Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  Titin executed these masterpieces when he was feeling bored to death, and they afforded sufficient proof of the wonderful work he might do one day when he consented to take a pleasure in his painting. But, for some time now he had lost his gayety, and it was not Nathalie’s dubious jests that were likely to restore his good humor. Accordingly, he painted with desperation, scoring Mme. Bibi’s walls with his impetuous brush.

  The good woman had set out that morning, no one knew where. She hardly ever left her shop. She put on her best clothes and started off at an early hour without waking Titin. But it was not of Mme. Bibi’s absence that Titin’s thoughts were filled! As he painted he apostrophized himself, aloud, in bitter terms:

  “Silly Titin! Ass! Fool! What a duffer! Does she know, poor dear, that I love her? Did I tell her so when I saw her on the balcony?... And you, Titin, were waiting to hear from her!... Hear what? Read the newspapers. Go to the Town Hall. You will be able to see the announcements.... And why shouldn’t she marry a Prince I’d like to know? Are you as good as the Prince? You hadn’t the pluck to say: ‘Toinetta, I love you.’ At your age, too! Therefore she thinks you don’t care for her. The Prince did not wait for you before telling her, you know.”

  When he reached this point in his lamentation the door bell rang and Mme. Bibi came into the shop. Her eyes were red.

  “Titin,” she said, “you must go into mourning. You must be brave, my dear; your mother is dead.”

  And she sat down, worn out in part by her journey and in part, it seemed, by grief. She was still vigorous, the old dame, in spite of her age, slightly bent and withered, but her eyes were bright and her voice young. She had had her share of troubles in the course of her long life. But Titin had been her consolation.

  After a pause Titin said:

  “You’ve been crying, Mme. Bibi. But perhaps it’s as well that she’s dead.”

  Titin himself knew no other mother than Mme. Bibi. He had heard vaguely that his real mother had lost her reason and was in St. Pons Asylum. He had asked to see her but Mme. Bibi had always answered:

  “Better not. They tell me it wouldn’t do her any good. And besides, she wouldn’t recognize you.”

  Nor would he have recognized her. All the same he was cast down. But that was on Mme. Bibi’s account.

  “You had better have a cup of coffee,” he said.

  “No, thank you, I must talk to you about your mother. When you were young you sometimes used to ask me: Why do people call me son of Carnival or son of three fathers? I answered: For no reason, Titin, and I added: When they say such things give them a good dressing down. And you did what I told you, and they got so many dressings down that they left off calling you these names. Therefore you refrained from asking me anything more. But to-day I must tell you more. I had a message to say your mother was at death’s door. I went to her.... Think of it — a little of her reason had come back to her before she died.... She recognized me.... I was sorry I didn’t take you with me, for she asked after you, Titin. Yes, she asked after the son of Carnival. You know she lost her reason before you were born.... Poor Tina!... She was a good, honest girl and you can respect her as you should respect your mother. Certainly she loved dancing after a fête like many another girl. But there’s nothing to be said against that.... There were three of them after her one Carnival.... They all had had too much drink....”

  Mme. Bibi paused and a tear fell down her cheeks. A silence ensued and then Titin said in a voice that she had never heard before:

  “I suspected something of the sort. But why do you tell me about it if you can’t give me the names of the three villains.”

  “I’m telling you about it, my dear, because poor Tina before she died gave me the name of one of the masks. It was the only one she recognized. But you may be able to get the names of the other two out of this man.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Titin.

  “Menica Gianelli.”

  “Menica Gianelli,” repeated Titin, thoughtfully. “I fancy I’ve heard that name before.”

  “The Gianellis are big ironmongers in the Rue Gioffredo. Well, it was the proprietor’s son who, with two others, enticed your mother away. The Gianellis are rich. I thought you might get something out of him.”

  “Yes, you are quite right, and when I have got this something out of him there won’t be much blood in his veins. Have you anything else to tell me?”

