His face showed no traces of violent emotion; he seemed to be smiling maliciously in his sleep.
With the end of his knife Groult prised open the lock of the secretary and began to rummage in it, tumbling the papers. The flame of the almost burnt-out candle flickered, and in the midst of the sudden silence the mice ran over the floor. He hunted through packets, portfolios, envelopes, flinging them down, as he finished with them, on to the corpse. Suddenly a bright light sprang up in the room; it was the paper round the candle end which had caught fire. He hunted through old card-board boxes, old blotting-pads, old leather cases, till at last he came on a stamped paper, which he thrust into his pocket with a sigh of relief. He blew out the candle, the wick of which was now floating in melted candle grease, and which, smoking and smelling, flared in his face and scorched his eyelashes before becoming extinct. — He felt about for his cap, and, having found it, went out of the room. He hesitated a moment on the landing before climbing noiselessly up the ladder leading to the attic; here he peered anxiously through the skylight into the street. — He could see, by the reflection of the light on the wet pavement, that the grocer’s shop was not yet shut. Crouching behind some empty boxes, he waited a long time, his legs trembling, his throat dry, his head burning, starting and shivering at the slightest sound. Then, when at last the house and the street were asleep, he crept out, and found a cord with a hook at the end, which the grocer used for hauling bales of goods up into the attic; this he tied to a pulley above the window, and slipped down it with the agility of a monkey.
CHAPTER X
HÉLÈNE had only one idea now that she had passed the convalescent stage, and that was to take possession of René, to hold him to her, and never to leave him. He should be her refuge and her strength. She felt quite certain that her fears would leave her when they were together. She would marry him and would lead a peaceful, warmly-sheltered life between her husband and her father. All her innocent past was bound up in these two men; no bad dream could come gliding over the pillow which she would arrange with so much love.
She knew nothing of the rumours growing and spreading about her in the Quartier.
There were no difficulties made about Mr. Haviland’s will; it was opened and read to the heirs by the notary. In it he left his wife, Hélène Haviland née Fellaire, all the income accruing from his estate; at her death it was to go to his nephew, George Haviland, or his heirs direct, should he have any.
To Groult was left an annuity of twelve hundred francs.
The testator expressly desired that the personal property of George Haviland, which, he being a minor, his uncle had managed for him, should be entrusted to the care of his old and honourable friend, Mr. Charles Simpson, banker, of Paris.
But Mr. Charles Simpson was suffering from a disease of the spinal cord, caused by a fall from his horse, and therefore could not accept the office his deceased friend had wished to confide to him. Monsieur Fellaire, hearing of this, at once proposed to fill Mr. Simpson’s place.
He showed, on divers occasions, the liveliest solicitude for the minor’s welfare.
One day after lunch, as he was enjoying his cognac and cigars, he said to his daughter:
“I am as interested in that boy as if he was my own son. In fact, I feel a fatherly affection for him. These sentiments are not under our own control.”
Then having piled up a pyramid of sugar in his cup, he went on:
“I really don’t know what I would not do for that boy.”
He smiled a gentle, melancholy smile as he contemplated the sugar, as though it were the hope, so lovingly conceived, of being useful to George, which he saw melting before his eyes. Then he tossed down the syrup formed by the collapsed pyramid and smiled anew.
Hélène looked at him uneasily; she guessed too well what he was about to propose. He drank a glass of cognac, and said:
“Poor Simpson, that was a most unlucky fall he had; it shows what weak creatures we all of us are! A month ago he was full of life and intelligence, and now he is almost idiotic. Perhaps I am exaggerating when I say intelligence; he never knew how to do business on a large scale; he was timid, never took any risks.”
And Fellaire lighted his cigar with a pompous air; he knew how to take risks!
Hélène, feeling very uncomfortable, remained silent. Her father, sitting there impassively smoking, in his black clothes, correct and massive, looked in the tobacco smoke like a hero in the clouds — the very apotheosis of a financier.
“Simpson was very cold, very formal,” he said; “I don’t know if he would ever have taken a really paternal interest in our George.”
Then, incapable of containing himself any longer, he went straight to the point. He dictated a letter to be addressed by Hélène to the family counsel, in which she proposed him as George Haviland’s guardian.
Standing up, his head thrown back, his finger pointing commandingly at the page:
“Write, my child, write,” he said:
“I feel assured that this choice would have had the approval of my husband.”
She hesitated before putting down this colossal lie, but looking at her father, he appeared to her such a worthy figure, with such a tranquil forehead and so calm an air of conviction, that she docilely wrote what he told her.
Fellaire, floating in the serene regions of his imaginary paternity, glowed with good intentions.
He took the letter to the post himself. Hélène, left alone, shuddered with shame and fear — she had betrayed the dead man.
“If he were to come back!” she thought. Suddenly she imagined she saw him with frightful distinctness standing before her. His face was absolutely devoid of all expression, so that it was impossible for her to penetrate the mystery of his thoughts. She knew the vision was imaginary, but she could not put it away from her.
