“Yes,” said Geneviève, “yes. But it won’t last long, for what is unjust can’t last.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I, that is, an aristocrat, I who slyly dream of defeating your party and ruining your ideas, I who plot in your very house the return of the ancien régime, I who, as a known felon, condemn you to death and disgrace, according to your views at least, I, Maurice, will not stay here like the bad genie of the house. I will not drag you with me to the scaffold.”
“And where will you go, Geneviève?”
“Where will I go? One day when you’ve gone out, Maurice, I’ll go and denounce myself without saying where I’ve been.”
“Oh!” cried Maurice pierced to the heart. “There’s gratitude for you!”
“No,” she said, throwing her arms around Maurice’s neck. “No, my friend, it’s love and the most devoted love, I swear to you. I didn’t want my brother to be taken and killed as a rebel; I don’t want my lover to be taken and killed as a traitor.”
“Is that really what you’re going to do, Geneviève?” cried Maurice.
“As sure as there’s a God in heaven!” she cried. “Besides, fear is nothing, what I feel is remorse.”
“Oh, Geneviève!” said Maurice.
“You know what I’m saying and what I’m going through, Maurice,” Geneviève continued. “For you feel the same remorse. You know, Maurice, that I gave myself without being mine to give; that you took me without my having the right to give myself.”
“That’s enough,” cried Maurice, “enough!”
He frowned and a grim determination shone in his eyes.
“I will show you, Geneviève, that I love only you; I will give you proof that no sacrifice is too great for my love. You hate France: well then, we’ll leave France.”
Geneviève clapped her hands together and looked at her lover with an expression of wild admiration.
“You’re not putting me on, Maurice?”
“When have I ever put you on?” Maurice asked. “Was it the day I dishonored myself to have you with me?”
Geneviève brought her lips to Maurice’s and remained suspended, so to speak, from her lover’s neck.
“Yes, you’re right, Maurice. I’m putting myself on. What I feel isn’t remorse anymore; perhaps it’s the degradation of my soul. But at least you’ll understand, I love you too much to feel anything but fear of losing you. Let’s go far away, my friend; let’s go where no one can ever reach us.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Maurice, over the moon.
“But how can we get away?” said Geneviève, shuddering at the bleak prospect. “These days you can’t easily escape the daggers of the assassins of the second of September, or the axes of the executioners of the twenty-first of January.”
“Geneviève!” cried Maurice. “God will protect us. Listen, a good act I tried to do apropos the second of September is going to bear fruit today. I wanted to save a poor priest who once studied with me. I sought out Danton and, at his request, the Committee of Public Safety signed a passport for the priest and his sister. This passport Danton gave to me; but the unhappy priest, instead of coming and getting it from me as I proposed, locked himself up in the Carmes1—and he died there.”
“What happened to the passport?” asked Geneviève.
“I still have it. Today it’s worth a million; it’s worth more than that, Geneviève. It’s worth life, it’s worth happiness!”
“God be praised!” cried Geneviève.
“Now, as you know, my fortune consists in some land managed by an old family servant, a pure patriot and loyal soul we can trust completely. He’ll send the revenues on to me wherever I am. When we get to Boulogne we can go and see him.”
“Where does he live?”
“Near Abbeville.”2
“When will we leave, Maurice?”
“In an hour.”
“No one must know we are going.”
“No one will know. I’ll run over to Lorin’s. He has a cabriolet without a horse, I have a horse without a carriage. We’ll leave as soon as I get back. You stay here and get everything ready for our departure. We don’t need much, we’ll buy whatever we lack in England. I’ll give Agesilaus a job that gets him out of here for quite a while and Lorin can explain to him what’s happened tonight: by tonight we’ll be long gone.”
“But what if we’re stopped en route?”
“Won’t we have our passport? We’re going to Hubert’s place—Hubert is the intendant. He belongs to the municipality of Abbeville; he’ll go with us and safeguard us from Abbeville to Boulogne; at Boulogne we’ll buy or hire a boat. I can, in any case, drop in at the Committee and score myself some mission for Abbeville. But no—no tricks, right, Geneviève? Let’s gain our happiness by merely risking our lives!”
