“Do you see, Bonmont? Steering is done by differential gear!”
“It is very easy to handle,” said the mechanic. Gustave Dellion loved an automobile, and not, like Bonmont, with an already satiated love. He gazed at the vehicle which, in spite of the stiffness of modern body-work, looked like a great animal, a conventional, banal, though well-behaved monster, with an apology for a head between the lamps that looked like two huge eyes.
“Not such a bad puff-puff,” whispered young Bonmont to his friend. “Why don’t you buy it?”
“Buy it? Can you do anything you like when you are so unfortunate as to possess a father!” sighed Gustave Dellion. “You don’t know what a nuisance a family is — what a worry.” Then, with feigned assurance, he added, “And that, my dear Bonmont, reminds me that I owe you a small—”
A friendly hand fell upon his shoulder, cutting him short, and to his surprise there stood at his side a little fair man, his head sunk between his shoulders, giving him the appearance of a slight hump, broad-chested, and strong-backed — a little, simple-looking, fair man, who regarded him with extraordinarily kind blue eyes and a sweet smile.
“You old fool!” said this little man, suggesting a good-natured little buffalo shedding his wool on the bushes out of pure kindness of heart.
Gustave no longer recognised the Bonmont he had known, and was both touched and surprised. Jumping into the car, the little Baron began to handle the steering-wheel under the benevolent eye of the mechanic.
“So you drive, Bonmont?” ventured Gustave with deference.
“Occasionally,” returned young Bonmont.
Then, with one hand upon the steering-wheel, he related a motor-tour he had made in Touraine during one of his absences on sick leave, from which he always returned worse than he went away. He had done thirty miles an hour. Of course, the roads were dry and in good condition, but there were cattle, children, and frightened horses to pass, all of which might have caused trouble. You had to keep your eyes about you, and never let the other fellow touch the wheel. He related a few incidents of the tour, one adventure with a milkwoman standing out particularly in his mind.
“I saw the old woman coming along,” he said, “taking up the whole of the road with her horse and cart. I sounded my horn, but the old creature never moved aside. Then I made straight for her. She was new to that trick. She drew up by the side of the road, pulling so hard at her horse that he fell in a heap with the cart, milk-pails, old woman and all, upon a pile of stones; so I left them to it and went on,” concluded young Bonmont, as he jumped out of the car. “And, in spite of the dust and the noise, motoring is a very pleasant way of getting about. You try it, my dear fellow.”
“He is a good sort, after all,” thought young Dellion admiringly. And his wonder grew when, dragging him along by the arm through the great hall, Bonmont said to him:
“You are quite right. Don’t buy that motor. I’ll lend you my runabout. I shan’t want it, because I’ve got to go back, my leave is nearly up. Besides — By the way, do you know if Madame de Gromance is in Paris?”
“I believe so, but I am not quite sure,” replied Gustave. “It is some time since I saw her.”
This was in one way an honourable falsehood, for at ten minutes past seven on the preceding evening he had left Madame de Gromance in her room at the hotel where they had their rendezvous.
Bonmont did not reply, but, coming to a full stop before a notice in two languages, forbidding smoking, he gazed at it silently and thoughtfully. Gustave, following his example, remained speechless, thinking it would not be prudent to bring the interview to an end. So he added:
“But I may see her again soon. I can see her, if you will tell me—”
The little Baron looked him straight in the eyes, and said:
“Would you like to do me a favour?”
Gustave assented with the enthusiasm of a good-natured soul and the uneasiness of a person suddenly embarked upon a difficult enterprise. It was none the less true that Gustave could do Ernest de Bonmont a favour, and the latter proceeded to enlighten him on the subject.
“If you would like to do me a favour, my dear Gustave, get Madame de Gromance to go and see Loyer, and ask him to make Abbé Guitrel a bishop.” And he added, “You would do me a genuine service.”
