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Two banks of the Seine (Les Deux Rives)

by Fernand Vandérem · English · Gutenberg #45857 · 574,643 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Two banks of the Seine (Les Deux Rives)

Author: Fernand Vandérem

Translator: George Raffalovich


        
Release date: June 1, 2014 [eBook #45857]
                Most recently updated: November 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO BANKS OF THE SEINE (LES DEUX RIVES) ***




Produced by Clarity, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)








 Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed.
 The usage of "nephew" to mean nephew or neice and "man" to mean man
 or woman has not been altered. Some typographical errors have been
 corrected; a list follows the text. (note of etext transcriber.)




                    _The Library of French Fiction_

                               EDITED BY
                            BARNET J. BEYER




                               TWO BANKS
                             OF THE SEINE

                           (Les Deux Rives)

                                  BY

                           FERNAND VANDÉREM

                            _Translated by_
                          GEORGE RAFFALOVICH

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                               NEW YORK
                        E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
                           681 FIFTH AVENUE

                            Copyright 1919
                       By E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY

                         _All Rights Reserved_

               _Printed in the United States of America_




PREFATORY NOTE


_Two Banks of the Seine_, by Fernand Vandérem, belongs to the class of
literature immortalized by Alphonse Daudet. In it we catch the slightly
ironic but good-natured tone familiar to those who have read _Sapho_;
and we perceive the author applying objective psychology to
life--Parisian life. For M. Vandérem is not only Gallic, but vitally
Parisian. His attitude towards men and women is sophisticated; but his
art is always fresh and true. He is a realist who does not disdain to
make use of romance when it suits his purpose.

_Two Banks of the Seine_ is an interesting story wherein the life of the
Latin Quarter and that of the upper classes are brought into sharp
contrast. This supplies the author with ample material suitable to his
peculiar bent. He handles his material with clear vision, often with
delicate sympathy, and never without humor. The men and women in the
book are sketched with a sure pen, and are put and kept in motion by a
firm hand. They are made to move about briskly before us and to speak
with the accents of life. Like all great novelists, M. Vandérem is more
interested in character and human relationships than in plot. His book
is not so much a novel in the ordinary sense as a comedy of manners.

Our author knows his Parisian well. He has studied him in the home and
in the street; at work and at play. Few contemporary novelists afford us
a clearer insight into the workings of the mind of the elusive Parisian,
or a more intimate knowledge of his temperament.

M. Vandérem has written a number of novels besides _Two Banks of the
Seine_; it is sufficient to mention here his _Charlie_ and his _La
Victime_, works of unusual merit.

BARNET J. BEYER.

26TH FEBRUARY, 1919.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.          1

CHAPTER II.        16

CHAPTER III.       34

CHAPTER IV.        56

CHAPTER V.         81

CHAPTER VI.       106

CHAPTER VII.      120

CHAPTER VIII.     148

CHAPTER IX.       165

CHAPTER X.        198

CHAPTER XI.       215

CHAPTER XII.      228

CHAPTER XIII.     254

CHAPTER XIV.      279

CHAPTER XV.       296

CHAPTER XVI.      320

CHAPTER XVII.     344

CHAPTER XVIII.    368

CHAPTER XIX.      402





TWO BANKS OF THE SEINE




CHAPTER I


The carriage stopped at the gate of the Collège de France; Mme.
Chambannes alighted briskly. She did not take the trouble to close the
door and, swinging her muff, hurried through the somber courtyard, where
three pigeons wandered in the security that silence and solitude ensured
them.

Through the panes of the glass door M. Pageot, first usher of the
Collège, watched her approach, his thick mustache slightly lifted in a
smile of sympathy.

"Another one!" he thought, remembering all the fashionable ladies whom
he had seen come in during the last hour. This one, moreover, was very
dainty. Her small, fine, although bold, face, her astrakhan jacket and
purple velvet toque with border of astrakhan to match, the curls of
which mingled with her own brown hair, an aigrette of white feathers
perched on the side, reminded him, reverence apart and minus the
whiskers, of an old lithograph which hung above his bed, _Murat, Future
King of Naples, at the Battle of Eylau_.

It was therefore with an eager hand that he opened the door for her.

"What is it you wish, madame?"

"If you please, where is the lecture on Egyptology?"

"M. Raindal's lecture? There, you are facing the hall."

She was rushing forward when M. Pageot held her back with a calm
gesture. "It is useless, madame! The hall is full, overcrowded....
Moreover, you will not miss much, for it will be over in five
minutes...."

"Thank you," acknowledged Mme. Chambannes, regretfully, adding, after a
pause, "Did you happen to see a tall, fair lady in a blue costume ...
with a strapped jacket?"

Pageot tried to recollect.

"See her? See her?... Why, surely I saw her; but, madame, there are so
many of them! Upon my word, I do not remember having seen so many people
at an opening lecture during the whole fifteen years that I have been an
usher of the Collège...." Carelessly he straightened his light nickel
chain, and added in the competent tone of one who knew, "I suppose they
came on account of his book on Cleopatra...."

Mme. Chambannes nodded assent. At that moment the doors of the lecture
hall swung back under the pressure of the departing audience and the
huge hall suddenly resounded with a church-like sonorousness.

"Here, perhaps, is your friend in blue," said Pageot, indicating a lady
who was one of the first to come out.

Mme. Chambannes hurried to stop Mme. de Marquesse, who exclaimed:

"You!... Well, I cannot say you are early! Yet I only came here to
please you!"

"A letter I was expecting from Gerald," apologized her friend. "I'll
tell you about it later.... I was quite upset, I assure you.... Well,
tell me, was it at least all right inside there? Was it worth the
trouble?... Did he speak of Cleopatra?... Was he very shocking?"

Mme. de Marquesse assumed a roguish expression.

"I don't know.... You are asking too much.... I am like the little girl
in the play.... I saw nothing, I heard nothing.... Standing, with rows
of men in front of me and the smell of perspiration!... I won't be
caught again.... Or else I shall send my footman to book my seats in
good time...."

"How dreadful!"

"Oh, well, it might have been worse," replied Mme. de Marquesse
protectively.... "Goodness gracious! What a child you are, little Zozé!
Here or elsewhere you will meet M. Raindal again.... There is nothing
lost.... And all this because M. de Meuze turned your head with his
blarney!..."

"This has nothing to do with M. de Meuze!"

"With whom, then?... Is it Gerald?... If it isn't the father, then it
must be the son.... Do you really think that notorieties carry any
weight with him?... How naïve you are!"

"Why not!" demanded Mme. Chambannes sarcastically. "With such ideas, in
three months I shall succeed in having a salon like the Pums or the
Silberschmidts.... Thank you!... My system is not so absurd.... I know
what I am doing!" Then she added more cordially, "Shall we watch them
come out?"

"If you like," replied Mme. de Marquesse. And they stood at one side in
the narrow passage through which the audience filed out.

