But when the time came for adieux, she wept.
Mirande and his sister leaned over the balcony to follow her with their gaze. At the door of the fiacre that was transporting her, her little trunk beside the coachman, she waved a large handkerchief.
When the cab had disappeared, Mirande said: “The brave girl! As long as nothing happens to her!”
“What do you expect to happen to her?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a presentiment…perhaps remorse.”
Francette went three days without sending any news. She reappeared on the fourth, like a gust of wind, thanks to an errand that had brought her to the neighborhood. It was the first time she had been out. Immediately, although out of breath after five flights of stairs, she explained her silence. To tell the truth, nothing extraordinary had happened. She had been well received. She had not made any gaffes. Madame was better. She was very nice. But she must be hiding a chagrin. What? Francette will find out, for a chambermaid becomes the confidante, more or less of a mistress the employer neglects. Oh, as for the neglect, Monsieur doesn’t spare her. At the most, he says bonjour at breakfast—but he’s never there to say bonsoir, of course. At six o’clock, when he finishes work, Monsieur has himself pawed by the masseur, primped by the wig-maker, puts on his coat and goes out, not to reappear again in the apartments until morning. In the servants’ parlor, they don’t talk much in front of her yet, but it will come. But what a society, those good-for-nothings! All that one can imagine of the worst rabble. Not to mention the chauffeur, always between two glasses of rotgut, and a kitchen-maid, a slut who doesn’t do a stroke of work; there’s one couple, valet de chambre and cook, one wouldn’t have to search for in a chamber-pot. Doesn’t the wife boast of getting two sous of scratch from a simple box of carrots? And doesn’t the husband confide that, in order to get his own back for an observation of Monsieur’s, he spits in the dishes while bringing them to the table? So, Francine doesn’t dare eat. She lives on hard-boiled eggs and chocolate. And that’s all she knows for the moment.
Another four days passed before she gave any sign of life. Disorientated, Mirande did not know what to do. He deplored the flight of time. More than a week without acting, without getting any further forward...
Again he thought about confiding a parallel investigation to Nitaud. Only the flair of a sleuth seemed capable of discovering Castellan’s complicity.
Then, one morning, Francette arrived early. To begin with, he had difficulty recognizing her. She was transformed, certainly dressed in one of her mistress’s old dresses. A thin mauve veil dissimilated the pallor of her complexion and attenuated the brightness of her coppery hair.
Before interrogating her about her metamorphosis, however, he uttered a brief: “Well, what’s new?”
Glad to be finally able to risk a little argot, she clocked her fingernail on the enamel of her teeth and declared: “Peau de balle!”13
“You haven’t discovered anything, then?”
“No, nothing, It’s always the same routine. It isn’t that I have my peepers in my pockets. Report that the valet de chambre is ill, that it’s me who introduced the doc. No. Toffs come, but no apaches. I stick my ears to doors. When an envelope’s badly sealed I even read the letter before Monsieur. Well, peau de balle.”
So, decidedly, he would go to see Nitaud—but he wanted to hide his disappointment from the poor girl.
“Sapristi, Francette, how beautiful you are! Are you on leave, then?”
She blossomed. “As you say, Monsieur. I’m a godmother today, of a kid in my family...” At the same time she displayed a cargo of beribboned packages at arm’s length.
Mirande remembered vaguely that Francette had once confided to him her gratitude to worthy people who had taken pity on her, had collected her almost from the cradle and brought her up until the time came for her to go into service. Not rich, the foster-parents, and yet they had just offered themselves the luxury of a sixth child, her step-brother. So she was profiting from it to render them a kindness, Oh, she had spared no effort. The petit patron’s famous bill had gone into it to the last sou. She had paid for the layette, a crib with a green lining, an ivory rattle and money. Follies, in sum.
She listed her generosities with a face warm with pleasure. The lovely soul, full of released tenderness, of a treasure of latent maternity!
