Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “How could I, my dear? Only think, just now, that horrid man who burst open the door! Suppose you had been alone?”

  “Oh, mamma, pray don’t talk of it; it quite frightens me only to think of it.”

  At this moment some one knocked suddenly at the door.

  “Heaven, it is he again!” exclaimed Madame de Fermont, still under her first fears; and she pushed the table against the door with all her strength. Her fears ceased when she heard the voice of Father Micou:

  “Madame, my nephew, André, has come from the Poste-Restante. He has brought a letter with an ‘X’ and a ‘Z.’ It comes a long way; there are eight sous for postage, and commission makes twenty sous.”

  “Mamma, a letter from the country, — we are saved! It is from M. de Saint-Remy or M. d’Orbigny. Poor mother! You will not suffer any more; you will no longer be uneasy about me, you will be so happy! God is just! God is good!” exclaimed the young girl, and a ray of hope lighted up her mild and lovely face.

  “Oh, sir, thank you; give it to me quickly!” said Madame de Fermont, moving the table as well as she could, and half opening the door.

  “Twenty sous,” said the man, giving her the anxiously desired letter.

  “I will pay you, sir.”

  “Oh, madame, there’s no hurry, I am going up higher; in ten minutes I shall be down again, and can call for the money as I pass.”

  “The letter is from Normandy, with the postmark of ‘Les Aubiers.’ It is from Madame d’Orbigny!” exclaimed Madame de Fermont, examining the address, “To Madame X. Z., Poste-Restante, à Paris.”

  “Well, mamma, am I right? Oh, how my heart beats!”

  “Our good or bad fate is in it,” said Madame de Fermont; and twice her trembling hand was extended to break the seal; she had not courage.

  How can we describe the terrible agony to which they are a prey who, like Madame de Fermont, expect a letter which brings them either hope or despair? The burning, fevered excitement of the player whose last pieces of gold are hazarded on a card, and who, breathless, with inflamed eye, awaits for a decisive cast which brings his ruin or his fortune, — this emotion, violent as it is, may perhaps give some idea of the painful anguish of which we speak. In a second the soul is elevated to the most radiant hope or relapses into the most mortal discouragement. According as he hopes to be aided, or fears to be refused, the unhappy wretch suffers in turn emotions of a most contrary nature, — unutterable feelings of happiness and gratitude to the generous heart which pities his miserable condition — bitter and intense resentment against selfish indifference!

  When it is a question of deserving sufferers, those who give often would perhaps give always, and those who always refuse would perhaps give frequently, if they knew or saw that the hope of benevolent aid or the fear of a haughty refusal — that their decision, indeed — can excite all that is distressing or encouraging in the hearts of their petitioners.

  “What weakness!” said Madame de Fermont, with a deep sigh, seating herself by her daughter; “once again, my poor Claire, our destiny is in this envelope; I burn with anxiety to know its contents, and yet I dare not read it. If it be a refusal, alas, it will be soon enough!”

  “And if it be a promise of assistance, then, mamma — If this poor little letter contain consoling words, which shall assure us for the future, by promising us a humble employment in the establishment of M. d’Orbigny, every moment lost is a moment of happiness lost, — is it not?”

  “Yes, my love; but on the other hand—”

  “No, mamma, you are mistaken; I told you that M. d’Orbigny had only delayed so long that he might mention something certain to you. Let me see the letter, mamma. I am sure I can guess if it is good or bad by the writing. And I am sure,” said Claire, looking at the letter, “that it is a kind and generous hand, accustomed to execute benevolence towards those who suffer.”

  “I entreat you, Claire, not to give way to vain hopes; for, if you do, I shall not have the courage to open the letter.”

  “My dear mother, without opening it, I can tell you almost word for word what it contains. Listen: ‘Madame, — Your fate and that of your daughter are so worthy of interest, that I beg you will come to me, in case you should like to undertake the superintendence of my house.’”

  “Pray, my dearest, I beseech you, do not give way to vain hopes; the disappointment would be terrible!” said Madame de Fermont, taking the letter.