It was obviously a public meant for show, a delegation of that brilliant
civic guard with which Paris keeps its successful glories surrounded.
There were people from the literary salons, the "large circulation
revues," the conservative periodicals that have none but authentic
illustrations after the title-page; there were academicians, famous as
well as obscure, thinkers, men with dreamy minds and men with reflective
ones, jugglers of ideas, men who dug up questions and men who solved
problems. There were the established mistresses of the tables where
discussion takes place, plus their lively retinue of little women,
little men, little young men, little old men, the whole flight of those
who prattle, cackle, and giggle on the heights of art as sparrows do on
the branches of trees; there were pretty faces, dull with powder,
peeping out of soft sable collars; inquisitive silhouettes with
military mustaches; voices that were disciplined in the practice of the
correct phrase; brows that were furrowed by years of study or the
persistent search for the witty word; smiles, furs, and whiffs of
perfume. They called to each other; they bowed to each other; they
exchanged the opinions they had or even those they were going to
have--all this before the amazed eyes of a few outsiders who spoke their
names in low, respectful voices.

Mme. Chambannes seemed especially delighted with the spectacle. She had
never been seriously tempted to belong to this élite. Fate had directed
her aims elsewhere, towards a simpler, a more human and tender object;
and thither, despite contrary appearances, all her actions tended. But
to witness the gossip, the coquetries and friendly encounters of those
well-known people who were so often mentioned in the society columns,
afforded her a naïve delight, a joy of the eye and of the mind which
gave her miniature face quite a serious look of attention.

Suddenly she made an involuntary movement of surprise and touched Mme.
de Marquesse.

"Do look at this one!"

Her glance indicated a poorly clad girl who was coming towards them, in
a jacket of green cloth with marten revers which seemed even more worn
than the dusty tulle bonnet pinned awry on her head. The girl, who had
the haughty gait and the somewhat bitter, aggressive expression which
fatigue, pride, and masculine worries often give to women of science,
gave the two women an almost hostile look as she passed them, and
approached the usher.

"Pageot, has my father come out?" she asked in a tone of authority.

The usher quickly removed his skull cap.

"No, mademoiselle.... Shall I tell him that mademoiselle...."

"Thank you, Pageot.... You will please tell him that I am waiting for
him outside, near the gate...."

"Very well, mademoiselle!" and the usher ran to open the door for her.
"Do you know who she is?" he added mysteriously, as he turned back to
Mme. Chambannes. "You don't know?... It is Mlle. Thérèse Raindal, M.
Raindal's daughter!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Outside, Mlle. Raindal began to pace back and forth in front of the
ancient gate, walking briskly up and down the pavement, her neck shrunk
in her shoulders and her shoulders hunched forward like those of a
sentry struggling against the cold. At intervals she would stop and
throw a searching glance towards the steps at the end of the courtyard.
Through the window could be seen the meditative face of Pageot, which
had at that distance and in the thick ochreous air of that dark November
afternoon, almost the complexion of a yellow-fever patient. But as M.
Raindal was not yet in sight, Thérèse took up her sentry walk again, her
elbows close to her body, her hands crossed inside her plush muff.

Gradually, as she paced back and forth, the line of her lips, almost as
thin as a thread of rose silk, paled and all but vanished in a pouting
expression. She was thinking of the approaching evening ordeal, the
forced introduction which had been arranged for her at the house of M.
Lemeunier de Saulvard, of the Department of Moral Sciences,--an
introduction to an unknown man who would be presented to her at a dance,
a "possible husband," the man who would have a right to her kisses, to
her flesh, and would thereafter spend all his nights beside her. One
more to reject! The ninth one in ten years! "A young savant of the
greatest merit," Saulvard had written; "one of our rising hopes in
Assyriology, M. Pierre Boerzell...." M. Boerzell! M. Boerzell! She
repeated the harsh, barbarous name. Well, that "hope" would be no less
sadly handicapped in the matter of good looks than the others before
him! Probably something like the podgy little man carrying a barrister's
case who was coming in her direction on the other side of the street!
Instinctively she stopped to take a good look at the passer-by, her lips
wickedly pursed and her eye aflame as at the sight of prey. Then, with
lips relaxed in a disdainful smile, she turned about, and shrugging her
shoulders, murmured:

"Yes, probably one of that type!"

She was suffering. As the wind bit her face, it seemed to her that
something icy was gripping her heart. She remembered that other one--the
man she had once lost--the runaway and defaulting fiancé, Albert
Dastarac. Ten years had passed since then, but there were still nights
when, in her maidenly dreams, she fancied that she felt his maddening
embraces and the lingering fragrance of his lips.

Who could have foreseen that the young _agrégé_ of history would prove
so perfidious? That wheedling southerner, that seductive _Albârt_, as
his deep bass voice sounded his name! He was so caressing, so
passionate; the director of the Normal School had praised him so much!
Even now while she waited outside the gate in that icy mist, Thérèse
Raindal could not believe in the actuality of that past betrayal; she
could not explain it to herself or even understand it. Images, daily
called back to her memory, were so familiar and recent! She fancied she
was beside Albârt in her father's drawing-room in the rue
Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Once more she saw his impudent profile, like that
of a classical bandit, his splendid frame, his straight legs, his huge
brown eyes with scarcely any white to be seen, and the fine black
mustache which he curled with his tapering fingers, coppered by the use
of tobacco. How he had made love to her during those eight days of their
engagement!

She was flat-chested; her mouth was bloodless, small, and narrowed as if
drawn together by a cord; her complexion was dulled by that greenish tan
which one acquires when shut away from the sun, amidst dusty books, in
over-heated libraries or in the feverish air of lecture halls. Albârt
seemed to notice none of all those defects of which she was more
conscious than anyone else and which often made her secretly unhappy. He
saw nothing but her charms. He was always enraptured with her pale,
straight nose chiselled like an antique, with her fierce gray eyes
crowned with black velvet,--like those of Minerva, he would say,--with
the massive coils of her brown hair, which he wanted to take down and
bathe his face in. And the tenderness of his words matched his ability
to flatter.

Ceaselessly, ardently, and without reason, he called her, as in an
invocation or a prayer, "_Oh, ma Theresoun! Oh, ma chato!_" For her he
sang slow Provençal songs, mournful as the tunes played by distant
hunting-horns, which Mme. Raindal, who was also from the South,
accompanied as best she could on the piano, quiveringly singing the
chorus with him. Or, when he was alone with the young girl, he would sit
at her feet on a stool of blue satin while she talked about the
future,--how she would regulate the hours of his work, help him in his
career, and push him on to the highest attainments. Then suddenly,
wildly, he would throw himself upon her and press her in his arms
murmuring, "_Ma Theresoun!_" The stone-like biceps of his arm would roll
against her flesh, his scented mustache would be close to her face, his
fragrant lips meet hers, and she would throw back her head, her eyelids
closed, with a longing to yield, to let the sweet balm of his kisses
permeate all her being.