To this request Gustave replied by a stupefied silence and a startled look, not that he intended to refuse, but because he had not grasped the situation. Young Bonmont had to repeat the same words twice over, and to explain that Loyer was Minister of Public Worship and nominated the bishops. He was very patient, and little by little Gustave understood what was required of him; he even managed to repeat what he had heard without making a single mistake:
“You want me to tell Madame de Gromance to go and ask Loyer, who is Minister of Public Worship, to make Guitrel a bishop?”
“Bishop of Tourcoing.”
“Tourcoing! Is that in France?”
“Of course.”
“Ah!” said Gustave thoughtfully, and he fell into a reverie.
Serious objections came to him, and, at the risk of appearing disobliging, he would mention them. It seemed to him that the request entailed a good deal, and he did not want to enter upon it lightly. Timidly and hesitatingly he formulated his first objection, which was a natural one.
“It isn’t a trick, is it?” he asked.
“What do you mean by a trick?” said Bonmont shortly.
“No, really,” protested Gustave, “you aren’t pulling my leg?”
He was still in doubt, but the contemptuous look of the little fair man dispersed all doubt.
With great firmness and decision he declared:
“As long as I know it is a serious matter, you can rely upon me. I can be serious when necessary.”
He was silent awhile, and the difficulties confronting him again rose in his mind. Gently and timidly he said:
“Do you think that Madame de Gromance knows the minister well enough to ask such a — a — favour? Because, you know, she never mentions Loyer to me.”
“And that,” replied the little Baron, “is probably because she has other subjects to discuss with you. I don’t mean that she is keen on Loyer, but she thinks him a good old sort, and no fool. They got to know each other three years ago on the platform at the unveiling of the statue to Jeanne d’Arc. Loyer would be only too delighted to do anything to please Madame de Gromance, and I can assure you he isn’t a bad sort. When he puts on his best coat he looks like a retired fencing-master. She can go and see him all right, he will be quite nice to her — and he will most certainly do her no harm!”
“In that case,” said Gustave, “she is to ask him to make Guitrel a bishop.”
“Yes.”
“Bishop of where did you say?”
“Bishop of Tourcoing,” repeated young Bonmont. “I’d better write it down for you.”
Picking up from a table before him the trade card of the builder of the “Reine des Pygmées,” he wrote upon it with his little gold pencil, “Make Guitrel Bishop of Tourcoing.”
Gustave took the card, and the idea which at first had appeared to him so strange and weird now seemed a simple and natural one. His mind had grown accustomed to it, and as he put the card in his pocket he repeated in the glibbest way:
“Make Guitrel Bishop of Tourcoing. Right you are! You can rely on me.”
In this manner the words of Madame Dellion were fulfilled, who speaking of her son one day had said, “Gustave does not learn quickly, but he remembers what he has learned, and that is perhaps best.”
“You know,” said Ernest seriously, “I can answer for Guitrel making a good bishop.”
“So much the better,” replied Gustave, “because—” And he did not finish his sentence.’
They had now reached the exit, however.
“I shall be in Paris until the end of the week,” said Bonmont. “Let me know how things are going; there is no time to lose, for the candidates are being chosen
now. We will speak of the car at another time.”
As they reached the flight of flag-decorated steps, he took Gustave’s hand in his and, holding it, impressed upon him:
“No one must know. The thing is of the utmost moment, my dear Dellion, that no one shall know; not a soul must know that Madame de Gromance is going to Loyer at your request. Now that is understood, is it not?”
“Quite,” replied Gustave, heartily shaking his friend’s hand.
The same evening at eight o’clock young Bonmont went to visit his mother, whom he did not often see, but with whom he was on the friendliest possible terms, and found her finishing her toilet in the dressing-room.
While her maid was arranging her hair she looked away from her reflection in the glass, and turning to her son:
“You don’t look well,” she said.
Ernest’s health had been worrying her for some time. Rara provided her with other more painful worries, but her son was, for all that, a source of anxiety.
“How are you, mother?”
“Oh, I’m very well.”
“You look it.”
“Did you know that your Uncle Wallstein has had a slight stroke?”
