?"
She had not the courage to deceive him, so she turned her eyes away.
"So," continued the poor fellow, "so the house is ruined, and I—"
"No, Risler, my friend. No, not you."
"My wife, was it not? Oh! it is horrible! This is how I have paid my debt of gratitude to you. But you, Madame Chorche, you could not have believed that I was a party to this infamy?"
"No, my friend, no; be calm. I know that you are the most honorable man on earth."
He looked at her a moment, with trembling lips and clasped hands, for there was something child-like in all the manifestations of that artless nature.
"Oh! Madame Chorche, Madame Chorche," he murmured. "When I think that I am the one who has ruined you."
In the terrible
"Come," he said, "let us not give way to emotion. We must see about settling our accounts."
Madame Fromont was frightened.
"Risler, Risler—where are you going?"
She thought that he was going up to Georges' room.
Risler understood her and smiled in superb disdain.
"Never fear, Madame. Monsieur Georges can sleep in peace. I have something more urgent to do than avenge my honor as a husband. Wait for me here. I will come back."
He darted toward the narrow staircase; and Claire, relying upon his word, remained with Planus during one of those supreme moments of uncertainty which seem interminable because of all the conjectures with which they are thronged.
A few moments later the sound of hurried steps, the rustling of silk filled the dark and narrow staircase. Sidonie appeared first, in ball costume, gorgeously arrayed and so pale that the jewels that glistened everywhere on her dead-white flesh seemed more alive than she, as if they were scattered over the cold marble of a statue. The breathlessness due to dancing, the trembling of intense excitement and her rapid descent, caused her to shake from head to foot, and her floating ribbons, her ruffles, her flowers, her rich and fashionable attire drooped tragically about her. Risler followed her, laden with jewel-cases, caskets, and papers. Upon reaching his apartments he had pounced upon his wife's desk, seized everything valuable that it contained, jewels, certificates, title-deeds of the house at Asnieres; then, standing in the doorway, he had shouted into the ballroom:
"Madame Risler!"
She had run quickly to him, and that brief scene had in no wise disturbed the guests, then at the height of the evening's enjoyment. When she saw her husband standing in front of the desk, the drawers broken open and overturned on the carpet with the multitude of trifles they contained, she realized that something terrible was taking place.
"Come at once," said Risler; "I know all."
She tried to assume an innocent, dignified attitude; but he seized her by the arm with such force that Frantz's words came to her mind: "It will kill him perhaps, but he will kill you first." As she was afraid of death, she allowed herself to be led away without resistance, and had not even the strength to lie.
"Where are we going?" she asked, in a low voice.
Risler did not answer. She had only time to throw over her shoulders, with the care for herself that never failed her, a light tulle veil, and he dragged her, pushed her, rather, down the stairs leading to the counting-room, which he descended at the same time, his steps close upon hers, fearing that his prey would escape.
"There!" he said, as he entered the room. "We have stolen, we make restitution. Look, Planus, you can raise money with all this stuff." And he placed on the cashier's desk all the fashionable plunder with which his arms were filled—feminine trinkets, trivial aids to coquetry, stamped papers.
Then he turned to his wife:
"Take off your jewels! Come, be quick."
She complied slowly, opened reluctantly the clasps of bracelets and buckles, and above all the superb fastening of her diamond necklace on which the initial of her name-a gleaming S-resembled a sleeping serpent, imprisoned in a circle of gold. Risler, thinking that she was too slow, ruthlessly broke, the fragile fastenings. Luxury shrieked beneath his fingers, as if it were being whipped.
"Now it is my turn," he said; "I too must give up everything. Here is my portfolio. What else have I? What else have I?"
He searched his pockets feverishly.
"Ah! my watch. With the chain it will bring four-thousand francs. My rings, my wedding-ring. Everything goes into the cash-box, everything. We have a hundred thousand francs to pay this morning. As soon as it is daylight we must go to work, sell out and pay our debts. I know some one who wants the house at Asnieres. That can be settled at once."