Then one morning an embarrassed letter had come from Albârt. Family
matters compelled him to put off the wedding and to leave at once for
St. Gaudens, his native town. The young gentleman apologized, whined,
protesting his sorrow. Three weeks later, M. Raindal had taken his
daughter to the Luxembourg, as one would lead a convalescent to take a
little rest in the spring air of the gardens; there Thérèse saw her
fiancé, the spruce and lively Dastarac, with a young girl on his arm, a
short, thin, sickly creature, the third daughter of M. Gaussine,
professor of the Sumarian language at the Sorbonne, who was walking
behind them.

"Come along, child," murmured M. Raindal, trying to lead his daughter
away. "Yes, they are to be married. I only heard of it yesterday!...
Maître Gaussine has a reputation for getting good positions for his
sons-in-law.... This is what must have attracted our rascal.... Come on,
I'll explain to you...."

But she had stood still, unable to move, although she could hardly keep
from screaming aloud in her pain. She had been on the verge of fainting.
What an outrageous memory! Then came the ghastly days in her room, still
impregnated with the rogue's perfume,--the long hours of day dreams,
when she had taken her vows of renunciation, swearing henceforth to
devote herself to a life of study as others are driven by despair into
religion!

In spite of her work, however, and of the long years that had passed
since then, she had been unable to dismiss from her mind, no matter how
much learning she had crowded it with, the tenacious image of the
charming Albârt, who, notwithstanding the offices of his father-in-law,
was said to be buried miles away from Paris, in an obscure Lycée of
Provence.

Thérèse was still dazzled by the memory of his caresses, as were those
mortals of antiquity whom a god had loved. He remained her mourned
husband, the masterful lord of her secret life; and when they wanted to
marry her, to give her to another man, it was always he who came
between, who took her back, resurrecting in her austere frame his
Theresoun of old, his captivated Theresoun. Invisible to all others, but
present to her, he would seem to be there, hand on hip, his knee bent in
that swaggering attitude of bravado, murmuring with sneering lips, "But
look, _ma chato_, look, compare us!... Is it possible ... after me?" It
was true; how could she stoop--betray him! And so in a few brusque words
the new suitor was always dismissed.

"So you don't want him, child?" M. Raindal would ask pitifully, only to
be met with a refusal so sharp and angry, and like a blow that it left
him dazed, reduced him to silence, and effectively prevented any further
argument.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well, dear, are we ready?... I was delayed by a newspaper man, a
reporter who interviewed me on Cleopatra, the English in Egypt ... and
I don't know what.... Tell me, you did not feel too impatient?"

Thérèse started on hearing the jovial voice of her father.

"No, no, I was thinking; I was working, walking up and down."

"Good! I am glad of it...." And as one does to a friend or a colleague,
he took her arm and rapidly led her towards the Boulevard St. Michel.

People turned to look as they passed, puzzled by the strange couple:
this officer of the Légion d'Honneur, an old gentleman with a white
beard, and a girl who looked like a school teacher, walking arm in arm
tenderly. Some attempted a guess; some instinctively smiled, moved by
vague sympathetic ideas. Sometimes students who knew the master by sight
purposely stared at him to win a glance for themselves, or even, moved
by respect, saluted him.

M. Raindal perceived this homage only confusedly. He was now
concentrating all his attention on questioning Thérèse to ascertain her
exact opinion of his opening lecture. Was she satisfied? Had it gone
well? It was not too long? And the peroration, what had she thought
that? Had he done right in dismissing those loungers and snobs who had
dared to invade his lecture hall, his own quiet little chapel?

"Oh, yes!" Thérèse replied. "Although I might say you were a little too
severe and scornful."

"Never enough so!... It may be good for the Sorbonne to have all those
fine ladies and their tame cats.... But as for us, we want none but
workers, true apprentices...."

Then he digressed into a diffuse commentary on the duties, the dignity,
and the aim of the Collège de France. Science! Le Collège de France!
There lay his faith, his church, and he had no other! Thérèse knew by
heart the order and the verses of these fiery litanies, and let him
proceed without interruption.

"Never mind, child," he concluded, out of breath. "They have had their
warning. I think we shall not see them again.... Moreover, this
affluence has its reasons.... It is another miracle of our _Cleopatra_."

"Oh, _our_ Cleopatra!" Thérèse protested.

"Yes, yes, ours. I maintain the word...."

Following the natural bent which leads one to talk of oneself, he
recalled the phases of his disconcerting triumph: fame that had come in
a night, the whole press, the reviews, and the salons working together
to make him famous; five thousand copies sold in three weeks; articles
every night, every morning ... everywhere--those papers which fell into
line later proving more ardent than the first ones, thus seeking in the
fervor of their adhesion an excuse for the shame of their delay;
letters, interviews, requests for articles, portraits and autographs.
Success, in one word,--that imperial investiture, with its long, endless
offerings, delirious praetorians, and even the intolerant enthusiasm
that forces the jealous to wait, which Paris sometimes gives to its
elect.

And to whom did M. Raindal owe it all? Who had suggested to him the
subject of this book three years ago? Who had thought of a _Life of
Cleopatra_, written from the national Egyptian point of view, and
deriving its inspiration from indigenous documents and the popular
sentiments of the period? And then who had helped him to the very end,
faithfully seconded him in the heavy task? Who had classified the
material, copied the papyri, transcribed the inscriptions, and read the
proofs over and over, one by one, with the exception of the Latin notes?
Who had....

"But, I say, where are you leading me now!" he exclaimed, abandoning the
tone of friendly custody which he had assumed in reciting his eulogy of
her.

Thérèse smiled tenderly.

"There you are, father; that's what you get for exaggerating.... One
forgets everything, one doesn't know where one is any more.... I am
leading you to the _Bon Marché_, where I am going to buy gloves for
to-night...."

"Ah, yes, the dance!" M. Raindal sighed, as if he had already received
the customary blow of a refusal. Then he went on: "Well, no! I must
leave you.... I am going to climb up to your Uncle Cyprien's; I want to
inquire how his rheumatism is to-day and whether he is coming to dine
with us to-night...."

Before the Church of St. Germain-des-Prés, they stopped in the midst of
the melancholy crowd standing about the street-car office and shook
hands firmly, like two comrades.

"Au revoir, dear, I'll see you a little later."

"Au revoir, father."

Thérèse crossed the street, while M. Raindal gathered up his leather
case, which was slipping from his elbow, and slowly and with
deliberation, as if weighed down by his thoughts, ventured into the rue
Bonaparte.




CHAPTER II


M. Cyprien Raindal lived on the sixth floor of an old house that stood
at the corner of the rue Vavin and the rue d'Assas, in an apartment made
up of two large rooms, the windows of which gave him a limitless vista
over the yoke-elm trees of the Luxemburg. He was a thick-set, sanguine
man, about forty-five years old, and wore his hair close-cropped, like
soldiers in the African colonies. By temperament he was irritable and
rebellious. As early as 1860 his elder brother had secured him a place
in the Ministry of Industry, from which, however, had it not been for
the same powerful intervention of Eusèbe Raindal, he would several times
have been dismissed.

