Complete Works of Anatole France

by Anatole France

  “I have it!” exclaimed the physician. “He recited The Duel in the Prairie. People are rather tired of monologues, but that is very funny. You remember! ‘Will you fight with the sword?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘The pistol?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘The sabre, the knife?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Ah, then, I see what you want. You are not fastidious. What you want is a duel in the prairie. I agree. We will replace the prairie by a five-storied house. You are permitted to conceal yourself in the vegetation.’ Chevalier used to recite The Duel in the Prairie in a very humorous manner. He amused me greatly that night. It is true that I am not an ungrateful audience; I worship the theatre.”

  The commissary was not listening. He was following up his own train of thought.

  “It will never be known, how many fortunes and lives are devoured each year by the pari mutuel. Gambling never releases its victims; when it has despoiled them of everything, it still remains their only hope. What else, indeed, will permit them to hope?”

  He ceased, straining his ear to catch the distant cry of a newsvendor, and rushed out into the avenue in pursuit of the fugitive yelping shadow, hailed him, and snatched from him a sporting paper, which he spread out under the light of a gas-lamp, scanning its pages for certain names of horses: Fleur-des-pois, La Châtelaine, Lucrèce. With haggard eyes, trembling hands, dumbfounded, crushed, he dropped the sheet: his horse had not won.

  And Dr. Hibry, observing him from a distance, reflected that some day, in his capacity of physician to the dead, he might well be called upon to certify the suicide of his commissary of police, and he made up his mind in advance to conclude, as far as possible, that his death was due to accidental causes.

  Suddenly he seized his umbrella.

  “I must be off,” he said. “I have been given a seat for the Opéra-Comique to-night. It would be a pity to waste it.”

  Before leaving the house, Ligny asked Madame Simonneau:

  “Where have you put him?”

  “In the bed,” replied Madame Simonneau. “It was more decent.”

  He made no objection, and raising his eyes to the front of the house, he saw at the windows of the bedroom, through the muslin curtains, the light of the two candles which the housekeeper had placed on the bedside table.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “one might get a nun to watch by him.”

  “It’s not necessary,” replied Madame Simonneau, who had invited some neighbours of her own sex, and had ordered her wine and meat. “It’s not necessary, I will watch by him myself.”

  Ligny did not press the point.

  The dog was still howling outside the gate.

  Returning on foot to the barrier, he noticed, over Paris, a reddish glow which filled the whole sky. Above the chimney-pots the factory chimneys rose grotesque and black, against this fiery mist, seeming to look down with a ridiculous familiarity upon the mysterious conflagration of a world. The few passers-by whom he met on the boulevard strolled along quietly, without raising their heads. Although he knew that when cities are wrapped in night the moist atmosphere often reflects the lights, becoming tinged with this uniform glow, which shines without a flicker, he fancied that he was looking at the reflection of a vast fire. He accepted, without reflection, the idea that Paris was sinking into the abyss of a prodigious conflagration; he found it natural that the private catastrophe in which he had become involved should be merged into a public disaster and that this same night should be for a whole population, as for him! a night of sinister happenings.

  Being extremely hungry, he took a cab at the barrier, and had himself driven to a restaurant in the Rue Royale. In the bright, warm room he was conscious of a sense of well-being. After ordering his meal, he opened an evening newspaper and saw, in the Parliamentary report, that his Minister had delivered a speech. On reading it, he smothered a slight laugh; he remembered certain stories told at the Quai d’Orsay. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was enamoured of Madame de Neuilles, an elderly lady with a lurid past, whom public rumour had raised to the status of adventuress and spy. He was wont, it was whispered, to try on her the speeches which he was to deliver in the Chamber. Ligny, who had formerly been to a certain small extent the lover of Madame de Neuilles, pictured to himself the statesman in his shirt reciting to his lady-love the following statement of principles: “Far be it from me to disregard the legitimate susceptibilities of the national sentiment. Resolutely pacific, but jealous of France’s honour, the Government will, etc.” This vision put him in a merry mood. He turned the page, and read: To-morrow at the Odéon, first performance (in this theatre) of La Nuit du 23 octobre 1812 with Messieurs Durville, Maury, Romilly, Destrée, Vicar, Léon Clim, Valroche, Aman, Chevalier....