  “Yes, Titin. Poor Tina is to be buried to-morrow.”

  “Well, you go to the funeral. I will go and pray on her grave when I can tell her something about my three fathers.”

  He rose to his feet, kissed Mme. Bibi, and straightway left La Fourca Nova. He wore such a grim expression that Giaousé and Nathalie dared not speak to him. He reached Nice that evening, walked to the Rue Gioffredo, and stopped outside the ironmonger’s shop. He gazed at the signboard which bore the words: Durando and Gianelli. He did not know Menica but he remembered often seeing the elder Gianelli, a somewhat miserly, not over sociable, little man.

  “I wish to see M. Gianelli,” he said to a clerk who was hastening into the office with some account books under his arm.

  “It’s very late,” the clerk returned. “We are on the point of closing. Could you not come to-morrow?”

  “No, I am in a great hurry. Tell him it’s Titin le Bastardon.”

  Two minutes later the clerk returned.

  “The partners can’t see you. Cannot you tell me what you want?”

  “No. I must speak to M. Gianelli.”

  “I must tell you, M. Titin, that the partners are wondering if it is anything serious. On the other hand, they don’t want to put you to any inconvenience. But they are very busy just now.”

  “Is M. Menica with them?”

  “M. Menica,” repeated the clerk, lifting his eyes heavenwards.

  “Ask them if I can see M. Menica. Tell them it’s a matter of great importance.”

  Another short absence of the clerk and then:

  “This way, sir.”

  Titin removed his hat and took a seat. MM. Durando and Gianelli stood before him.

  “You asked to see M. Menica,” said M. Gianelli in a harsh voice. “We don’t know what’s become of him.”

  “Do you mean to say you don’t know where your son is?”

  “Menica is not my son. He is only my nephew. It’s many years since I heard anything of him. Is that all you desire to know?”

  “That’s all. I wish you good evening, gentlemen.”

  He strode towards the door and then turning round: “M. Durando, I should like to have a word with you.” M. Durando accompanied him into the shop.

  “The old man is angry with Menica,” said Titin. “There’s nothing to be got out of him, and it’s a pity; for I have some good news for Menica. I have found a very valuable article which he lost some years before he left Nice. An article worth its weight in gold. Something which has increased in value as it has grown older. I can’t tell you anything more about it, but if you could give me some information that would enable me to restore it to M. Menica....”

  “Look here, M. Titin, I should be only too pleased to be of service to you. You did make me laugh that first Sunday in Carnival! I was in the Place du Palais, and I am not anxious to be treated one day as you treated poor M. Supia. Well, when Menica left us he went to Marseilles and opened a grand bazaar in the Allées de Meilhan. Perhaps you could get some information there.”

  “Thank you, M. Durando.”

  Next morning Titin arrived at Marseilles and at eleven o’clock was outside the grand bazaar in the Allées de Meilhan. He could not be mistaken. “Menica’s pipes” were sold there. The business seemed a very prosperous one.

  “By my mascot,” said Titin to himself, “my father does not belong to the riff-raff. We shall be able to talk.”

  We have mentioned that when Titin left La Fourca Nova he was no longer thinking of Toinetta. But the night before he had dreamed of her again, and now when he though
t of vengeance it was in connection with his love for her. These two sentiments, instead of being in opposition in his mind, on the contrary, were combined; and he dared not allow his mind to dwell on them. The night before nothing would have satisfied him but bloodshed, even if it had meant the sacrifice of his own skin. But now it was different. The vision of a Titin enjoying life, rich, in possession of an acknowledged position as a citizen — of a Titin who could honorably aspire to Mlle. Agagnosc’s hand — began to take shape.... Suddenly the thought of his mother being at the very moment laid in some grave near St. Pons, flung him back into a feeling of horror of himself.