Born at the unfortunate period of their father's life, when M. Raindal
had been put out of the University for being an accomplice of Barbès and
was reduced to coaching at two francs a lesson, it seemed as if the son
had inherited a taste for political opposition. He had detested in turn
each government which his functions compelled him to serve, the second
empire, M. Thiers, the Seize-Mai, and the subsequent rule of
"opportunism." Finally, in 1889, when the trunks of General Boulanger
were seized, a card bearing Cyprien's name was found therein upon which
he had written the cordial exhortation, "Bravo, general! Forward! The
whole country stands with you!"

Cyprien Raindal was on the eve of being promoted; but called to the
office of the Minister, his lips already shaping words of gratitude, he
received instead the notification of his dismissal. The blow struck him
as he was breathing the very spirit of peace; it was like an unexpected
insult, like a blow upon the cheek that had been offered for a kiss.
Murmuring threats and words of rage, he had returned to his desk, and
then had rushed out to order new visiting-cards, on which appeared under
his name, _ancien sous-chef de bureau au Ministère de l'Industrie_, and
one of these he had himself nailed up on the door of his apartment. But
his vengeance had stopped there. The official mind within him forbade
his persisting in what was almost the usurpation of a title, and he
finally decided to burn the rest of the deceptive cards. Moreover, in
spite of the affair, his brother was endeavoring to secure him the
benefit of his pension,--three thousand francs, without which he would
have been plunged into the most undignified misery. He waited, holding
himself in check for a few weeks, and only began to express himself with
freedom when his pension had been officially liquidated.

When that was done, however, the fury of his opinions and the violence
of his language burst forth terribly, like explosives that have been too
long compressed. Thirty years of exasperation, hitherto repressed by
the necessity of existing and the fear of his superiors, rushed out
through his lips in avalanches that seemed to be inexhaustible. He
wished at first to reduce his hatred to a formula, to justify his
discontent with some sort of principles, and he inclined towards
socialism. Unfortunately, however, he was lost in questions of capital
and wages; statistics bored him and political economy upset him with its
systems, which were always either unstable or denied by rival experts.
By taste, if not by conviction, he was bourgeois; by education he was,
like his brother, non-religious; by force of habit he was a waster of
red-tape. What he needed was a more human and less subversive doctrine,
theories easy to master, morality rather than figures, and sentiment
rather than deduction.

Thus, gradually and by himself, he had built up a social creed which
allowed him elbow room, as would a suit of clothes made to order. Firmly
persuaded that he was the victim of injustice, he longed to see justice
enthroned. The punishment of evildoers, the death or exile of the
thieves, a general return to honest life and the crushing of
iniquity--these he wished to see in the first place. Later? Well, one
would see about the rest. Let the people obtain that much purification,
and they would settle the remainder in the best way possible. M.
Raindal, junior, was not one of those swaggering dreamers who promise to
destroy and rebuild society as if it were the hut of a road-mender. He
knew how powerful was tradition, how necessary the family, and he
appreciated the indispensable charm of freedom. Before doing away with
that, let Frenchmen think about clearing the country from the vermin
that infested it. If the chance offered itself, Uncle Cyprien would not
refuse his help. He declared himself ready to go with them any day that
the "comrades" would proceed en masse to seize in their own mansions the
prevaricators, the Jews, and the pillars of the church whose coalition
kept down France as with a three-pronged fork. It was his own
comparison, and he repeated it readily with much bragging about getting
his head broken and breaking the heads of many others.

His reading of the newspapers of the opposition had thoroughly fitted
him for a place in the ranks of those sincere justice-lovers whom the
death of the rebel general had left without a head but not without a
hope. Instinctively he turned towards the pamphleteers who denounced the
enemies of the weak or supported the victims against their oppressors.
By a curious anomaly he had in turn discovered within himself all the
hatreds, no matter how incongruous, with which these masters stirred up
the flames. Rochefort had helped him to find in his heart the hatred of
all politicians; with Paul Bert or his disciples he had discerned in
himself a hatred for the priests and all devout Catholics; with Drumont,
hatred for Jews and exotics. He was always reading the articles and the
books of these pamphleteers and could quote whole passages from memory.
His conversation showed this; it was discordant with the most diverse
insults. The words _chequard_ (grafter), _repu_ (bloated), _panamist_
(one compromised in the Panama scandals), _calotin_ (priest-ridden),
_cafard_ (canting rascal), _ratichon_ (bigot), joined to those of
_youtre_ (Jew), _youpin_ (Jew), or _rasta_ (short for _rastaquouère_ and
meaning an exotic mongrel or Levantine) vibrated all at once like the
"sustained bass" of his indignations. His virulence when he discussed
sociology in the presence of strangers was a cause of deep grievance to
his family.

When he heard the bell of his apartment he jumped from the little green
rep-covered couch where he was dozing and, slightly limping and holding
his back with one hand, he opened the door. A smile lit his face the
moment he recognized M. Raindal.

"I am very glad to see you!" exclaimed Cyprien, after the two brothers
had kissed as usual. "Come this way.... I had so many things to read to
you...."

"And how are you?" asked M. Raindal, as he followed him. "How do you
feel now? Are you coming to dine to-night?"

"Why, yes, indeed; I shall certainly come." And, entering the room in
which he used to receive, Cyprien affectionately laid his hand on his
brother's shoulder and said, "Now, sit down and listen to this."

Hastily he began a search among the newspapers which littered his
couch. They were unfolded, crumpled or piled up so that only odd letters
from their large titles could be seen. All those scattered newspapers
were a sick man's debauch, a fond indulgence--a luxury, a treat he
offered himself when he was kept at home by rheumatism. Otherwise he
only read the papers at the café or at the brasserie, and in small
doses--perhaps two or three aggressive sheets, which gave a delightful
sensation of warmth to his brain after lunch, as the small glass of
cognac he usually took burned his throat. When at last he had sorted
them and found the three which he sought he flourished them with a
rattling noise.

"Here is something!" he said. "Rich and delightful!... Enough to amuse
me and to make you swell with pride.... First of all, of course, what
amuses me...."

He read the first article in victorious tones. In discreet but pitiless
terms the writer announced as imminent the arrest of a senator, an
ex-minister and deputy, well-known for his intrigues, his accommodating
complacency towards the banking interests and his clerical tendencies;
and the government was congratulated for that forthcoming show of
energy.

"You see," Uncle Cyprien said, when he had finished reading, "I don't
know who it is.... I thought about it for hours.... I couldn't find the
name ... and yet, I must admit the news caused me to pass a very
pleasant day.... It is high time that all those scoundrels were swept
out.... One more in jail! I score one!..." He smiled at his own
merriment and added, with his two hands on his knees:

"Well, what do you think about it? It is getting serious! All these
rotten gatherings are bursting open!"

M. Raindal hesitated. He wished to avoid controversy or, at least, to
adjourn it and to thrash the matter out only after his brother had read
the other articles. Trained by his profession and by personal
inclination to consider things through the immensity of time, in the
infinite span of past and future centuries, he was not so much
indifferent to his own time as disdainful of it. Whenever his brother
goaded him into discussing politics he felt more scared and ill at ease
than if he had had to argue upon a matter of taboo with a savage chief
of Polynesia in the latter's own language.