He alone spoke and acted. Sigismond and Madame Georges watched him without speaking. As for Sidonie, she seemed unconscious, lifeless. The cold air blowing from the garden through the little door, which was opened at the time of Risler's swoon, made her shiver, and she mechanically drew the folds of her scarf around her shoulders, her eyes fixed on vacancy, her thoughts wandering. Did she not hear the violins of her ball, which reached their ears in the intervals of silence, like bursts of savage irony, with the heavy thud of the dancers shaking the floors? An iron hand, falling upon her, aroused her abruptly from her torpor. Risler had taken her by the arm, and, leading her before his partner's wife, he said:
"Down on your knees!"
Madame Fromont drew back, remonstrating:
"No, no, Risler, not that."
"It must be," said the implacable Risler. "Restitution, reparation! Down on your knees then, wretched woman!" And with irresistible force he threw Sidonie at Claire's feet; then, still holding her arm;
"You will repeat after me, word for word, what I say: Madame—"
Sidonie, half dead with fear, repeated faintly: "Madame—"
"A whole lifetime of humility and submission—"
"A whole lifetime of humil— No, I can not!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet with the agility of a deer; and, wresting herself from Risler's grasp, through that open door which had tempted her from the beginning of this horrible scene, luring her out into the darkness of the night to the liberty obtainable by flight, she rushed from the house, braving the falling snow and the wind that stung her bare shoulders.
"Stop her, stop her!—Risler, Planus, I implore you! In pity's name do not let her go in this way," cried Claire.
Planus stepped toward the door.
Risler detained him.
"I forbid you to stir! I ask your pardon, Madame, but we have more important matters than this to consider. Madame Risler concerns us no longer. We have to save the honor of the house of Fromont, which alone is at stake, which alone fills my thoughts at this moment."
Sigismond put out his hand.
"You are a noble man, Risler. Forgive me for having suspected you."
Risler pretended not to hear him.
"A hundred thousand francs to pay, you say? How much is there left in the strong-box?"
He sat bravely down behind the gratin, looking over the books of account, the certificates of stock in the funds, opening the jewel-cases, estimating with Planus, whose father had been a jeweller, the value of all those diamonds, which he had once so admired on his wife, having no suspicion of their real value.
Meanwhile Claire, trembling from head to foot, looked out through the window at the little garden, white with snow, where Sidonie's footsteps were already effaced by the fast-falling flakes, as if to bear witness that that precipitate departure was without hope of return.
Up-stairs they were still dancing. The mistress of the house was supposed to be busy with the preparations for supper, while she was flying, bare-headed, forcing back sobs and shrieks of rage.
Where was she going? She had started off like a mad woman, running
The young woman's first thought was to join the tenor Cazaboni, whom at the last she had not dared to invite to her ball; but he lived at Montmartre, and that was very far away for her to go, in that garb; and then, would he be at home? Her parents would take her in, doubtless; but she could already hear Madame Chebe's lamentations and the little man's sermon under three heads. Thereupon she thought of Delobelle, her old Delobelle. In the downfall of all her splendors she remembered the man who had first initiated her into fashionable life, who had given her lessons in dancing and deportment when she was a little girl, laughed at her pretty ways, and taught her to look upon herself as beautiful before any one had ever told her that she was so. Something told her that that fallen star would take her part against all others. She entered one of the carriages standing at the gate and ordered the driver to take her to the actor's lodgings on the Boulevard Beaumarchais.
For some time past Mamma Delobelle had been making straw hats for export- a dismal trade if ever there was one, which brought in barely two francs fifty for twelve hours' work.
And Delobelle continued to grow fat in the same degree that his "sainted wife" grew thin. At the very moment when some one knocked hurriedly at his door he had just discovered a fragrant soup 'au fromage', which had been kept hot in the ashes on the hearth. The actor, who had been witnessing at Beaumarchais some dark-browed melodrama drenched with gore even to the illustrated headlines of its poster, was startled by that knock at such an advanced hour.