Suddenly, Mirande pricked up her ears.
“For sure,” said Francette, “when you’ve towed all your life like them, you’re entitled to a tow one day.
Hastily, he asked: “Towed, you say? What do these worthy folk do?”
“They’re bargees.”
“Where?”
“On the Seine.”
“On the Seine! And they live…?”
“Everywhere, as you do. In their barge. But their home port is at Charenton.”
“You’ve lived there too? You know that whole society of boatmen?”
“What a question!”
“Tell me, among those people, is there also bad seed? Are there pillagers of wrecks?”
Offended, Francette stiffened. “Not in my family, Monsieur!”
“Oh, Francette,” said Mirande, “don’t take any offence at what I’m asking you. You don’t suspect the importance of my question. No, I’m not casting aspersions on your parents. I’m talking about the wretches that one sees everywhere that there’s poverty, apaches of the river, water poachers, pirates…yes, the pirates of the Seine, I stress that word...pirates of whom you’ve heard talk.”
“For sure there are, and I’ve known some of them.”
“Oh, Francette!”
In his enthusiasm, Gabriel had seized her hands: a simple gesture of hope, but it touched the worthy girl so profoundly that a catastrophe followed. The whole fragile edifice of gifts and boxes of candy collapsed.
“My bonbons!” she moaned.
“It’s nothing! Wait!”
He helped her to repair the disaster, and without delay, taking advantage of Jeanne’s absence, he unmasked himself. Well, yes, he suspected the veritable murderer: one of those very pirates. He told her all he knew: the old malady, Castillan’s treatment, the cut on the wrist. By returning out there, living among the boatmen again, perhaps she might succeed in discovering him...
“His name?”
“I don’t know.”
“His mug?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, right, right…that’s quite a job.”
She was very perplexed, in truth. Her packages, balanced on her fingertips, threatened another fall.
“So, it’s necessary to change again? Necessary to go back to the barge, become a hauler? Quit the Castillans?”
He had not envisaged the alternative. However, the surveillance of Castillan, the protection of Simone, remained urgent.
“Well…if it’s necessary...”
She saw his hesitation.
“I see what you need. Continue service with Madame and then, in the evening, do as the kitchen-maid does: decamp and go on the spree in Charenton. That’s it, eh?”
Confused, he stammered: “You’d do that, Francette?”
She did not reply immediately. The night…all the menace of the black banks and smoky hovels, the reek of burnt-fat, bare-headed girls, the breath of drunken cut-throats, the songs the cries, the battles, the whistle-blasts, the flash of blades, the pools of blood: the whole vision, the whole concert of horror danced noisily before her.
But she looked at Mirande at that moment. His eyes were imploring. Then she stood up straight and vibrant: “All right!”
And the decision was made. She exalted in her new sacrifice. An old ancestral leaven of challenge, adventure and heroism was seething within her. The peril, momentarily redoubtable, now enthused her. After all, her skin wasn’t sable.
But the key scraped in the lock. Jeanne came in. Mirande put a finger over his lips.
Unde
rstood, signaled Francette, with a wink. She was definitely delighted. She had a secret with her petit patron...
II
It was the evening of the dress rehearsal at the Théâtre de l’Athénée. Everyone knows that those previously-unseen spectacles are sought-after, at least by those whose métier does not constrain them to watch them. One rubs shoulders there with people whose names are whispered and whose faces are recognized. One can be seen there. One can talk about the play the following day, before the newspapers, and show that one was among the elect.
Thus, it is very rare that a spectator leaves his seat for the apparent pleasure of pacing up and down outside the theater. That was, however, was Mirande was doing. Striding back and forth in the impasse that the Square Boudeau forms at that spot, he was waiting for the end of the second act. But several reasons justified his retreat. In the power of divination, he feared the mental tumult of the auditorium. He wanted to keep his lucidity fresh, because he would soon have need of it. But above all, if he had deserted his place before the curtain rose, it was because at that moment, Simone and Castillan had just sat down in a front-of-stage box.