"Of course! To be sure!..." he declared. "We are living in a troubled
period.... There are many abuses.... How can it be helped?... Concussion
is the plague of democracies.... Polybius said so...."

"Ah, leave me alone with your Polybius!" Uncle Cyprien interrupted,
shaking his head as if to disentangle himself from his brother's
aphorisms. "Why not simply tell me that we are governed by rogues?... It
will be truer and quicker...."

Then he felt somewhat ashamed of having thus chided his illustrious
elder brother whom he worshiped in the depths of his tormented soul.

"Oh, well, don't get angry.... It's your fault, after all.... You get on
my nerves with your vague, high-sounding sentences.... See, to earn my
forgiveness ... the portrait of M. Eusèbe Raindal, the man of the day,
the family's standard, the glory of the French Egyptology, with the
history of his life from the most remote times to our own days! Tara!
Tara! Ta-ta-ta-ta!..." He gave his brother the second newspaper and
marched round the room sounding through his rounded fingers a triumphal
march, as in the days gone by, at the office, he had celebrated the
success of some colleague.

M. Raindal's eyes stared at the paper which his long-sightedness
compelled him to hold at arm's length.

Yes, that coarse-printed, ill-reproduced portrait, that was himself, his
own strong nose, his white beard and benevolent face--a true senator's
face, as uncle Cyprien assured him.

Below his biography were spread out dates and yet more dates, all the
titles of his books, one after the other, giving no more inkling of his
life, his ideas, the joys and sorrows of his manhood than the milestones
on the road or the posts at the crossings give one any idea of the
places one goes through. To him, however, these dry figures and words
were as alive as his own human flesh. His lips trembled in a nervous
smile. Vanity overflowed from his heart to his face. He blushed with
shame as if he felt directed towards him the stares of the crowd which,
this very day, was looking at his features. However, his innate sense of
propriety caused him to collect himself, and he said calmly:

"Entirely correct! I am much obliged to you. I'll carry it home...."

He rose to take his leave. A gesture from Cyprien caused him to resume
his seat.

"Wait! Wait!... That's not all. Now comes the unpleasant part!... You
are insulted in the _Fléau_, a filthy rag written by _calotins_ and read
by all the rich Jews.... Here, listen to this!... It is awful!"

Cyprien began to read in a voice that trembled with sarcasm but even
more with anger:

                       ACADEMIC INDISCRETIONS

     The commission that is to bestow the Vital-Gerbert prize of fifteen
     thousand francs upon the best history book of the year will shortly
     meet at the French Academy. If one is to believe the rumors, the
     fight will be a hot one as there are several candidates. We are
     assured that one of them is M. Eusèbe Raindal, of the Institute,
     the author of that _Life of Cleopatra_ which a certain section of
     the press has much boomed within the last month. M. Raindal's
     candidacy, however, meets with serious opposition in academic
     circles. Several members consider the success of his book to be
     largely due to the obscene details which abound in it and which
     have attracted a special class of readers. Without desiring in any
     way to prejudice this delicate controversy, we are nevertheless
     compelled to admit that this book is one of the most immoral
     productions which have for a long time been published by a member
     of the Institute. The footnotes especially, although written in
     Latin, show signs of a revolting indecency. The author may claim in
     his defense that he has merely translated Egyptian pamphlets of the
     period and that, moreover, he has translated them only into Latin.
     It is nevertheless a fact that, wittingly or otherwise, he has
     given publicity to a mass of veritable filth. We know that history
     has its rights and the historian his duties. But M. Raindal will
     have some difficulty in establishing that it was his duty as a
     historian to show us Cleopatra coughing out disgusting words in the
     most abject surrenders of her love-making or going one better in
     the shameless expressions of debauchery than a female Nero. We
     think it is for other works, that treat of wider questions, and
     from a social and lofty point of view, that the academic prizes
     should be reserved. The "Immortals" of the Academy must decide
     whether we are right or wrong. To prove our contention they have
     this year only the difficulty of selection.

Cyprien kneaded the paper into a ball and threw it on the floor.

"Well," he concluded, "a pretty savage attack!... It has no importance
whatsoever since, as I told you, only Jews read this letter.... However,
if you were to authorize me, I should be very glad to go and pull the
ears of the sneak who let his pen...."

M. Raindal's face had grown pale with suffering as his brother had
proceeded with his reading. He lifted his hand with a philosophical
gesture and murmured in a voice that he had not yet steadied:

"No use.... These are the little come-backs of fame.... And then, I know
the source!"

"Who?"

"I am sure that it was inspired, if not written, by my colleague and
competitor Saulvard.... Lemeunier de Saulvard, of the Sciences
Morales.... I recognize his hand.... He wants the prize for his _History
of the Freed Men in the Roman Empire_.... I am in his way.... He gets
someone to vilify me.... It is a classical method.... One can only be
sorry for the wretch and smile...."

M. Raindal gave a painful smile, but his throat was obstructed by that
rage, like bitter gall, which one feels under patent injustice. He spat
out the word:

"Obscene!"

He paused awhile, then, his voice relieved, he repeated:

"Obscene!... No, I had never heard that in the course of my career; yet
I have seen much jealousy, smallness of mind and calumny among members
of my profession.... If you knew what sewers run under what is called
the pure regions of science!... And the filth that is poured down in
them! Obscene!... After a career like mine!... The scoundrels!"

He laughed disdainfully.

"Ha! ha!... To call a man obscene who led an almost pure, blameless
youth!... A man who has worked twelve hours a day for the last forty
years.... It is all they have found.... See! I am laughing!... It is too
amusing! It is too funny for words!"

His brother Cyprien remained silent so as to allow full swing to this
revolt, the vehemence of which was a delight to his own instincts. He
pressed his brother's hand.

"That's right! That's the way to speak.... I can see you are a true
Raindal. You do not like to be goaded.... You kick.... That's right! I
hope when you meet that person...."

"I am seeing him to-night," M. Raindal said, putting a sudden damper on
his eagerness.

"To-night?" the ex-official muttered with surprise. "How?... Where?..."

"At his house.... He is giving a dance...."

"And you are going?"

"Well, yes!... A marriage for Thérèse.... A young man, a young savant,
is to be introduced to us."

Cyprien laid a hand on the polished dome of his head and said dreamily:

"Ah! ah! A match for my nephew." (He always called Thérèse his nephew
because of her masculine ways.) "Good! That is a reason.... Well, I have
an idea that my nephew will not accept that young savant.... However,
you are right; one has to see.... But be cautious! Your Saulvard seems
to me utterly worthless ... and I would not be inclined to trust
anything that came from that quarter...."

M. Raindal rose to his feet.

"Don't worry. I shall look out.... Besides, you are wrong.... When his
ambitions are not concerned Saulvard is not such a bad fellow...."

Cyprien whistled incredulously:

"Phew!... That may be.... Well, see you later ... seven o'clock."