“I’m not surprised; he shouldn’t be so gay at his time of life, it’s unnatural.”
“He is not so very old, only fifty-two.”
“Fifty-two is not what you might call youthful, exactly. By the way, what about the Brécés?”
“The Brécés? What about them?”
“Did they thank you for the ciborium?”
“They sent their card, with a pencilled word of thanks.”
“That’s not much.”
“Well, mon petit, what else did you expect?”
She rose to her feet and raised her hands above her head to fix a diamond cluster in her hair; standing thus her bare arms looked like two handles springing from a beautifully shaped amphora. Her shoulders gleamed under the electric light which shone through transparent shades shaped like bunches of fruit, and in the golden whiteness of the skin delicate blue veins ran down to the swell of her bosom. Her cheeks were rouged and her lips painted, but her face was still youthful in its health and vigour. The lines of her neck, which might have betrayed the passage of the years, were lost in the beauty of the skin.
Young Bonmont studied her carefully for a few moments, and then said:
“Mother, suppose you go and see Loyer too, and ask him about Abbé Guitrel?”
CHAPTER XIV
MADAME DE BONMONT, who had chosen Raoul Marcien from among all others, and who loved him with deep affection, was justified for the space of a few weeks in congratulating herself upon her choice, and in believing herself a happy woman. A tremendous change had taken place in the order of things. Raoul, who had formerly been despised or disliked in all circles of society, who had been rejected by his regiment, cut by his friends, cast off by his relations, expelled from his club; who was known in all the courts of law by reason of the repeated charges of swindling brought against him, had suddenly become cleansed of all stain and purified of all dishonour. Certain events, guessed at, no doubt, and soon to be made clear, had interested the Government on his behalf. It was exceedingly necessary that Raoul should pass for an honourable man. In public and in private, ministers maintained that the power and glory of France and the peace of the whole world depended upon this.
His honour was of public utility, and each and all did their best to make it an established fact. The Government worked to this end, as did the lawyers and the newspapers, in fact all good citizens worked joyfully for its establishment. Madame de Bonmont experienced both pleasure and uneasiness at the sudden transformation of her lover into an example and a model for all Frenchmen. She was made for the enjoyment of tranquil joys and pleasures à deux, and all this fame astonished and made her ill at ease. When with Raoul she had the fatiguing sensation of living perpetually in a lift.
Evidences of the esteem in which he was held amazed the simple Elizabeth both by their number and extent. Congratulations, flattering pledges, good-conduct certificates, compliments, and praises poured in from all the bodies known and unknown, and from all the public societies in town and country. They came from the courts, the barracks, the archbishops’ palaces, from the town halls, préfectures and great houses of France. They rang out in the street riots, and resounded with the bugles during torchlight processions. His honour shone proudly forth nowadays; it flamed into being like a huge cross at an illuminated fête. Whether he went to the Palais de Justice, or to the Moulin-Rouge, he was greeted by the acclamations of the crowd, and princes begged for the honour of touching his hand.
And, in spite of all this, Raoul was not at peace.
When in the little first-floor apartment hung with sky-blue draperies, intended by Madame de Bonmont to shelter their mutual love, he was always sombre and violent. When he heard his worth and praises shouted in the streets, when he could not listen to the rumbling wheels of an omnibus or the shriek of a tram without knowing that both vehicles contained the supporters and guardians of his honour, he still remained plunged in the bitterest, most dismal thoughts and cherished terrible designs. With frowning brows and clenched teeth he muttered curses; he chewed threats as a sailor chews his tobacco. “Scoundrels! Wretches! I’ll run them through the body!” It may seem almost impossible, but is, nevertheless, true, that he was unconscious of the people’s acclamations; he did not hear them, and the only people he thought of were his few accusers, all of whom were believed to be dispersed, destroyed and reduced to powder. In his imagination he saw them standing before him, with threatening faces, and at sight of them terror made his yellow eyes start from his head.