“Yes, yes, my love: and we’ll succeed. But you smell so delicious this morning!” said Geneviève, burying her face in Maurice’s chest.
“True; I bought a bunch of violets for you this morning when I was passing Palais-Egalité. But when I got home and saw you looking so sad I forgot about everything else.”
“Give them to me! I’ll pay you back.”
Geneviève breathed in the smell of the violets with the sort of fanatic pleasure nervous people almost always get from perfumes. Suddenly her eyes were swimming with tears.
“What’s wrong?” Maurice asked.
“Poor Héloïse!” murmured Geneviève.
“Ah, yes,” said Maurice with a sigh. “But we have to think of ourselves now and let the dead, whatever party they belonged to, rest in peace in the grave their devotion dug for them. Adieu. I’m off.”
“Come back soon.”
“I’ll be back in less than thirty minutes.”
“But what if Lorin’s not at home?”
“It won’t matter! His servant knows me; I can take whatever I like from his place even if he’s not at home, just as he would do here.”
“All right! All right!”
“You, my Geneviève, you get everything ready, and try not to pack more than is strictly necessary, as I said. We don’t want it to look like we’re moving out.”
“Don’t worry.”
The young man took a step toward the door. “Maurice!” cried Geneviève.
He turned back and saw her arms stretched toward him.
“Good-bye! Good-bye, my love!” he said. “Be brave! I’ll be back before you know it.”
Geneviève was alone in the house with the mission of packing for the journey. She threw herself into the task with a kind of frenzy. While she remained in Paris it seemed to her she was doubly guilty. Once they were out of France, once they were on foreign soil, it seemed to her that her crime, a crime that was more fate’s than her own, would surely weigh less. She even went so far as to hope that in some future splendid isolation she would wind up forgetting that any man but Maurice ever existed.
They had to flee to England, that much was agreed. They would find a small house, a cottage somewhere, on its own, isolated, shut well away from the prying eyes of others. They would change their names, making a single shared name out of the two they bore.
Once there they would take on a couple of servants, who would know nothing whatever about their past. Providence evidently wanted both Maurice and Geneviève to speak English. Neither of them was leaving anything behind in France they would miss—but for the mother you can’t help but miss even when she is wicked; the mother that goes by the name of motherland, nation.…
And so Geneviève began to sort out the objects that were indispensable for their voyage, or rather their flight. She felt ineffable pleasure in distinguishing among them the things for which Maurice had a predilection: the jacket that fitted most snugly into his waist, the cravat that best set off his ruddy coloring, the books he most often flicked through.
She had already made her choice; already, awaiting the chests that would safely contain them and bear them away, frocks, linen, and book
s covered the chairs, the sofas, and the piano. Suddenly she heard the key grind in the lock.
“Ah!” she thought. “That must be Agesilaus coming back. Maurice must have met up with him.”
She continued at her task. The doors of the salon were open, so she could hear the officieux shifting about in the anteroom. At that precise moment she was holding a roll of sheet music and looking for something to tie it with.
“Agesilaus!” she called out.
Someone’s tread, coming nearer, resounded in the neighboring room.
“Agesilaus!” Geneviève called out again. “Come here, would you?”
“Here I am!” said a voice.
At the sound of the voice, Geneviève turned around sharply and gave a terrible shriek.
“My husband!” she shrieked.
“In person,” said Dixmer calmly.
Geneviève was standing on a chair; she had been reaching up to feel around for some sort of ribbon or string somewhere to tie the music. She felt her head spin, reached out her arms, and let herself fall backward, as though into an abyss below that she could plummet into. But Dixmer caught her and carried her to a sofa and sat her down.
“What could be the matter with you, dear heart?” he asked. “Is it my presence that produces such an unpleasant effect on you?”