The sight of them had been a dagger-thrust: he strutting, cynically displaying his importance, his beard lustrous, his waistcoat loud; she opposing her blonde charm, her delicate grace, to her husband’s audacious tranquility. By virtue of her effaced, almost constrained, attitude she even contrasted with the sumptuousness of her dress, the sheath of lace that enveloped her entirely, the rare pearl necklace whose pallor glistened over her low neckline.
He admitted it: another man, bolder and more adventurous, would not have hesitated to approach the couple. For more than a month he had not seen either of them. The opportunity was propitious. He owed it to Lacaze to reach once again into Castillan’s somber soul. He owed it to his love to read more of the secret book of Simone’s life.
But if he did not fear the physician, his scruples and hesitations with regard to the young woman revealed themselves more sharply than ever. Certainly, she had married Castillan in order to obey the rules of society. Utterly ignorant of his crimes, she did not love him. But he possessed such gifts of charm and seduction! Who could tell whether, unconsciously spurred by the return of that savior, that distant companion of childhood, he had not employed them to please her? Could the heart of a spouse, which had only been brushed by a pale memory of an idyll, resist a pressing husband?
Those questions, Mirande no longer dared resolve. And that, above all, was why he had deserted his seat.
He paused momentarily in front of the posters stuck on the façade of the theater. As the star, Lambrine’s name was displayed there in large letters, overwhelming those of the other performers. What was that woman’s exact influence on Castillan? Was their liaison still continuing? Or had she broken with him, as Delacoste claimed? Was it for her that the physician had so ferociously pursued old Gagny’s inheritance? That was what Mirande wanted to know. If the revelatory serum was coursing through his veins his evening, it was in order to extract the secret from Lambrine. In advance, he had had a spray of flowers sent to her dressing-room, and soon, he would go to congratulate her.
A few spectators appeared on the threshold of the theater. The act had just finished. Mirande was already climbing the steps that led to the entrance when, from the top of the stairway someone said: “Monsieur Mirande! I regret that you’re arriving just as I’m leaving!”
He recognized, emerging from a thick fur coat, the Robespierre mask of Raucourt, the young politician who had just been appointed as Garde des Sceaux in the new cabinet. After his fortunate introduction to him in the salons of Dorville-sure-Mer, Gabriel had seen the former député again several times. He had not failed, on each of those encounters, to espouse the views of the man who was justly nicknamed the Incorruptible of the Third Republic. Again, the opportunity was offered to flatter him.
“Oh, Monsieur le Ministre, I’m glad to congratulate you—and also to congratulate the country. It’s a great fortune for it to have a man like you in power. I’m sure that your reformist spirit will finally be given free rein...”
He was all the more sure of that because, at that very moment, in his brand new zeal and enthusiasm, the young minister was dreaming of audacious initiatives.
Raucourt allowed it to be seen that he relished the compliment. Before his benevolence, Mirande almost evoked the Lacaze affair. He admitted, however, that it was neither the time nor the place to importune a man in haste to get away and intoxicated by recent glory. He marked for the future the new progress he had just made in the minster’s esteem.
Already, Raucourt was extending his hand. “Excuse me, Monsieur; we’re so overloaded with work...”
Ah! No, this time the Incorruptible was translating his thought falsely. His day was finished; he had only one great desire: that of soon putting himself between the sheets, not without having laid out a few preliminary games of patience.
But Mirande excused that innocent weakness.
The act had scarcely finished, and the majority of the spectators had not yet invaded the corridors. Mirande took advantage of that relative emptiness to reach the stage rapidly. He had twenty meters at the most to travel, but the thoughts that it was necessary for him to pick up through the partitions!
A few burst forth quite clearly:
And I thought he’d never recover from his typhoid.
It’s quite an art, to appear to be applauding without making any noise.
Further on, from a colleague: Well, well—not bad the idea at the end of the act; I must make use of that in my next play.