His fury was a source of consternation to poor Madame de Bonmont, who only heard hoarse cries of hatred and vengeance coming from the lips which should have given her kisses and words of love. And she was the more surprised and uncomfortable because her lover’s threats were directed as much against friend as against foe. For when he spoke of “running them through,” Raoul never stopped to make the subtle distinction between his defenders and his adversaries. His great mind took in the whole of his country, yes, and the whole of the human race.
He would spend hours every day pacing up and down like a caged lion or panther in the two little rooms that Madame de Bonmont had hung with blue silk and furnished with cosy lounges in the hope of better things. “I’ll do for them!” he muttered as he strode up and down.
Seated in one corner of the big couch she would follow his movements with a timid look, and listen anxiously to his words; not that the sentiments expressed by him appeared to her in any way unworthy of her beloved; instinctively submissive, naturally docile, she admired strength in all its forms, and flattered herself with the vague hope that a man who was capable of such wholesale slaughter, might also, at another time, be capable of wonderful embraces. And sitting at one end of the couch, she waited with half-closed eyes and gently heaving bosom for her Raoul’s mood to change.
She waited in vain! The vociferations continued to make her start:
“I’ll do for them!”
Occasionally she would timidly try to appease his fury; in a voice as full as her figure she would murmur:
“But they are doing you full justice, dearest — every one knows you to be a man of honour!”
It may be true that the slender, dark-haired David succeeded in calming the fury of Saul with his shepherd’s lute, the sound of which was thinner than a cricket’s chirrup; Elizabeth, less fortunate than he, vainly offered to Raoul the Nirvana of her sighs and the splendour of her pink and white self. Without daring to look at him, she ventured to say: “I cannot understand you, mon ami. You have confounded your detractors, the General embraced you in the middle of the street the other day, and the ministers...”
She got no further; he burst out:
“You mention those blackguards to me! They are only trying to find some way of getting at me. They would like to see me a hundred feet
under the ground. But they had better be careful! I will devour them piecemeal!”
Then he came back to his dear, familiar thought: “I must do for them!”
This was his dream:
“I should like to be in an immense marble hall full of people, and to lay about me with a big stick, to strike for days and nights, until the floor, the ceiling, and the walls were red with blood!”
She vouchsafed no reply, but only looked in silence at her breast, where lay the little bunch of violets she had bought for him and dared not offer.
He gave her no more love. It was over and done with. The hardest-hearted man would have taken pity on the pretty, gentle creature who, with her voluptuous body and skin of milk and roses, resembled some big, warm flower in its beauty, neglected, abandoned, and left without care or culture.
She was suffering, and, being piously inclined, she sought a remedy in religion. Thinking that an interview with Abbé Guitrel would be of great service to Raoul, she resolved to bring the priest and her lover together.
CHAPTER XV
BEFORE dressing, Philippe Dellion pulled aside the window-curtains, and, looking out into the light-spangled night, watched the carriage lamps passing to and fro in the busy street. For a moment or two the sight pleased him; he had been in this room, separated from the outer world, for the space of two hours.
“What are you looking at, mon petit?” asked Madame de Gromance, sitting up in the bed and arranging her tumbled hair. “Do strike a light, it is impossible to see a thing.”
He lighted the candles that stood in little copper stands on either side of a gilded clock adorned with shepherds and shepherdesses. The gentle light reflected itself in the wardrobe and made the rosewood cornice glisten. Little rays flickering everywhere in the room, lit up the scattered garments and died gently away in the curtains’ folds.
The room was an apartment in a highly respectable hotel, in a street near the Boulevard des Capucines. Madame de Gromance, in her wisdom, had selected it, refusing to have anything to do with the less subtle arrangements of Philippe, who had hired a little rez-dechaussée, in the lonely Avenue Kléber. It was her opinion that a woman who wished to keep her affairs to herself must see that they take place in the very heart of Paris, in some respectable hotel frequented by people of divers races and tongues. She hardly ever spent more than two consecutive months in Paris, but she frequently met Philippe there, and in far greater security than she could have done in the provinces.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 158