“I’m dying!” cried Geneviève, lying back with both hands over her eyes so as not to see the terrible apparition.
“Right!” said Dixmer. “Did you think I had already passed away, my darling? Do you think I’m a ghost?”
Geneviève looked around her, dazed, and, seeing the portrait of Maurice, let herself slip off the sofa onto her knees, as though to beseech the help of this powerless and insensate image that continued to beam at her. The poor woman knew only too well all the menace that Dixmer hid under the affected calm.
“Yes, my dear child,” the tanner continued, “it really is me. Perhaps you thought I was miles away from Paris, but I wasn’t: I stayed here in town. The day after the day I left the house I went back and saw a lovely heap of ashes in its place. I asked after you but no one had seen you. I began to look for you and I had a devil of a job finding you. I confess I didn’t think to look for you here; but I did have my suspicions, since as you see I came. The main thing is, here I am and there you are.… And how is Maurice? In all truth, I’m sure you have suffered greatly—you such a good little royalist, to be forced to live under the same roof as such a republican fundamentalist.”
“My God!” murmured Geneviève. “My God! Have pity on me!”
“After that,” Dixmer went on, looking around, “what consoles me, my dear, is that you are so well set up here—you don’t look to me as though you’ve suffered too badly from being in hiding. Me, since the fire in which our home and our fortune went up in smoke, I wandered about willy-nilly, living in basements, the holds of boats, sometimes even the sewers that flow into the Seine.”
“Monsieur!” said Geneviève.
“You’ve got some lovely-looking fruit there.… I often had to go without dessert, being forced to go without dinner.”
Geneviève hid her head in her hands and sobbed.
“Not that I lacked for money,” Dixmer went on. “Thank God, I carried about thirty thousand francs in gold on me, which is now worth five hundred thousand francs. But how can a coalman, a fisherman, or a rag and bone man pull louis3 out of his pocket to buy a bit of cheese or sausage? Oh, God, yes, madame! I played each of those roles in turn. Today I’m a patriot, an extremist one, a Marseillais,4 all the better to disguise myself. I roll my r’s and I swear like a trooper. Heavens! What do you think! A middle-aged outlaw doesn’t get around Paris as easily as a pretty young woman, and I wasn’t lucky enough to know some fanatic republican woman who would stow me away.”
“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried Geneviève. “Have mercy on me! Can’t you see I’m dying?”
“Of worry, yes, I can imagine. You were so very worried about me.
But console yourself, madame, I’m back, and we won’t leave each other’s sight again.”
“Oh! You’re going to kill me!” cried Geneviève.
Dixmer looked at her with a terrifying smile.
“Kill an innocent woman! Oh, madame! What are you saying? You must have missed me so much you’ve gone out of your mind.…”
“Monsieur,” cried Geneviève. “Monsieur, I beg you with joined hands to kill me rather than go on torturing me with such cruel gibes. No, I am not innocent. Yes, I am a criminal. Yes, I deserve death. Kill me, monsieur, kill me!”
“So you admit you deserve death?”
“Yes, yes.”
“And that, to expiate I know not what crime you accuse yourself of, you would accept such a death without complaining?”
“Strike me, monsieur, smite me down; I won’t utter a sound. Far from cursing the hand that strikes me, I will bless it.”
“No, madame, I don’t want to strike you. But you will die; that’s more than likely. But instead of being ignominious, as you might well fear, your death will be glorious, on a par with the very finest deaths. Thank me, madame: in punishing you I will immortalize you.”
“Monsieur, what will you do?”
“You will pursue the goal we were aiming at when we were so rudely interrupted. For your sake and for mine, you will be brought down, guilty; for everyone else’s sake, you will die a martyr.”
“Oh, my God! You’ll make me lose my mind, talking like that. Where are you taking me? What are you dragging me into?”
“To your death, probably.”
“Then let me say a prayer.”
“Your prayer? ”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“None of your business! From the moment you kill me I’ll have paid my debt, and when I’ve paid it I’ll owe you nothing.”