And he accompanied his brother to the top of the steps.

The lamp-posts were lit outside when M. Raindal reached his home in the
rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.

Rapidly he put on his brown smoking-jacket and his felt slippers, and
passed quietly through the dark hall towards his study. Two large
rectangular oak tables, face to face as in a bank, almost filled the
room. Thérèse was sitting at one of them, writing by the light of an oil
lamp. The green cardboard shade threw back on her the crude light which
her bowed forehead reflected in spots.

"Already at work!" M. Raindal exclaimed.

He took her head between his two hands as one does with a little girl
and kissed her with a recrudescent selfish tenderness, with that need
for a closer contact which those who are dear to us inspire after we
have suffered from the wickedness of others.

She released herself with a smile, and said gently:

"Let me alone, father!... I am reading the proofs of your article for
_La Revue_. They are coming for them at 5.30. You can see that there is
no time to lose."

"Quite right! I obey," M. Raindal said.

He sat facing her at the other table and took up some papers on which he
began to make notes. Everything was dark about the room with the
exception of a few golden threads shining in the texture of the gold
curtains and the thin yellow circle which the lamp threw on the ceiling.
The only sounds were the somewhat halting breathing of M. Raindal, the
crackling of the coke in the fireplace, and now and then a neighboring
bell giving out at long intervals a few isolated, mournful sounds.
Suddenly the master exclaimed:

"What about your mother?... Has she come home yet?"

"No," Thérèse replied, "but she will not be long.... She cannot be much
longer."

And without ceasing to write, she added with a slight touch of sarcasm:

"It seemed to me.... No, I ought not to tell you.... Well, since I have
begun, let it go!... I thought before I came in that I saw Mother
entering the Church of St. Germain-des-Prés!"

"Again!" M. Raindal murmured with a tone of commiseration.... "That is
at least the second time since this morning.... It is deplorable!"

Thérèse smiled and looked at her father.

"What can you expect?... It makes her happy and soothes her!"

M. Raindal made a melancholy grimace.

He, a philosophical and contemptuous atheist, whose only faith was in
science, whom religious faith, even on the part of his friends,
irritated as a proof of lack of understanding--had he not done
everything he could in the past to bring to his wife that calm
happiness which he enjoyed? If Mme. Raindal had not forgotten, she
better than anyone else could testify to the patience and abnegation
with which he had done so!...

It had been an unpleasant surprise. Mlle. Desjannières was so gay and
merry, so childish, despite her twenty years; her father, a Marseilles
barrister, who had chanced to seek his fortune in Egypt, was such a
brilliant talker, such a good fellow, a singer of such catchy tunes! No
one could have suspected the secret fervor at work in the mind of the
girl. Well, M. Raindal had not minded because he was in love with his
fiancée. He would take care of her, cure her of it! On the very day that
had followed their wedding in Alexandria, and later in Paris where they
had settled, he had begun the cure and pursued it methodically. Every
day he had discussed it with his wife for hours, preached to her and
reasoned with her. She had lent herself willingly to the régime and
tried in her tenderness to surmount her fears. After three months, one
morning, she threw herself on her knees before her husband, weeping and
crying for mercy. She begged him to put a stop to the martyrdom, to let
her return to the confessional. In presence of her affliction, M.
Raindal had been compelled to agree.

She was moved by a superhuman force, an unconquerable fear, the dread of
the punishments which follow sin. An old Provençal maid, a kind of
Domestic Dante, had inoculated her when she was quite young with the
germs of the sickness. In the evenings she had described to her, as if
she had been there herself, the lurid sights, the burning horrors, the
eternal pangs which torment the sinners in the lands of Hell, the pains
of damnation, the torments of the senses, the howls, the moans, the
diabolical contortions. And as the child grew up, her soul became
gradually narrower at the flame of those tales, more sensitive, more
fearful of sins. The slightest of them weighed upon her as an
irremissible fault, a thorny burden that choked her heart. She must
needs at once rush to a priest, unload before his indulgence that weight
of anguish which was heavier than a load of lead. Often as she emerged
from a sanctuary she was halted by a scruple, by the semblance of a
neglect which brought her hastily back to implore once more the help of
the priest as he left the sacred enclosure. And since her marriage, for
the last thirty-two years, she had been living thus, forever urged
toward churches by new torments of her conscience, hiding her terrors
when at home, unable to dominate them when outside, dreading the sarcasm
of her family and weeping over their damnation.

"Her happiness! Her peace of mind!" M. Raindal was grunting as he
wrote.... "If only she had had the energy to trust me with them."

       *       *       *       *       *

Just then the doorbell rang hurriedly twice.

"Hark!" the master said. "Here comes your mother.... I am anxious to
hear what she has to say...."

Mme. Raindal stood on the threshold. A long quilted silk cape, lined
with minever and slightly worn about the shoulders, encased her form.
All out of breath, she panted:

"Wait!"

Her hand went under the cape and lay over her heart to suppress its
beating. She explained:

"I climbed the stairs too fast."

"Sit down! Rest yourself!" M. Raindal said calmly.

"No, no! It is passed! I feel better!"

She unhooked her cape and went to kiss her husband, then her daughter.
Her cheeks carried the frost of the wind outside; they were cold as a
window pane; she was still panting as she bent over each of them.

"Where have you been, to return so late?" M. Raindal inquired, without
lifting his eyes from his work.

She protested.

"So late!... But it is not 'so late'!... It is not more than 5.15.... I
went to Guerbois, to order a pie for to-night.... Cyprien's coming to
dinner, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes ... Cyprien's coming."

She did not dwell on the matter. She was choking with a new fear; she
had almost sinned by telling an untruth. She poked the red lumps of coke
and lowered the wick of the smoking lamp. Then, feeling the weight of
the silence which was pregnant with irony and with suspicion perhaps,
she left the room, her cheeks now suddenly aflame, her breast heavy with
sighs.

Thérèse and her father simultaneously raised their heads and exchanged a
knowing smile.

"Did you hear that?... her pie?..."

He shrugged his shoulders quite discouraged. The young girl murmured
with compassion:

"Poor mother!... She is so kind!..."




CHAPTER III


At about a quarter to six, Uncle Cyprien went to his small dark
kitchenette to polish his shoes before going out.

He intended to go to the Klapproth Brasserie in the rue Vavin to join
his old friend, Johann Schleifmann, and talk for an hour with him while
drinking an _apéritif_.

People who knew the younger M. Raindal's antisemitism were surprised at
his intimacy with that Galician Jew.

But when he was asked about it, Cyprien showed not the slightest
embarrassment. Far from it! He eyed his inquirer from head to foot,
shrugged his shoulders and then informed him--if he cared to know--that
Schleifmann was the best man in the world. He had associated with him
for ten years and never had had any cause to complain of him. These
inquiries, moreover, seemed to him futile, because, he could vouch for
it, Schleifmann, although a Jew, was as "much of an anti-semite as you
or I."

Cyprien voiced an exaggeration when he said this, or at least, he was
misinterpreting his friend's feelings.