  “Come, dear mamma,” said Claire, smiling, and excited by one of those feelings of certainty so natural to her age, “give me the letter; I have courage to read it!”

  “No,” said Madame de Fermont, “I will read it! It is from the Comtesse d’Orbigny.”

  “So much the better,” replied Claire.

  “We shall see.” And Madame de Fermont read as follows in a trembling voice:

  “‘Madame: — M. the Comte d’Orbigny, who has been a great invalid for some time, could not reply to you during my absence—’”

  “You see, mamma, it was no one’s fault.”

  “Listen, listen!

  “‘On arriving from Paris this morning, I hasten to write to you, madame, after having discussed your letter with M. d’Orbigny. He recollects but very indistinctly the intimacy you allude to as having subsisted between him and your brother. As to the name of your husband, madame, it is not unknown to M. d’Orbigny; but he cannot recall to mind under what circumstances he has heard it. The spoliation of which you so unhesitatingly accuse M. Jacques Ferrand, whom we have the happiness to call our solicitor, is, in the eyes of M. d’Orbigny, a cruel calumny, whose effects you have by no means calculated upon. My husband, as well as myself, madame, know and admire the extreme probity of the respectable and pious individual whom you so blindly assail; and I am compelled to tell you, madame, that M. d’Orbigny, whilst he regrets the painful situation in which you are placed, and the real cause of which it is not his business to find out, feels it impossible to afford you the assistance requested. Accept, madame, with the expression of M. d’Orbigny’s regrets, my best compliments.

  “‘Comtesse d’Orbigny.’”

  The mother and daughter looked at each other perfectly stupefied, and incapable of uttering a word. Father Micou rapped at the door, and said:

  “Madame, may I come in for the postage and commission? It’s twenty sous.”

  “Ah, true, such good news is worth a sum on which we exist for two days,” said Madame de Fermont, with a bitter smile, laying the letter down on her daughter’s bed, and going towards an old trunk without a lock, to which she stooped down and opened. “We are robbed!” exclaimed the unhappy woman, with alarm. “Nothing — not a sou left!” she added, in a mournful voice; and, overwhelmed, she supported herself on the trunk.

  “What do you say, mamma, — the bag with the money in it?”

  But Madame de Fermont, rising suddenly, opened the room door, and, addressing the receiver, who was on the landing-place:

  “Sir,” she said, whilst her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks were flushed with indignation and alarm, “I had a bag of silver in this trunk; it was stolen from me, no doubt, the day before yesterday, when I went out for an hour with my daughter. The money must be restored, I tell you, — you are responsible for it!”

  “You’ve been robbed! That’s false, I know. My house is respectable,” said the fellow, in an insolent and brutal tone; “you only say that in order not to pay me my postage and commission.”

  “I tell you, sir, that this money was all I possessed in the world; it has been stolen from me, and I must have it found and restored, or I will lodge an information. Oh, I will conceal nothing — I will respect nothing — I tell you!”

  “Very fine, indeed! You who have got no papers. Go and lay your information, — go at once. Why don’t you? I defy you, I do!”

  The wretched woman was thunderstruck. She could not go out and leave her daughter alone, confined to her bed as she was by the fright the Gros-Boiteux had occasioned her in the m
orning, and particularly after the threats with which the receiver of stolen goods had menaced her. He added:

  “This is a fudge! You’d as much a bag of silver there as a bag of gold. Will you pay me for the letter, — will you or won’t you? Well, it’s just the same to me. When you go by my door, I’ll snatch off your old black shawl from your shoulders. It’s a precious shabby one; but I daresay I can make twenty sous out of it.”

  “Oh, sir,” exclaimed Madame de Fermont, bursting into tears, “I beseech you have pity upon us! This small sum is all we possess, my daughter and I, and, that stolen, we have nothing left — nothing — I say nothing, but — to die of starvation!”

  “What can I do? If it’s true that you have been robbed, and of silver, too (which appears to me very unlikely), why, the silver has been melted long since, rely on it.”

  “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!”