Fellaire did not sleep that night. His ideas were working tumultuously under the scarlet handkerchief which served him for a night-cap. He turned over and over, and each time he did so rattled the water-bottle and glass standing on the mahogany table by the bedside, along with his pipe, his candlestick, and his spectacles. The silvery tinkle they made mingled harmoniously with his thoughts.
The magnificent but honest enterprises, which would mark his career as a trustee, filled him with anticipatory admiration. And that was not all. In his daughter he had a docile capitalist ready to his hand. He could embark on his great enterprise, the dream of his life; he could bring forth the child of his midnight watches, his great work: “The Fiduciary Society for Granting Loans to Wage-earners.”
The Government would certainly authorise the establishment of a society built on a solid basis of capital. The list of the Board of Directors, who should be chosen from among titled and decorated men, would inspire confidence at once.
At this point in his imaginings, Fellaire saw the terrible ghost of the “Phoenix of the National Guard” flit across his bed-curtains. He felt a cold sweat burst out under the triple folds of his bandana, but he drove away the importunate memory and plunged again into the contemplation of the future. He thought of a most effective emblem for “The Fiduciary” — two hands, emerging from lace cuffs, and clasping one another. He could already see this symbolic device printed on the headings of circulars and prospectuses, engrossed on tickets, bills of exchange, cheques, shares, stocks, and bank books, carved in stone, and of immense proportions, decorating the front of the building occupied by “The Fiduciary’s” offices, which should be somewhere in the neighbourhood of the new opera-house — for the society would certainly buy a plot of ground and erect a building in a central situation.
The first ray of dawn filtered in through the blinds, and by its light Fellaire could see on his table a pile of unpaid bills from bootmakers and restaurant-keepers.
CHAPTER XI
THE day after the dinner at Bréval’s, Longuemare, while lunching at a café, was looking over the newspapers. His eye fell on a column of general information signed “Spectator,”
a pseudonym he knew Bouteiller used; he frowned as he read the following paragraph: “Another well known and original figure has disappeared from our midst. Mr. Martin Haviland, whose funeral took place yesterday, has left an odd collection of curiosities in his magnificent hôtel on the Boulevard Latour-Maubourg — some thousands of bottles containing water from all the rivers, streams, brooks, water-courses, fountains, and cascades in the world. Mr. Haviland was as remarkable for his charity as for his collections. His death, which will be much felt by the poor in the Quartier des Invalides, seems to be due to an abuse of belladonna, a drug he took to relieve the acute rheumatism from which he suffered. Such, at least, appears to be the opinion of the medical authorities. We are happy, by the exactness of our information, to be able to reduce this event, so painful in itself, to its rigid proportions.”
The last lines of the paragraph threw René into a violent rage. He swore he would mark Bouteiller’s face with his riding-whip. “Only I don’t even know where the ape lives,” he cried impatiently.
He went off to look for him at the offices of what was then the fashionable newspaper, and met him in the vestibule, between the bronze duck and the pink marble pigeon which sat, one on the letterbox and one on the receptacle for manuscripts. The fat reporter was just innocently opening his umbrella (it was raining), and his unconscious air of stupid good-nature disarmed Longuemare. He thought of the days when Bouteiller used to steal his Latin verses from his desk to copy at his leisure, and his heart softened. Bouteiller smiled with delight at sight of him, and cried out:
“Dine with me to-night at Bréval’s, old chap; I count on you. Just off to the inauguration of the Grand Rabbi.”
Longuemare stopped the way, and, thrusting the crumpled newspaper in his face, asked:
“What is the meaning of the last phrase of your paragraph? Who, to your knowledge, gave undue importance to this affair? Who has been suspected? and of what? Answer me.”
Bouteiller stared roundly first at Longuemare, then at the paper, and answered with evident candour:
“I will tell you, my dear fellow. I put that in just to make the par interesting, that was all; and you see I have kept well within bounds. It is poignant, and yet does not compromise any one. I know what’s what. It’s understood, then, we meet to-night at Bréval’s.”
Longuemare turned from him with a shrug of the shoulders. He was shaken by conflicting emotions; his nerves were in a state of intense irritation. He passed from one mood to another — now violent, now sentimental, and felt in the mood for indiscretions. Undoubtedly he was in love with Hélène, and this was beginning to trouble him profoundly.
In the over-excitement imposed on all his faculties by this sentiment, he felt capable of anything. In one week he wrote an article for the Medical Gazette, composed his first sonnet, attached himself to a young person who sold flowers in a students’ dancing-hall, and spent a quarter’s pay on her in eight days. Then suddenly the sonnet, the article, and the flower-seller became equally insipid and uninteresting. He dragged through another dreary week; then one fine day decided that he could now with decency present himself at the hôtel on the Boulevard Latour-Maubourg, and offer his condolences to the widow.
It seemed as though a century had passed since his last visit; and when he saw the big entrance-gates, the flight of steps in the courtyard leading to the hall door, the hall itself with its great earthenware stove, he felt as old as if he had lived through several lifetimes.