“That’s only fair,” said Dixmer, withdrawing to the other room. “I’ll wait for you.”
He left the salon.
Geneviève went to kneel before the portrait of Maurice, pressing both her hands to a heart that was breaking.
“Maurice,” she said softly, “forgive me. I didn’t expect to be happy myself, but I hoped to be able to make you happy. Now I am taking away from you a happiness that was your life, Maurice. Forgive me for your death, my beloved!”
She then cut a long lock of her hair and wound it around the bouquet of violets, which she laid at the base of the portrait. This inanimate, silent canvas seemed to take on a painful expression on seeing her depart. Or so it seemed to Geneviève through her tears.
“Well, then; are you ready, madame?” asked Dixmer.
“Already!” murmured Geneviève.
“Oh, take your time, madame!” replied Dixmer. “I’m in no hurry! Besides, Maurice probably won’t be long getting back, and I’d be delighted to thank him for the hospitality he has shown you.”
Geneviève gave a lurch of terror at the idea that her lover and her husband might meet. She shot up as though on a spring.
“It’s over, monsieur,” she said. “I’m ready.”
Dixmer went out first; Geneviève followed him on unsteady legs, her eyes half shut, her head thrown back. They climbed into a fiacre that was waiting at the door and the car rolled away.
As Geneviève had said, it was over.
40
THE PUITS-DE-NOÉ BY NIGHT
The man dressed in a carmagnole whom we saw striding up and down the Hall of Lost Footsteps, and whom we heard exchanging a few words with the wicket clerk who had remained behind on guard duty at the mouth of the tunnel during the expedition of Giraud the architect, General Santerre, and old man Richard; this patriot enragé, with his furry bear-cub cap and thick mustache, who had tried to put himself over on Simon as having paraded the head of the Princesse de Lamballe, found himself the day after that night full of varied emotions at the Puits-de-Noé cabaret at around seven o’clock in the evening. The cabaret, as you’ll recall, was on the corner of the rue de la V
ieille-Draperie.
He was there at the house of the liquor licensee—who, in this case, was a woman—sitting at the back of a room made sooty and smoky by tobacco and candles, pretending to devour a dish of fish in black butter sauce.
The room he was eating in was just about deserted; only two or three regulars had stayed behind, enjoying the privilege their daily visit to the establishment gave them. Most of the tables were empty; but it must be said in honor of the Puits-de-Noé that the tablecloths, which were red going on purplish blue, revealed the passage of a gratifying number of satisfied customers.
The last three customers filed out one after the other, and at around a quarter to eight the patriot found himself on his own. At that point he pushed away, with the most aristocratic disgust, the coarse dish he had appeared to be so greatly relishing just a moment before and pulled from his pocket a bar of Spanish chocolate, which he consumed slowly and with a very different expression from the one we have tried to lend his physiognomy.
From time to time, as he continued munching his Spanish chocolate together with his black bread, he glanced anxiously and impatiently at the glass door, which was covered with a red and white checked curtain. At times he pricked up his ears, interrupting his frugal meal so absentmindedly that the mistress of the house, seated at her counter quite close to the door on which the patriot’s gaze was riveted, began to think, without too much vanity, that she was the object of his interest.
At last the doorbell rang, and so loudly as to give our man quite a jolt. He went back to his fish without the mistress of the house noticing that he threw half of it to a poor skinny dog that had been staring at him with its tongue hanging out and the other half to a cat who aimed a delicate but deadly paw at the dog.
The door with the red and white checked curtain opened and a man came in dressed more or less like the patriot with the exception of the fur cap, for which he had substituted the ubiquitous red cap. An enormous bunch of keys hung from the man’s belt, as did a large infantry sword with a copper scabbard.
“My soup! My booze!” the man called out, stepping into the common room without touching his red cap or doing more than giving a nod to the mistress of the establishment. Then, with a sigh of weariness, he plopped down at the table next to the one where our patriot was having his supper.
Knight of Maison-Rouge Page 34