Schleifmann could not be classified among those cautious Jews who deny
their Jewry through fear of prejudice, or because they cringe before
the majority, or through worldly or professional self-interest.

His anti-semitism, on the contrary, was made up of sheer love for his
race and atavistic pride. If he appeared anti-semitic, it must have been
in the fashion of a Jeremiah, an Isaiah or an Amos. In sooth, the bitter
spirit of the ancient prophets animated his heart. He cursed the men of
his religion merely because they were shirking the destinies of Israel
and let themselves be corrupted by trifling vanities instead of ruling
the world by the influence of thought. This Semitic pride had even been
the cause of all the difficulties of his adventurous life.

He was a Doctor of Philosophy of Lemberg University who early in life
had neglected the ancient Mosaic law in order to embrace the more recent
creed which was spreading over the world--socialism. According to him,
the Jews had been the initiators of that new faith as they had been of
the other one. Karl Marx and Lassalle were to him the modern messengers
of Jehovah upon earth, sent to bring forth the new gospel and the
economic religion of the future. He considered their books as almost
holy and rejoiced at seeing once more the divine Jewish supremacy
asserted by their writings. He was affiliated with the principal
socialist groups of the city and carried on an active propaganda in the
poor districts. Three months in a fortress and ten years' exile put a
sudden stop to his zeal, if not to his convictions.

While in prison he had carefully thought out the place where he would
seek asylum on leaving. Life would be very painful to him in Austria or
in Germany, where he would be watched by the police and exposed to the
attacks of the anti-semites. He decided upon a temporary stay in France
where he went towards the end of 1882.

He thought he would make a living by teaching German, philosophy or the
natural sciences. Warm letters of introduction had been given him by
Viennese Jews to their relatives and fellow-Jews of Paris. Thus he
rapidly obtained a certain amount of patronage which placed him beyond
want and even earned him comfort.

Soon, however, and of his own free will, Schleifmann was to lose that
comfort owing to an idealistic ambition and a mania to put his ideas
into effect and to bring the Jews back to their hereditary duties.

He had noticed in Eastern Europe the contagious progress of
anti-semitism and was deeply convinced that the anti-Jewish microbe
would pursue its unrelenting march westward, successively invading
France, England, the New World and finally the whole of Christendom.

This tendency must be resisted, fought and destroyed. As to the means of
doing it, Schleifmann had a very clear theory, which he claimed to have
derived from the very sources of the purest Judaism. It was simple. All
that was needed was for the wealthy Jews to return to the traditions of
their race whose almost divine mission was to supply the nations with
moral examples, their brains with ideas and their hearts with a
religion.

To accomplish this purpose they were to repudiate their past errors,
leave the worldly and clerical society where they grew soft at the
expense of their dignity, return to the fold of democracy whence they
had sprung, employ their rare abilities in the defense of the weak, the
triumph of the right, and enforce victory against injustice. Finally,
keeping back nothing but a personal income, in no case to exceed ten
thousand francs, they were to give up all their acquired riches, the
whole of which would be used in national, popular or colonizing schemes.
Such, in brief, were the main practical means by which Schleifmann
intended to secure the salvation and glory of the Lord's chosen people.

After a few months in Paris, he thought the moment was favorable for him
to lay his daring plan of regeneration before the parents of his pupils,
the clergy and the notables of Jewry. His illusions of success were
short-lived.

The Jews of high finance had recently fought the first round with the
Catholics. Some said they had been helped by the Cabinet. Others, that
they had enjoyed the secret approval of a government which had long been
in sympathy with the Jewish cause. Others again, more conservative in
their estimate, claimed that the Jews enjoyed the "non-official
sympathy" of the Administration to which the revolt of the wealthy
Catholic families caused much anxiety. In fine, whether supported or
alone, the Jews had won and now they were blinded by the enthusiasm of
their victory. Never had their conceited arrogance been more insane nor
their trust in the efficacy of the law more dense.

Schleifmann was everywhere repulsed. The rabbis were afraid that he
might place them in a difficult position with high finance, whose
members were all powerful in the Consistory; they begged him not to
persist in his dangerous utopias. The rich and the half-rich dismissed
him with a few dry words or with scornful jesting.

Very few cared to enter into discussion with him. They would give a
fatherly pat to the obstinate Galician and ask him whether it was really
himself, M. Schleifmann, a wise and learned man, who prattled such
nonsense. Anti-semitism! That was all very well in Germanic lands, or in
Slavic countries where--they had to say it, but with no desire to offend
him personally--the Jews were ... well, he knew well enough what! But in
France, in the land of all the liberties, on the beautiful soil of
France, the mother of Revolutions and of the sublime Declaration of the
Rights of Man, never, never, never at all, he ought to know, would
anti-semitism flourish. Thereupon they would burst out laughing and
offer him a cigar.

These unfortunate rebuffs were not the only punishment met by
Schleifmann. Many parents became alarmed at his theories and withdrew
their children from his care. He was left with barely a third of his
patrons, making just enough to live on, or rather enough not to perish
of want.

The wreck was thorough, but he faced it with courage.

In order to prepare for such possible contingencies as sickness, he sold
all his furniture, all his books but a hundred odd volumes which he
termed indispensable. He kept his Bible, the _Imitation_ of á Kempis,
Goethe, Spinoza, Shakespeare, Mendelssohn, Renan, Taine, Victor Hugo's
poetical works and the writings of socialist leaders.

Then he took a large, well-lighted room on the sixth floor of a house in
the rue de Fleurus and waited, while reading, for fortune and humanity
to change.

Three whole years passed by and he was beginning to doubt his own
prophetic acumen when, suddenly, the events occurred that restored to
him his faith.

Despite what he had been told, anti-semitism was beginning to germinate
and blossom in the beautiful land of France. It had come through the
fertilizing agency of the envy and resentments of some, of the
clumsiness and the extortions of others. The ardent crop was growing
daily in spite of regulations and legal fences, in spite of the laws and
the proclaimed Rights of Man.

Johann Schleifmann was joyfully complacent at first, then deeply
sorrowful. He followed the affair, always divided between these opposite
feelings.

He deplored the cruel, partial attacks levelled at his co-religionists;
but he could not free himself from a certain feeling of pride that he
had predicted them. The more unfairly they were abused, the more his
anger rose against them. Fools! Poor wretches! Had they but been
willing! When the social columns told of their magnificent
garden-parties, of their deer-and fox-hunting and of their _raouts_, he
sneered wickedly, yet with sadness. He repeated the words aloud in a
sarcastic tone or uttered them as so many curses: "Garden-parties!
_Raouts!_ Fox-hunting!..." Yes, they could "receive" and "dance" and
"ride out." Those fellows were making the most of it! He was carried
away, indignant, at the thought that so much money was stupidly thrown
away, when, had they with a kind hand but given a portion of it to the
people, it would have served a generous cause and settled and repaired
everything.

It was about that time that he had become acquainted with M. Cyprien
Raindal at the Brasserie Klapproth where they both took their meals.