  No, no, he had not come there for that. Titin le Bastardon was certainly not going to represent himself as a beggar. He had come for something quite different. And, if he were to lose Toinetta and perhaps die for it on the scaffold — he must allow for every possibility — he would leave this vale of tears at least, with head held high, and without dishonor, as befits a Bastardon!

  It was fortunate for Menica that he failed to offer himself at that moment to Bastardon’s revengeful blows. For by the time Titin entered the bazaar he had worked himself up to such a pitch of excitement over his filial duties that he might have sent this first father whose identity was certain to another world, leaving himself plenty of time to think of the other two....

  Titin learnt that Menica had not made a success of his pipe business but had sold it and had settled in Montpellier as a wholesale wine merchant. And now he journeyed to Montpellier, where he learned that M. Menica had failed as a wine merchant and been reduced to buying a retail dram-shop in Cette. He went on to Cette and discovered that M. Menica, having set himself to consume in detail the wine intended for his customers, sundry unpleasant experiences had followed, forcing him to leave the place. Thereupon, he returned to Marseilles and set up on the quay as a vendor of mussels and other shell-fish to be eaten on the spot.

  Titin returned by train to Marseilles. On his way he said to himself: “That’s all right. You have only got what you deserved. Instead of considering how to avenge your mother, you were hoping your father was a rich man, able to give you a big wedding present. And here you are the son of a mussel man!... You may well run after the girls now. If Toinetta heard of it she would die of laughing. It will be better to let her know nothing about it I assure you.”

  He inquired of an oyster man on the quay where Menica was in the habit of fixing up his stall.

  “Menica! Oh, poor fellow, he’s no longer in the business. That’s not his fault. He’s had trouble in the Courts over an American millionaire who tasted his stuff and, with his wife and daughter, was poisoned. It seems the mussels were picked up at Pierres Plates. Since then he has lived from hand to mouth, worse luck! Hullo, here he is. Menica!... I say, Menica!...”

  A poverty stricken creature in rags was passing and it was a marvel that this miserable specimen of humanity had sufficient strength to carry the sack of peanuts under the weight of which he was bowed down. He stopped when he heard the oyster man call out to him. Clearly he was staggering under his load. Titin took it from him and threw it over his own shoulders. For the rest of that morning he did the work of a porter. He uttered no word and the other left it to him, stupefied....

  When he had shot the last sack of peanuts on to a van Titin said:

  “Come along.”

  “Who are you?” asked the old man without excitement. For nothing could now surprise him.

  “Son of Carnival,” said Titin.

  “Oh,” was the answer, and he seemed to be trying to search the depths of his memory.

  “I am Titin — Titin le Bastardon.”

  “Le Bastardon?”

  “Yes, Menica. Just test your memory.... Poor Tina.... I am your son, Menica.”

  Menica gazed at him for some time.

  “It may be so,” he returned at last; and then after a moment’s reflection: “But there are three of us, you know.”

  “Do you know the other two?”

  “I should have to think,” said Menica, shaking his head.... It’s so long ago — that story.... But hang it all I am thirsty.”

  “Come along.”

  Titin gave him food and drink and clothes, and took a small room for him in the old quarter near the Town Hall. In short, he behaved like a good son. He was rewarded to some extent by awakening the poor fellow’s vague memories. For Menica recalled to mind a long drinking bout with a milkman whose Christian name only he knew. This man Noré (Honoré) was a great wag in his way. He had made his acquaintance at Olmiez, at a fête, the year before the Carnival, when the grievous incident had occurred. And he had continued to see him on Sundays in the country inns where players of bowls were wont to congregate and where clerks took their lady friends....

  Noré had no equal in those days for setting the company off and making the girls dance while he played the mandolin. As to the third man, it was Noré who had brought him along. Menica did not know him nor had he seen him since.