  “The chap who did the trick was not so soft, rely on it, as to mark the pieces, and keep ’em here, to lead to his own detection. Supposing it’s any one in the house, which I don’t believe (for, as I was a-saying this morning to the uncle of the lady on the first floor, this is really a village), if any one has robbed you, it is a pity. You may lay a hundred informations, but you won’t recover a centime. You won’t do any good by that, I tell you, and you may believe me. Well, but I say—” exclaimed the receiver, stopping short, and seeing Madame de Fermont stagger. “What’s the matter? How pale you are! Mademoiselle, your mother’s taken ill!” added Micou, just advancing in time to catch the unhappy mother, who, overcome by this last shock, felt her senses forsake her, — the forced energy which had supported her so long failed before this fresh blow.

  “Mother, dear, oh, what ails you?” exclaimed Claire, still in her bed.

  The receiver, still vigorous in spite of his fifty years, seized with a momentary feeling of pity, took Madame de Fermont in his arms, pushed the door open with his knee, and, entering the chamber, said:

  “Your pardon, mademoiselle, for entering whilst you are in bed, but I was obliged to bring in your mother; she has fainted, but it won’t last long.”

  On seeing the man enter, Claire shrieked loudly, and the unhappy girl hid herself as well as she could under the bedclothes. The huckster seated Madame de Fermont in a chair beside the bed, and then went out, leaving the door ajar, for the Gros-Boiteux had broken the lock.

  One hour after this last shock, the violent malady which had so long hung over and threatened Madame de Fermont had developed itself. A prey to a burning fever and to fearful delirium, the unhappy woman was placed beside her daughter, who, horror-struck, aghast, alone, and almost as ill as her mother, had neither money nor recourse, and was in an agony of fear every moment lest the ruffian who lodged on the same floor should enter the apartment.

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE RUE DE CHAILLOT.

  WE WILL PRECEDE M. Badinot by some hours, as in haste he proceeded from the Passage de la Brasserie to the Vicomte de Saint-Remy. The latter, as we have said, lived in the Rue de Chaillot, and occupied a delightful small house, built between the court and the garden in this quarter, so solitary, although so close to the Champs Elysées, the most fashionable promenade in Paris.

  It is useless to enumerate the advantages which M. de Saint-Remy, who was decidedly a man à bonnes fortunes, derived from the position of a residence so sagaciously selected. We will only say that a gentleman (or a lady) could enter very privately by a small door in the large garden which opened into a back lane absolutely deserted, communicating from the Rue Marboeuf to the Rue de Chaillot. By wonderful chance, one of the finest nursery-grounds in Paris having also in this quiet passage a way out that was little frequented, the mysterious visitors of M. de Saint-Remy, in case of a surprise or sudden rencounter, were armed with a most plausible and bucolical excuse for their visit to the lonely alley: they were there (they might say if they pleased) to choose some rare flowers from the celebrated gardener who was so renowned for the beauty of his conservatories. The visitors need only thus tell half falsehoods; for the vicomte, plentifully imbued with all the tastes of most costly luxuries, had a delightful greenhouse, which extended along the side of the alley we have alluded to. The small private door opened on this delightful winter garden, which terminated in a boudoir (forgive the superannuated expression), which was on the ground floor of the house.

  We may say, therefore, without metaphor, that a female who passed this dangerous threshold, to enter M. de Saint-Remy’s house, ran to her ruin through a flowery path; for, in the winter particularly, this lonely alley was bordered with real bushes of bright and perfumed flowers. Madame de Lucenay, jealous as a woman deeply in love always is, had demanded the key of this small door.

  If we dwell somewhat on the general aspect of this dwelling, it is that it reflected (if we may be allowed the expression) one of those degrading existences which from day to day become happily more rare, but which it may be as well to note down as one of the peculiarities of the epoch.