"Who is there?" he asked in some alarm.
"It is I, Sidonie. Open the door quickly."
She entered the room, shivering all over, and, throwing aside her wrap, went close to the stove where the fire was almost extinct. She began to talk at once, to pour out the wrath that had been stifling her for an hour, and while she was describing the scene in the factory, lowering her voice because of Madame Delobelle, who was asleep close by, the magnificence of her costume in that poor, bare, fifth floor, the dazzling whiteness of her disordered finery amid the heaps of coarse hats and the wisps of straw strewn about the room, all combined to produce the effect of a veritable drama, of one of those terrible upheavals of life when rank, feelings, fortunes are suddenly jumbled together.
"Oh! I never shall return home. It is all over. Free—I am free!"
"But who could have betrayed you to your husband?" asked the actor.
"It was Frantz! I am sure it was Frantz. He wouldn't have believed it from anybody else. Only last evening a letter came from Egypt. Oh! how he treated me before that woman! To force me to kneel! But I'll be revenged. Luckily I took something to revenge myself with before I came away."
And the smile of former days played about the corners of her pale lips.
The old strolling player listened to it all with deep interest. Notwithstanding his compassion for that poor devil of a Risler, and for Sidonie herself, for that matter, who seemed to him, in theatrical parlance, "a beautiful culprit," he could not help viewing the affair from a purely scenic standpoint, and finally cried out, carried away by his hobby:
"What a first-class situation for a fifth act!"
She did not bear him. Absorbed by some evil thought, which made her smile in anticipation, she stretched out to the fire her dainty shoes, saturated with snow, and her openwork stockings.
"Well, what do you propose to do now?" Delobelle asked after a pause.
"Stay here till daylight and get a little rest. Then I will see."
"I have no bed to offer you, my poor girl. Mamma Delobelle has gone to bed."
"Don't you worry about me, my dear Delobelle. I'll sleep in that armchair. I won't be in your way, I tell you!"
The actor heaved a sigh.
"Ah! yes, that armchair. It was our poor Zizi's. She sat up many a night in it, when work was pressing. Ah, me! those who leave this world are much the happiest."
He had always at hand such selfish, comforting maxims. He had no sooner uttered that one than he discovered with dismay that his soup would soon be stone-cold. Sidonie noticed his movement.
"Why, you were just eating your supper, weren't you? Pray go on."
"'Dame'! yes, what would you have? It's part of the trade, of the hard existence we fellows have. For you see, my girl, I stand firm. I haven't given up. I never will give up."
What still remained of Desiree's soul in that wretched household in which she had lived twenty years must have shuddered at that terrible declaration. He never would give up!
"No matter what people may say," continued Delobelle, "it's the noblest profession in the world. You are free; you depend upon nobody. Devoted to the service of glory and the public! Ah! I know what I would do in your place. As if you were born to live with all those bourgeois—the devil! What you need is the artistic life, the fever of success, the unexpected, intense emotion."
As he spoke he took his seat, tucked his napkin in his neck, and helped himself to a great plateful of soup.
"To say nothing of the fact that your triumphs as a pretty woman would in no wise interfere with your triumph as an actress. By the way, do you know, you must take a few lessons in elocution. With your voice, your intelligence, your charms, you would have a magnificent prospect."
Then he added abruptly, as if to initiate her into the joys of the dramatic art:
"But it occurs to me that perhaps you have not supped! Excitement makes one hungry; sit there, and take this soup. I am sure that you haven't eaten soup 'au fromage' for a long while."
He turned the closet topsy-turvy to find her a spoon and a napkin; and she took her seat opposite him, assisting him and laughing a little at the difficulties attending her entertainment. She was less pale already, and there was a pretty sparkle in her eyes, composed of the tears of a moment before and the present gayety.