Elsewhere, someone was congratulating himself sincerely—but that was a money-lender: This will make money. My deals are good.
An entire ingenuous racket of envy, baseness, in which were mingled the profound meditations of women on Lambrine’s dresses and jewels.
Mirande would have liked to get away, to suspend his divinations. He could not. However, he respired a fresh bouquet of tributes.
The author’s children: All the same, it’s our Papa who did that. How proud we are of him! All those people who are here for him! How they applauded!
But that was only a fugitive perfume. Immediately, he was obliged to plunge back into pestilence.
He passed by as quickly as possible. He finally drew level with the director’s box, where he collected on the wing a: How mistaken one can be…me, who dreaded a terrible flop... And he reached the little door that separated the auditorium from the stage.
It opened to give passage to Favery, the director of the newspaper La Lumière. Mirande, who had not seen him since Dorville, gave him an emphatic salute. He was counting on having recourse to him as soon as he had unmasked Castillan’s accomplice. He perceived an effort of memory on the part of the young “paper king”: Who’s that? Oh yes…at Dorville…a chemist at the Institut Brion. Nice fellow. Then an ardent wish: Has he noticed that I’ve been decorated?
Mirande took care not to neglect that alert. He congratulated Favery on the red ribbon that a recent exposition had earned him. To which the director replied, with a detached air: “Oh, that’s ancient history...”
He drew away. Mirande climbed a few steps and found himself in the wings. There, the reflections eased. One might have thought that the penumbra was tempering them. A fireman was ruminating his incomprehension of the play. Stage-hands attentive to the next change of scene were only thinking about their work. One of them, however was secretly cursing importunate spectators. Another, with hollow cheeks and a burning gaze, was meditating the explosive effect of the abrupt declaration of a strike, at the moment.
But Lambrine appeared. She emerged from the stage, after four curtain calls, as if intoxicated by her art—but Mirande perceived that in the midst of the ovations she had not ceased to admire Simone Castillan’s necklace, for which she retained a bitter covetousness.
“Why, it’s you!” she said, extending her hand to him. “You’re spoiling me. Those lovely
flowers! Come and see them in my dressing-room.” And on the way: “How do you like the play?”
“A great success!”
“Isn’t it? I’m so glad…so glad to interpret something truly beautiful!”
Something beautiful, oh, I believe you! the actress corrected herself, internally. What a bore it promises to be! Repeating the same words and gestures for an entire season, two hundred times in succession, every evening...
Hitching up her dress and followed by Mirande, she went up the administration stairway and traversed a corridor. He reached the dressing-room, a flowery candy-store, a luminous boudoir. On the threshold, however, he recoiled in disgust. Castillan, sprawled on a divan, was waiting for the actress to return. At the sight of Mirande an anxiety and an irritation invaded him. He did not let it show.
“My dear friend,” exclaimed the physician. “Isn’t Lambrine superb?”
“Superb,” Mirande repeated, mastering himself.
Castillan had placed an expensive jewel-case on the Louis XVI dressing-table, and the was waiting for the moment when Lambrine would perceive it, perhaps utter a cry of joy, of gratitude…thus, undoubtedly, their liaison was continuing.
The physician’s secret impatience was testified by a so much humble fervor and imploring frenzy the Mirande was able to measure at a stroke the enormous empire that the actress had acquired over him.
And her? Lambrine, sitting at a table, was retouching her make-up. He could see her charming painted features in the mirror. He concentrated his attention on her.
Oh, how easily he would have been able to avenge himself on the physician! How he could have annihilated him by revealing the secret thoughts of the avid and lovely woman! At that very moment, she was speculating on the amour of a rich and noble Milanese who, during a recent excursion, had made enquiries about her and wanted to marry her. She was dreaming of becoming a Comtesse and a chatelaine, under the skies of Italy, as soon as she had extracted the last louis of the Gagny inheritance...
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