  The interior of M. de Saint-Remy’s house presented (viewed in this light) a curious appearance, or rather the house was separated into two distinct zones, — the ground floor, where he received his female visitors; the first story, where he received his gambling companions or his dinner or hunting associates; in a word, what he called his friends. Thus on the ground floor was a bedchamber, which was nothing but gold, mirrors, flowers, satin, and lace; then a small music-room, in which was a harp and piano (M. de Saint-Remy was an excellent musician); a cabinet of pictures; and then the boudoir, which communicated with the conservatory; a dining-room for two persons, who were served and passed away the dishes and plates by a turning window; a bath-room, a model of luxury and Oriental refinement; and, close at hand, a small library, a portion of which was arranged after the catalogue of that which La Mettrie had collected for Frederic the Great. Such was this apartment.

  It would be unavailing to say that all these rooms, furnished with exquisite taste, and with a Sardanapalian luxury, had as ornaments Watteaus little known; Bouchers never engraved; wanton subjects, formerly purchased at enormous prices. There were, besides, groups modelled in terra-cotta, by Clodien, and here and there, on plinths of jasper or antique breccia, some rare copies, in white marble, of the most jovial and lovely bacchanals of the Secret Museum of Naples.

  Add to this, in summer there were in perspective the green recesses of a well-planted garden, lonely, replete with flowers and birds, watered by a small and sparkling fountain, which, before it spread itself on the verdant turf, fell from a black and shaggy rock, scintillated like a strip of silver gauze, and dashed into a clear basin like mother-of-pearl, where beautiful white swans wantoned with grace and freedom.

  Then, when the mild and serene night came on, what shade, what perfume, what silence, was there in those odorous clumps, whose thick foliage served as a dais for the rustic seats formed of reeds and Indian mats.

  During the winter, on the contrary, except the glass door which opened to the hothouse, all was kept close shut. The transparent silk of the blinds, the net lace of the curtains, made the daylight still more mysterious. On all the pieces of furniture large tufts of exotic plants seemed to put forth their large flowers, resplendent with gold and enamel.

  In order to do the honours of this temple, which seemed raised to antique Love, or the denuded divinities of Greece, behold a man, young, handsome, elegant, and distinguished, — by turns witty and tender, romantic or libertine; now jesting and gay to folly, now full of charm and grace; an excellent musician, gifted with one of those impassioned, vibrating voices which women cannot hear without experiencing a deep impression, almost physical, — in fact, a man essentially made for love, — such was the vicomte. In Athens, no doubt, he would have been admired, exalted, deified, as was Alcibiades; in our days, and at the period of which we write, the vicomte was nothing more than a base forger, a contemptible swindler.

  The first story of M. de Saint-Remy’s house was exceedingly masculine in i
ts whole appearance. It was there he received his many friends, all of whom were of the very highest society. There was nothing effeminate, nothing coquettish. The furniture was plain, but elegant, the ornaments being first-rate weapons of all sorts, pictures of race-horses, who had won for the vicomte a great number of magnificent gold and silver vases, which were placed on the tables and sideboards.

  The smoking-room and play-room were closed by a cheerful dining-room, where eight persons (the number to which the guests were rigidly confined when there was a first-class dinner) had often appreciated the excellence of the cook, and the no less high merit of the wine of the vicomte, before they faced him at some high game of whist for five or six hundred louis, or shook the noisy dice-box at infernal hazard or roulette.

  These two widely opposite shades of M. de Saint-Remy disclosed, the reader will follow us into the regions below, to the very comfortable apartment of Edwards Patterson, the master of the horse of M. de Saint-Remy, who had invited M. Boyer to breakfast. A very pretty English maid-servant having withdrawn after she had brought in the silver teapot, these two worthies remained alone.

  Edwards was about forty years of age, and never did more skilful or stouter coachman make a seat groan under his most imposing rotundity; never did powdered wig enclose a more rubicund visage; and never did a more knowing and competent driver hold in his four fingers and thumb the reins of a four-in-hand. As good a judge of a horse as Tattersal (and in his youth he had been as good a trainer as the old and celebrated Chiffney), Edwards had been to the vicomte a most excellent coachman, and a man perfectly capable of superintending the training of race-horses on which he had betted heavily.