The strolling actress! All her happiness in life was lost forever: honor, family, wealth. She was driven from her house, stripped, dishonored. She had undergone all possible humiliations and disasters. That did not prevent her supping with a wonderful appetite and joyously holding her own under Delobelle's jocose remarks concerning her vocation and her future triumphs. She felt light-hearted and happy, fairly embarked for the land of Bohemia, her true country. What more would happen to her? Of how many ups and downs was her new, unforeseen, and whimsical existence to consist? She thought about that as she fell asleep in Desiree's great easy-chair; but she thought of her revenge, too—her cherished revenge which she held in her hand, all ready for use, and so unerring, so fierce!
CHAPTER XXII
THE NEW EMYLOYEE OF THE HOUSE OF FROMONT
It was broad daylight when Fromont Jeune awoke. All night long, between the drama that was being enacted below him and the festivity in joyous progress above, he slept with clenched fists, the deep sleep of complete prostration like that of a condemned man on the eve of his execution or of a defeated General on the night following his disaster; a sleep from
The bright light streaming through his curtains, made more dazzling by the deep snow with which the garden and the surrounding roofs were covered, recalled him to the consciousness of things as they were. He felt a shock throughout his whole being, and, even before his mind began to work, that vague impression of melancholy which misfortunes, momentarily forgotten, leave in their place. All the familiar noises of the factory, the dull throbbing of the machinery, were in full activity. So the world still existed! and by slow degrees the idea of his own responsibility awoke in him.
"To-day is the day," he said to himself, with an involuntary movement toward the dark side of the room, as if he longed to bury himself anew in his long sleep.
The factory bell rang, then other bells in the neighborhood, then the
Angelus.
"Noon! Already! How I have slept!"
He felt some little remorse and a great sense of relief at the thought that the drama of settling-day had passed off without him. What had they done downstairs? Why did they not call him?
He rose, drew the curtains aside, and saw Risler and Sigismond talking together in the garden. And it was so long since they had spoken to each other! What in heaven's name had happened? When he was ready to go down he found Claire at the door of his room.
"You must not go out," she said.
"Why not?"
"Stay here. I will explain it to you."
"But what's the matter? Did any one come from the Bank?"
"Yes, they came—the notes are paid."
"Paid?"
"Risler obtained the money. He has been rushing about with Planus since early morning. It seems that his wife had superb jewels. The diamond necklace alone brought twenty thousand francs. He has also sold their house at Asnieres with all it contained; but as time was required to record the deed, Planus and his sister advanced the money."
She turned away from him as she spoke. He, on his side, hung his head to avoid her glance.
"Risler is an honorable man," she continued, "and when he learned from whom his wife received all her magnificent things—"
"What!" exclaimed Georges in dismay. "He knows?"
"All," Claire replied, lowering her voice.
The wretched man turned pale, stammered feebly:
"Why, then—you?"
"Oh! I knew it all before Risler. Remember, that when I came home last night, I told you I had heard very cruel things down at Savigny, and that I would have given ten years of my life not to have taken that journey."
"Claire!"
Moved by a mighty outburst of affection, he stepped toward his wife; but her face was so cold, so sad, so resolute, her despair was so plainly written in the stern indifference of her whole bearing, that he dared not take her in his arms as he longed to do, but simply murmured under his breath:
"Forgive!—forgive!"
"You must think me strangely calm," said the brave woman; "but I shed all my tears yesterday. You may have thought that I was weeping over our ruin; you were mistaken. While one is young and strong as we are, such cowardly conduct is not permissible. We are armed against want and can fight it face to face. No, I was weeping for our departed happiness, for you, for the madness that led you to throw away your only, your true friend."
She was lovely, lovelier than Sidonie had ever been, as she spoke thus, enveloped by a pure light which seemed to fall upon her from a great height, like the radiance of a fathomless, cloudless sky; whereas the other's irregular features had always seemed to owe their brilliancy, their saucy, insolent charm to the false glamour of the footlights in some cheap theatre. The touch of statuesque immobility formerly noticeable in Claire's face was vivified by anxiety, by doubt, by all the torture of passion; and like those gold ingots which have their full value only when the Mint has placed its stamp upon them, those beautiful features stamped with the effigy of sorrow had acquired since the preceding day an ineffaceable expression which perfected their beauty.