He waited for some minutes in the drawing-room before Hélène appeared. She seemed to him to be taller and paler in her black garments, as if he now saw her for the first time, yet she had not really changed much. During her convalescence, despite her mental tortures, she had become stouter and her cheeks less hollow; yet when he looked at her he felt a delicious sensation of novelty. Her eyes, under the fair hair which curled on her forehead, smiled in a vague and charming manner. She was the first to speak, and the trivial remark she made thrilled through him; he answered inconsequently. She, more mistress of herself, was secretly pleased at his evident emotion. He alluded slightly to her recent mourning, and then by an easy transition began to speak of the future.
What were his plans? she asked. He was going to leave the service, he said, and buy a practice; his father would advance him the money.
She approved of this, and suggested the Quartier Saint James, or the Parc de Neuilly, where she had several friends to whom she could introduce him. She promised to consult him herself, and to further his interests wherever possible. For herself, she did not know yet what she should do — she no longer cared for society; she intended to lead a retired life. Then from a feeling of delicacy, she added that probably she would not be so well off as people imagined; she had only the income from Mr. Haviland’s estate, and there were many legacies to be paid out of it.
“If I become quite poor you won’t turn your back on me?” she asked. Which question he had the good taste not to answer.
They did not say a word of love, but every look which passed between them was eloquent. They breathed heavily, and had the sensation of swimming in a fluid at once suffocating and delicious. She said she was too hot.
He took her hand in his and held it lightly; she did not attempt to withdraw it. They were unconscious of what they did or said, only they would have gladly died in that supreme moment. Hélène was the first to break the spell. She took her hand from his, a shadow passed across her face, and after a moment she said with a sigh:
“I have done many things which I would not do again, but I am really better than I have appeared to be so far.”
These words stirred the sleeping waters of memory, and René turned his head away to hide the tears that filled his eyes. It was she now who took his hand. But at that moment a step sounded in the hall.
“My dear — my dear,” she said; and leaving the phrase unfinished, moved away from him to an armchair, into which she sank.
Fellaire, his entrance announced by the creaking of his boots, came in. He shook René’s hand with effusion, and began to talk of the old times in the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs.
“We brought you up, in a way,” he said to the doctor. “We found you — you are our child. Well, well! you met some curious characters at my house in those days. It was a good school of observation for you. And since then you have travelled and seen many lands, like La Fontaine’s pigeon. Ah, the sea! the sea!” He spoke of the poetry and the immensity of the ocean, and became quite emotional, until suddenly recollecting his letters, he asked permission to open them.
He sat down at a table, spreading himself, his papers and journals, so as to take up the most room possible, and went through his correspondence, hissing and growling over it contemptuously or impatiently, affecting to treat it at one moment with light disdain, and the next with intensely concentrated attention.
Hélène and René looked at each other in silence; they felt as if they two only existed in the world.
Finally Fellaire, after noisily signing his name to various documents, flung down his pen, and ringing the bell as though in his own house, gave instructions for his letters to be posted, and sighed contentedly. His humour had changed; he was good-natured, easy, a little inclined to tease. He suggested that they should go and dine somewhere in the country — no one need know of it; it would not be exactly a pleasure trip. They must dine somewhere, why not have a snack at Meudon?
They all three enjoyed such impromptu excursions.
They found a restaurant at Meudon, with an arbour overlooking the river.
When Hélène untied her hat-strings, she raised her arms with a graceful movement that reminded one of the handles of an amphora. René was filled with admiration. Her fair curls clustered on her brow, her eyes shone softly beneath them. They exchanged a glance so profound and so limpid, it gave them the sensation of being merged in one another.
Fellaire, with heavy sighs, talked of the importance of business, and in return for a demand for ink and paper,
was given a little muddy fluid in the bottom of a bottle, a rusty pen, and a sheet of blue foolscap, which he covered with figures before cramming it into his pocket.
Then he brusquely demanded if his young friend knew any shipowners at Toulon. He rolled out the word “shipowners” with so much pomposity that it seemed as though he had only asked the question with the intention of producing a telling effect, which was most probably the case.
At dinner he squeezed half a lemon over his fried fish with all the grace his fat, short, ring-laden fingers were capable of.
He contemplated the young couple benignly through his tortoiseshell spectacles, not without a secret desire to exhort them and bless them, as in a melodrama.
Before them, on the river, a landing-stage lay along the bank; a long narrow island, edged by a curtain of poplars, cut the horizon line; boats were passing up and down; women in light summer gowns moved among the trees, and called in silvery tones to the occupants of outriggers. The water blazed with the reflection of the setting sun; then the light faded from sky and earth, a fresh breeze sprang up in the sombre verdure, and René put a black shawl over Hélène’s shoulders. Fellaire, who had been telling stories and detailing the ingredients of dishes, unexpectedly began to admire the landscape, and to praise Providence for all its ways. Longuemare answered that Nature presents a scene of eternal carnage, in which everything lives by slaughtering something weaker than itself.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 291