  CHAPTER VIII

  At one o’clock on the following day La Grille was in rehearsal, for the first time, in the green-room of the theatre. A dismal light spread like a pall over the grey stones of the roof, the galleries, and the columns. In the depressing majesty of this pallid architecture, beneath the statue of Racine, the leading actors were reading before Pradel, the manager of the house, their parts, which they did not yet know. Romilly, the stage manager, and Constantine Marc, the author of the piece, were all three seated on a red velvet sofa, while, from a bench set back between two columns, was exhaled the vigilant hatred and whispered jealousy of the actresses left out of the cast.

  The lover, Paul Delage, was with difficulty deciphering a speech:

  “‘I recognize the château with its brick walls, its slated roof; the park, where I have so often entwined her initials and mine on the bark of the trees; the pond whose slumbering waters....’”

  Fagette rebuked him:

  “‘Beware, Aimeri, lest the château know you not again, lest the park forget your name, lest the pond murmur: “Who is this stranger?”’“

  But she had a cold, and was reading from a manuscript copy full of mistakes.

  “Don’t stand there, Fagette: it’s the summer-house,” said Romilly.

  “How do you expect me to know that?”

  “There’s a chair put there.”

  “‘Lest the pond murmur: “Who is this stranger?”’“

  “Mademoiselle Nanteuil, it’s your cue —— Where has Nanteuil got to? Nanteuil!”

  Nanteuil came forward muffled up in her furs, her little bag and her part in her hand, white as a sheet, her eyes sunken, her legs nerveless. When fully awake she had seen the dead man enter her bedroom.

  She inquired:

  “Where do I make my entrance from?”

  “From the right.”

  “All right.”

  And she read:

  “‘Cousin, I was so happy when I awoke this morning, I do not know why it was. Can you perhaps tell me?’”

  Delage read his reply:

  “‘It may be, Cécile, that it was due to a special dispensation of Providence or of fate. The God who loves you suffers you to smile, in the hour of weeping and the gnashing of teeth.’”

  “Nanteuil, my darling, you cross the stage,” said Romilly. “Delage, stand aside a bit to let her pass.”

  Nanteuil crossed over.

  “‘Terrible days, do you say, Aimeri? Our days are what we make them. They are terrible for evil-doers only.’”

  Romilly interrupted:

  “Delage, efface yourself a trifle; be careful not to hide her from the audience. Once more, Nanteuil.”

  Nanteuil repeated:

  “‘Terrible days, do you say, Aimeri? Our days are what we make them. They are terrible for evil-doers only.’”

  Constantin Marc no longer recognized his handiwork, he could no longer even hear the sound of his beloved phrases, which he had so often repeated to himself in the Vivarais woods. Dumbfounded and dazed, he held his peace.

  Nanteuil tripped daintily across the stage, and resumed reading her part:

  “‘You will perhaps think me very foolish, Aimeri; in the convent where I was brought up, I often used to envy the fate of the victims.’”

  Delage took up hi
s cue, but he had overlooked a page of the manuscript:

  “‘The weather is magnificent. Already the guests are strolling about the garden.’”

  It became necessary to start all over again.

  “‘Terrible days, do you say, Aimeri....’”

  And so they proceeded, without troubling to understand, but careful to regulate their movements, as if studying the figures of a dance.

  “In the interests of the play, we shall have to make some cuts,” said Pradel to the dismayed author.

  And Delage continued:

  “‘Do not blame me, Cécile: I felt for you a friendship dating from childhood, one of those fraternal friendships which impart to the love which springs from them a disquieting appearance of incest.’”

  “Incest,” shouted Pradel. “You cannot let the word ‘incest’ remain, Monsieur Constantin Marc. The public has susceptibilities of which you have no idea. Moreover, the order of the two speeches which follow must be transposed. The optics of the stage require it.”

  The rehearsal was interrupted. Romilly caught sight of Durville who, in a recess, was telling racy stories.

  “Durville, you can go. The second act will not be rehearsed to-day.”

  Before leaving, the old actor went up to Nanteuil, to press her hand. Judging that this was the moment to assure her of his sympathy, he summoned up the tears to his eyes, as anyone condoling with her would have done in his place. But he did it admirably. The pupils of his eyes swam in their orbits, like the moon amid clouds. The corners of his lips were turned down in two deep furrows which prolonged them to the bottom of his chin. He appeared to be genuinely afflicted.