Georges gazed at her in admiration. She seemed to him more alive, more womanly, and worthy of adoration because of their separation and all the obstacles that he now knew to stand between them. Remorse, despair, shame entered his heart simultaneously with this new love, and he would have fallen on his knees before her.
"No, no, do not kneel," said Claire; "if you knew of what you remind me, if you knew what a lying face, distorted with hatred, I saw at my feet last night!"
"Ah! but I am not lying," replied Georges with a shudder. "Claire, I implore you, in the name of our child—"
At that moment some one knocked at the door.
"Rise, I beg of you! You see that life has claims upon us," she said in a low voice and with a bitter smile; then she asked what was wanted.
Monsieur Risler had sent for Monsieur to come down to the office.
"Very well," she said; "say that he will come."
Georges approached the door, but she stopped him.
"No, let me go. He must not see you yet."
"But—"
"I wish you to stay here. You have no idea of the indignation and wrath of that poor man, whom you have deceived. If you had seen him last night, crushing his wife's wrists!"
As she said it she looked him in the face with a curiosity most cruel to herself; but Georges did not wince, and replied simply:
"My life belongs to him."
"It belongs to me, too; and I do not wish you to go down. There has been scandal enough in my father's house. Remember that the whole factory is aware of what is going on. Every one is watching us, spying upon us. It required all the authority of the foremen to keep the men busy to-day, to compel them to keep their inquisitive looks on their work."
"But I shall seem to be hiding."
"And suppose it were so! That is just like a man. They do not recoil from the worst crimes: betraying a wife, betraying a friend; but the thought that they may be accused of being afraid touches them more keenly than anything. Moreover, listen to what I say. Sidonie has gone; she has gone forever; and if you leave this house I shall think that you have gone to join her."
"Very well, I will stay," said Georges. "I will do whatever you wish."
Claire descended into Planus' office.
To see Risler striding to and fro, with his hands behind his back, as calm as usual, no one would ever have suspected all that had taken place in his life since the night before. As for Sigismond, he was fairly beaming, for he saw nothing in it all beyond the fact that the notes had been paid at maturity and that the honor of the firm was safe.
When Madame Fromont appeared, Risler smiled sadly and shook his head.
"I thought that you would prefer to come down in his place; but you are not the one with whom I have to deal. It is absolutely necessary that I should see Georges and talk with him. We have paid the notes that fell due this morning; the crisis has passed; but we must come to an understanding about many matters."
"Risler, my friend, I beg you to wait a little longer."
"Why, Madame Chorche, there's not a minute to lose. Oh! I suspect that you fear I
"Your conduct toward us is worthy of all admiration, my good Risler; I know it well."
"Oh! Madame, if you could see him! he's a saint," said poor Sigismond, who, not daring to speak to his friend, was determined at all events to express his remorse.
"But aren't you afraid?" continued Claire. "Human endurance has its limits. It may be that in presence of the man who has injured you so—"
Risler took her hands, gazed into her eyes with grave admiration, and said:
"You dear creature, who speak of nothing but the injury done to me! Do you not know that I hate him as bitterly for his falseness to you? But nothing of that sort has any existence for me at this moment. You see in me simply a business man who wishes to have an understanding with his partner for the good of the firm. So let him come down without the slightest fear, and if you dread any outbreak on my part, stay here with us. I shall need only to look at my old master's daughter to be reminded of my promise and my duty."
"I trust you, my friend," said Claire; and she went up to bring her husband.
The first minute of the interview was terrible. Georges was deeply moved, humiliated, pale as death. He would have preferred a hundred times over to be looking into the barrel of that man's pistol at twenty paces, awaiting his fire, instead of appearing before him as an unpunished culprit and being compelled to confine his feelings within the commonplace limits of a business conversation.