  Titin returned to Nice dissatisfied with everything and himself. The feeling for revenge no longer moved him. Having set out to kill his three fathers he had emptied his pockets in coming to the assistance of the first. Perhaps he would discover the gay milkman in the workhouse and have to rescue him from destitution. If the third one were of the same type as the other two, Titin might well ask himself whether his many occupations would be sufficient to provide suitably for so numerous an ancestry!

  While roaming about the country beyond Cimiez, Titin met an old innkeeper who remembered perfectly well a man called Noré, an adept at inducing the girls to dance to the music of his mandolin.

  “He married a good-looking St. Maurice girl and was not seen again. I heard he had taken a milk shop near Petit Piol.”

  At Petit Piol Titin learnt that Noré and his wife had left the district and had settled in Nice in the Rue Massena near the Passage Négrin. The dairy was still in existence. But, it had developed into an important and high-class shop, greatly frequented during the season. The proprietor soon made his fortune. And after a few years sold the business on very favorable terms.

  Titin was still ignorant of Noré’s surname, a fact which did not render his task any the easier. However, he discovered from an old English woman who had been a customer for years, that the former proprietor had acquired a provision warehouse, called the “Silver Rabbit”, in the Rue d’Angleterre.

  The size of this shop made some impression on Titin. He asked to see the proprietor. A respectable looking individual in a white apron, carving behind the counter an appetizing cold fowl, was pointed out to him.

  “Are you M. Noré?” inquired Titin.

  “Noré? Never heard of him,” returned the carver as he calmly removed a wing. Then after a pause: “Oh, you mean my predecessor. Well, you are behind the times, my friend. That was nearly eighteen years ago. Why, but you belong to Nice.”

  “Yes, my name is Titin.”

  “Titin?”

  “Titin le Bastardon.”

  Two assistants were standing near and one said:

  “Yes, governor, that’s Titin — Titin le Bastardon.”

  “Oh then, that explains everything,” said the governor, making up his mind to see a joke. “You’re being funny.”

  “I assure you that I was never more serious.”

  “I’m not Supia, you know. No need to pull my leg. You are Titin le Bastardon and you come here and ask me about a man who sold me his business eighteen years ago!”

  The assistants burst out laughing.

  “Why, governor, no one knows him better than he does.”

  “Well, of course. Good-bye, M. Titin, and if it was Papajeudi who sent you tell him from me that he might have found a better joke.”

  Titin had already departed. He strode, like a person distraught, in the direction of the old town....

  Papajeudi! It was true that Papajeudi was called Noré — Honoré Papajeudi. He was the one-time milkman. Well, he had gone far since th
ose days! He was undoubtedly one of the richest tradesmen in the town. It was said that he could give each of his daughters a dowry of three hundred thousand francs without inconvenience. And he would have to put himself to a little more inconvenience. He would have to reckon with his son also.

  When Titin entered Papajeudi’s shop he was surprised at Mme. Papajeudi’s absence from the cash desk. But her eldest daughter was in her place and he noticed that her eyes were red with weeping.

  “Can I see M. Papajeudi?” he inquired.

  “No, M. Titin, father is very ill,” she returned in a low voice.

  “You don’t mean it, Mlle.?” said Titin, sincerely sorry, for Papajeudi had always been “good” to him even in the days of his poverty.

  “It is the truth, unfortunately.”

  Just then the two other Miles. Papajeudi came up. They, too, were weeping.

  “But what’s the matter with him?” asked Titin. “Only a few days ago he took the chair at a trade banquet.”

  “Exactly,” said the young cashier. “The pastry gave him indigestion. He took some medicine and he felt cold shivers. Then he drank some old Belet to warm himself and afterwards some brandy which made his head swim without bringing any relief. So much so that’ to-day he sent for his solicitor and asked my sisters to fetch the priest from St. Francis de Paul.”

  “He takes a very gloomy view,” said Titin, greatly disturbed.

  “Yes, he is very gloomy about it,” she wailed. “He does nothing but pity himself, poor thing.”

  “Tell him that I called and was very sorry when I heard of his illness.”