  “My poor darling,” he sighed, “I pity you, I do indeed! To see one for whom one has experienced a — feeling — with whom one has — lived in intimacy — to see him carried off at a blow — a tragic blow — is hard, is terrible!”

  And he extended his compassionate hands. Nanteuil, completely unnerved, and crushing her tiny handkerchief and her part in her hands, turned her back upon him, and hissed between her teeth:

  “Old idiot!”

  Fagette passed her arm round her waist, and led her gently aside to the foot of Racine’s statue, where she whispered into her ear:

  “Listen to me, my dear. This affair must be completely hushed up. Everybody is talking about it. If you let people talk, they will brand you for life as Chevalier’s widow.”

  Then, being something of a talker, she added:

  “I know you, I am your best friend. I know your value. But beware, Félicie: women are held at their own valuation.”

  Every one of Fagette’s shafts told. Nanteuil, with fiery cheeks, held back her tears. Too young to possess or even to desire the prudence which comes to celebrated actresses when of an age to graduate as women of the world of fashion, she was full of self-esteem, and since she had known what it was to love another she was eager to efface everything unfashionable from her past; she felt that Chevalier, in killing himself for her sake, had behaved towards her publicly with a familiarity which made her ridiculous. Still unaware that all things fall into oblivion, and are lost in the swift current of our days, that all our actions flow like the waters of a river, between banks that have no memory, she pondered, irritated and dejected, at the feet of Jean Racine, who understood her grief.

  “Just look at her,” said Madame Marie-Claire to young Delage. “She wants to cry. I understand her. A man killed himself for me. I was greatly upset by it. He was a count.”

  “Well, begin again!” shouted Pradel. “Come now, Mademoiselle Nanteuil, your cue!”

  Whereupon Nanteuil:

  “‘Cousin, I was so happy when I awoke this morning....’”

  Suddenly, Madame Doulce appeared. Ponderous and mournful, she let fall the following words:

  “I have very sad news. The parish priest will not allow him to enter his church.”

  As Chevalier had no relations left other than a sister, a working-woman at Pantin, Madame Doulce had undertaken to make arrangements for the funeral at the expense of the members of the company.

  They gathered round her. She continued:

  “The Church rejects him as though he were accurst! That’s dreadful!”

  “Why?” asked Romilly.

  Madame Doulce replied in a very low tone and as if reluctantly:

  “Because he committed suicide.”

  “We must see to this,” said Pradel.

  Romilly displayed an eager desire to be of service.

  “The curé knows me,” he said. “He is a very decent fellow. I’ll just run over to Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, and I’d be greatly surprised if — —”

  Madame Doulce shook her head sadly:

  “All is useless.”

  “All the same, we must have a religious service,” said Romilly, with all the authority of a stage-manager.

  “Quite so,” said Madame Doulce.

  Madame Marie-Claire, deeply exercised in her mind, was of opinion that the priests could be compelled to say a Mass.

  “Let us keep cool,” said Pradel, caressing his venerable beard. “Under Louis VIII the people broke in the doors of Saint-Roch, which had been closed to the coffin of Mademoiselle Raucourt. We live in other times, and under different circumstances. We must have recourse to gentler methods.”

  Constantin Marc, seeing to his great regret that his play was abandoned, had likewise approached Madame Doulce; he inquired of her:

  “Why should you want Chevalier to be blessed by the Church? Personally, I am a Catholic. With me, it is not a faith, it is a system, and I look upon it as a duty to participate in all the external practices of worship. I am on the side of all authorities. I am for the judge, the soldier, the priest. I cannot therefore be suspected of favouring civil burials. But I hardly understand why you persist in offering the curé of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont a dead body which he repudiates. Now why do you want this unfortunate Chevalier to go to church?”

  “Why?” replied Madame Doulce. “For the salvation of his soul and because it is more seemly.”

  “What would be seemly,” replied Constantin Marc, “would be to obey the laws of the Church, which excommunicates suicides.”