Risler pretended not to look at him, and continued to pace the floor as he talked:
"Our house is passing through a terrible crisis. We have averted the disaster for to-day; but this is not the last of our obligations. That cursed invention has kept my mind away from the business for a long while. Luckily, I am free now, and able to attend to it. But you must give your attention to it as well. The workmen and clerks have followed the example of their employers to some extent. Indeed, they have become extremely negligent and indifferent. This morning, for the first time in a year, they began work at the proper time. I expect that you will make it your business to change all that. As for me, I shall work at my drawings again. Our patterns are old-fashioned. We must have new ones for the new machines. I have great confidence in our presses. The experiments have succeeded beyond my hopes. We unquestionably have in them a means of building up our business. I didn't tell you sooner because I wished to surprise you; but we have no more surprises for each other, have we, Georges?"
There was such a stinging note of irony in his voice that Claire shuddered, fearing an outbreak; but he continued, in his natural tone.
"Yes, I think I can promise that in six months the Risler Press will begin to show magnificent results. But those six months will be very hard to live through. We must limit ourselves, cut down our expenses, save in every way that we can. We have five draughtsmen now; hereafter we will have but two. I will undertake to make the absence of the others of no consequence by working at night myself. Furthermore, beginning with this month, I abandon my interest in the firm. I will take my salary as foreman as I took it before, and nothing more."
Fromont attempted to speak, but a gesture from his wife restrained him, and Risler continued:
"I am no longer your partner, Georges. I am once more the clerk that I never should have ceased to be. From this day our partnership articles are cancelled. I insist upon it, you understand; I insist upon it. We will remain in that relation to each other until the house is out of difficulty and I can— But what I shall do then concerns me alone. This is what I wanted to say to you, Georges. You must give your attention to the factory diligently; you must show yourself, make it felt that you are master now, and I believe there will turn out to be, among all our misfortunes, some that can be retrieved."
During the silence that followed, they heard the sound of wheels in the garden, and two great furniture vans stopped at the door.
"I beg your pardon," said Risler, "but I must leave you a moment. Those are the vans from the public auction rooms; they have come to take away my furniture from upstairs."
"What! you are going to sell your furniture too?" asked Madame Fromont.
"Certainly—to the last piece. I am simply giving it back to the firm.
It belongs to it."
"But that is impossible," said Georges. "I can not allow that."
Risler turned upon him indignantly.
"What's that? What is it that you can't allow?"
Claire checked him with an imploring gesture.
"True—true!" he muttered; and he hurried from the room to escape the sudden temptation to give vent to all that was in his heart.
The second floor was deserted. The servants, who had been paid and dismissed in the morning, had abandoned the apartments to the disorder of the day following a ball; and they wore the aspect peculiar to places where a drama has been enacted, and which are left in suspense, as it were, between the events that have happened and those that are still to happen. The open doors, the rugs lying in heaps in the corners, the salvers laden with glasses, the preparations for the supper, the table still set and untouched, the dust from the dancing on all the furniture, its odor mingled with the fumes of punch, of withered flowers, of rice- powder—all these details attracted Risler's notice as he entered.
In the disordered salon the piano was open, the bacchanal from 'Orphee aux Enfers' on the music-shelf, and the gaudy hangings surrounding that scene of desolation, the chairs overturned, as if in fear, reminded one of the saloon of a wrecked packet-boat, of one of those ghostly nights of watching when one is suddenly informed, in the midst of a fete at sea, that the ship has sprung a leak, that she is taking in water in every part.
The men began to remove the furniture. Risler watched them at work with an indifferent air, as if he were in a stranger's house. That magnificence which had once made him so happy and proud inspired in him now an insurmountable disgust. But, when he entered his wife's bedroom, he was conscious of a vague emotion.
It was a large room, hung with blue satin under white lace. A veritable cocotte's nest. There were torn and rumpled tulle ruffles lying about, bows, and artificial flowers. The wax candles around the mirror had burned down to the end and cracked the candlesticks; and the bed, with its lace flounces and valances, its great curtains raised and drawn back, untouched in the general confusion, seemed like the bed of a corpse, a state bed on which no one would ever sleep again.
Risler's first feeling upon entering the room was one of mad indignation, a longing to fall upon the things before him, to tear and rend and shatter everything. Nothing, you see, resembles a woman so much as her bedroom. Even when she is absent, her image still smiles in the mirrors that have reflected it. A little something of her, of her favorite perfume, remains in everything she has touched. Her attitudes are reproduced in the cushions of her couch, and one can follow her goings and comings between the mirror and the toilette table in the pattern of the carpet. The one thing above all others in
The poor man was thinking sadly of all these things amid the ringing of hammers and the heavy footsteps of the furniture-movers, when he heard an interloping, authoritative step behind him, and Monsieur Chebe appeared, little Monsieur Chebe, flushed and breathless, with flames darting from his eyes. He assumed, as always, a very high tone with his son-in-law.
"What does this mean? What is this I hear? Ah! so you're moving, are you?"
"I am not moving, Monsieur Chebe—I am selling out."
The little man gave a leap like a scalded fish.
"You are selling out? What are you selling, pray?"
"I am selling everything," said Risler in a hollow voice, without even looking at him.
"Come, come, son-in-law, be reasonable. God knows I don't say that Sidonie's conduct— But, for my part, I know nothing about it. I never wanted to know anything. Only I must remind you of your dignity. People wash their dirty linen in private, deuce take it! They don't make spectacles of themselves as you've been doing ever since morning. Just see everybody at the workshop windows; and on the porch, too! Why, you're the talk of the quarter, my dear fellow."
"So much the better. The dishonor was public, the reparation must be public, too."
This apparent coolness, this indifference to all his observations, exasperated Monsieur Chebe. He suddenly changed his tactics, and adopted, in addressing his son-in-law, the serious, peremptory tone which one uses with children or lunatics.
"Well, I say that you haven't any right to take anything away from here. I remonstrate formally, with all my strength as a man, with all my authority as a father. Do you suppose I am going to let you drive my child into the street. No, indeed! Oh! no, indeed! Enough of such nonsense as that! Nothing more shall go out of these rooms."
And Monsieur Chebe, having closed the door, planted himself in front of it with a heroic gesture. Deuce take it! his own interest was at stake in the matter. The fact was that when his child was once in the gutter he ran great risk of not having a feather bed to sleep on himself. He was superb in that attitude of an indignant father, but he did not keep it long. Two hands, two vises, seized his wrists, and he found himself in the middle of the room, leaving the doorway clear for the workmen.
"Chebe, my boy, just listen," said Risler, leaning over him. "I am at the end of my forbearance. Since this morning I have been making superhuman efforts to restrain myself, but it would take very little now to make my anger burst all bonds, and woe to the man on whom it falls! I am quite capable of killing some one. Come! Be off at once!—"
There was such an intonation in his son-in-law's voice, and the way that son-in-law shook him as he spoke was so eloquent, that Monsieur Chebe was fully convinced. He even stammered an apology. Certainly Risler had good reason for acting as he had. All honorable people would be on his side. And he backed toward the door as he spoke. When he reached it, he inquired timidly if Madame Chebe's little allowance would be continued.
"Yes," was Risler's reply, "but never go beyond it, for my position here is not what it was. I am no longer a partner in the house."
Monsieur Chebe stared at him in amazement, and assumed the idiotic expression which led many people to believe that the accident that had happened to him—exactly like that of the Duc d'Orleans, you know—was not a fable of his own invention; but he dared not make the slightest observation. Surely some one had changed his son-in-law. Was this really Risler, this tiger-cat, who bristled up at the slightest word and talked of nothing less than killing people?