  “Monsieur Constantin Marc, have you read Les Soirées de Neuilly?” inquired Pradel, who was an ardent collector of old books and a great reader. “What, you have not read Les Soirées de Neuilly, by Monsieur de Fongeray? You have missed something. It is a curious book, which can still be met with sometimes on the quays. It is adorned by a lithograph of Henry Monnier’s, which is, I don’t know why, a caricature of Stendhal. Fongeray is the pseudonym of two Liberals of the Restoration, Dittmer and Cavé. The work consists of comedies and dramas which cannot be acted; but which contain some most interesting scenes representing manners and customs. You will read in it how, in the reign of Charles X, a vicar of one of the Paris churches, the Abbé Mouchaud, would refuse burial to a pious lady, and would, at all costs, grant it to an atheist. Madame d’Hautefeuille was religious, but she held some national property. At her death, she received the ministrations of a Jansenist priest. For this reason, after her death, the Abbé Mouchaud refused to receive her into the church in which she had passed her life. At the same time, in the same parish, Monsieur Dubourg, a big banker, was good enough to die. In his will he stipulated that he should be borne straight to the cemetery. ‘He is a Catholic,’ reflected the Abbé Mouchaud, ‘he belongs to us.’ Quickly making a parcel of his stole and surplice, he rushed off to the dead man’s house, administered extreme unction, and brought him into his church.”

  “Well,” replied Constantin Marc, “that vicar was an excellent politician. Atheists are not formidable enemies of the Church. They do not count as adversaries. They cannot raise a Church against her, and they do not dream of doing so. Atheists have existed at all times among the heads and princes of the Church, and many of them have rendered signal services to the Papacy. On the other hand, whoever does not submit strictly to ecclesiastical discipline and
breaks away from tradition upon a single point, whoever sets up a faith against the faith, an opinion, a practices against the accepted opinion and the common practice, is a factor of disorder, a menace of peril, and must be extirpated. This the vicar, Mouchaud, understood. He should have been made a Cardinal.”

  Madame Doulce, who had been clever enough not to tell everything in a breath, went on to say:

  “I did not allow myself to be discomfited by the opposition of Monsieur le Curé. I begged, I entreated. And his answer was: ‘We owe respectful obedience to the Ordinary. Go to the Archbishop’s Palace. I will do as Monseigneur bids me.’ There is nothing left for me but to follow this advice. I’m hurrying off to the Archbishop’s Palace.”

  “Let us get to work,” said Pradel.

  Romilly called to Nanteuil:

  “Nanteuil! Come, Nanteuil, begin your whole scene over again.”

  And Nanteuil said once more:

  “‘Cousin, I was so happy when I awoke this morning....’”

  CHAPTER IX

  The prominence given by the Press to the suicide of the Boulevard de Villiers rendered the negotiations between the Stage and the Church all the more difficult. The reporters had given the fullest details of the event, and it was pointed out by the Abbé Mirabelle, the Archbishop’s second vicar, that to open the doors of the parish church to Chevalier, as matters then stood, was to proclaim that excommunicated persons were entitled to the prayers of the Church.

  But for that matter, Monsieur Mirabelle himself, who in this affair displayed great wisdom and circumspection, paved the way to a solution.

  “You must fully understand,” he observed to Madame Doulce, “that the opinion of the newspapers cannot affect our decision. We are absolutely indifferent to it, and we do not disturb ourselves in the slightest degree, no matter what fifty public sheets may say about the unfortunate young fellow. Whether the journalists have told the truth or distorted it is their affair, not mine. I do not know and I do not wish to know what they have written. But the fact of the suicide is notorious. You cannot dispute it. It would now be advisable to investigate closely, and by the light of science, the circumstances in which the deed was committed. Do not be surprised by my thus invoking the aid of science. Science has no better friend than religion. Now medical science may in the present case be of great assistance to us. You will understand in a moment. Mother Church ejects the suicide from her bosom only when his act is an act of despair. The madmen who attempt their own lives are not those who have lost all hope, and the Church does not deny them her prayers; she prays for all who are unfortunate. Now, if it could be proved that this poor boy had acted under the influence of a high fever or of a mental disorder, if a medical man were in a position to certify that the poor fellow was not in possession of his faculties when he slew himself with his own hand, there would be no obstacle to the celebration of a religious service.”