They had liked each other from the first words they had exchanged. They
were mutually attracted. Their nationalities were different, their
religions antagonistic, their temperaments divergent but they found out
that they shared the same grudges and detested the same castes.
Curiosity also helped to foster their association. Schleifmann was to
Uncle Cyprien a real mine of exceptional documents upon which he could
feed his hatreds, and Schleifmann saw in him an unregarded specimen of
the enemies of his race. Moreover, they cherished in secret their own
plans concerning each other. The Galician wanted to convert his friend
to the theories of Karl Marx; while the younger M. Raindal had sworn to
himself that he would convert the exiled philosopher from his
internationalistic views. Above all other motives, poverty united them,
that poverty which kneads all the lowly into an identical paste, merges
them into one family, transforms them into brothers and allies--age,
origin or any other obstacle notwithstanding. Hence, they had hardly
spent a day during the past ten years without meeting outside or
visiting each other in their respective garrets.

       *       *       *       *       *

Cyprien Raindal was ready and opened his door to go out. He fell back a
step, surprised on seeing Johann Schleifmann himself, preparing to ring.

"You!"

"Surely, it is I!..." Schleifmann replied in a voice which the constant
use of the Hebrew language had rendered somewhat nasal and slow. "I did
not see you yesterday and so I came to ascertain whether you were not
ill...."

"Oh, it is nothing at all; a mere touch of rheumatism, my wretched
rheumatism.... Come in, come in, please," the younger M. Raindal added,
removing his own hat. "It seems as if we had not chatted for ages!"

He closed the door and pulled his old friend Johann by the sleeve.

Schleifmann replied with a smile.

"Yes, let us talk! As a matter of fact, I have brought you the surprise
which I mentioned the other day.... Here, enjoy yourself!..."

He threw on the table a book bound in reddish linen, on the back of
which was printed in black letters: _Year Book of French Finance_.

While Cyprien examined the volume, Schleifmann half-stretched himself on
the couch, following a sarcastic trend of ideas. His was the type of the
eastern Jew, a Kalmuk face with a wax-like complexion, a flat nose,
turned up at the tip and with broad nostrils and small, yellowish eyes
that shone with malice. His gray hair and beard were crisp and curly
like wool; to correct his shortsightedness, he wore large gold-rimmed
spectacles, the supreme elegance of Teutonic university men.

Suddenly he exclaimed in his usual slow, dragging voice:

"There are enough names in there!... Jews, Moslems, Christians, yes, and
goyim, too.... Names from all countries and all religions.... It is to
these names that the whole wealth of the land belongs.... They are all
the names of those who fleece and grind us; you understand, my dear
Raindal?... One of these names at the bottom of a paper is better than a
cartridge of dynamite under a house.... It makes the millions dance as
oranges fly from the hands of a juggler.... But, God be praised! my
friend, this will not last forever!..."

"Ah! you are clever, Schleifmann!" the younger M. Raindal murmured,
throwing an inquisitive glance at the Galician over the book he held
open in his hand. "We know your game!... You want to egg me on again to
your socialism.... Well, no.... It's not to be done! I stand for freedom
... and for property ... and for the whole system of our filthy society,
provided, however, people are honest. Yes, to be sure! Otherwise, pan,
pan! To the wall with the grafters!..."

Schleifmann protested mildly, asserting that his remarks were
disinterested. Then he came closer to Cyprien, who had laid the book on
the table, the better to consult it. He guided his friend's search among
the terrible complications of interdependent banks, boards of
administration, committees, sub-committees and other mysterious groups
bent upon conquest.

Gradually, the younger M. Raindal waxed excited as he read. When he saw
the same name figure on two, three, four boards, he exclaimed in
distress like a man who is being assaulted. His jocular anger was
especially excited by the names that bore the signs of Hebraic descent.

"Another one!" he would throw at Schleifmann.

"So it seems! But is it my fault?" the Galician replied sadly.

Again they took up their reading. To see their backs, their elbows
closely touching, one might have fancied that they were two good little
boys greedily perusing some picture-book or a fascinating volume of
adventures.

Suddenly Cyprien straightened up and struck his rounded forehead. "By
the way, Schleifmann," he asked, "do you happen to know a certain
Lemeunier de Saulvard?"

"Member of the Institute of France?"

"Yes, himself."

Did Schleifmann know him? Of course, he did. None better. As a matter of
fact, Saulvard banked at the Stummerwitz Bank and the Galician had heard
the Stummerwitzes mention him more than once. He was teaching German to
their children, or rather he was perfecting them in the use of that
tongue; for they had learned the rudiments of it from their maternal
grandfather, born in Stuttgart, and their paternal grandfather, born in
Cologne. Rapidly in a hundred lashing words, Saulvard was sized up.

A man, it might be said without injustice, who was not much of a
Catholic, that Saulvard!... A third-rate savant, a most mediocre
intellect, an anemic writer, moreover a sycophant and a greedy
intriguer. He had made use of his relations with high finance to enter
the Institute, and then of his title of Academician to join the boards
of companies. One had but to consult the Year-book. (And Cyprien
feverishly turned the pages again.) He was there in three different
places, as member of three well-remunerated, although discredited,
boards. As to his wife....

"Probably a bigot?" Raindal the younger asked.

No, she was not a bigot;--she was a shameless hussy. Schleifmann,
usually better informed, did not know the names of her several lovers,
but he could give him two at all events, asserting in a symbolic and
summary sense, that she had sinned with gods and devils. She was vain,
moreover, an inveterate snob, painted and powdered way down to her
waist, a back-biter, whose stomach troubles had ruined her
disposition....

Raindal could stand it no longer. He was choking.

"Excuse me, Schleifmann," he said, laying a friendly hand on the
Galician's shoulder. "I forgot the time.... I am dining with my brother
who is going to a dance to-night at the house of precisely this
scoundrel.... I am very glad to be so thoroughly informed.... I assure
you, yes, quite satisfied.... You don't mind, do you? I have barely
enough time! I must run away.... Are you coming?"

At the bottom of the stairs he parted hurriedly from his friend. A deep
longing urged him to reach the flat in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs,
there to unload on his indolent brother the mass of filth with which
Schleifmann had liberally filled him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Not without apprehension did M. Raindal watch the arrival of his
brother, having earlier in the day found that it was one of his
talkative days. He anticipated a fresh outbreak of hostilities and
controversies and that ill-disposed him beforehand. He received his
brother with marked coldness, and carelessly held out his hand in order
to forestall any new attempt.

"Just a minute! I am finishing an urgent piece of work.... If you'd like
to wait for me in the drawing-room, the ladies are there...."

When Uncle Cyprien had gone he congratulated himself upon his firmness.
As a matter of fact, he had always intensely disliked discussing any
subject with his brother. It was as in the tourneys of old, which were
open to none but Knights. Before he would oppose a man in a discussion,
that man had to be his peer, a gallant champion of his own caste, of his
own intellectual rank, and one who practiced without flinching the noble
art of tilting with ideas. With other men, Eusèbe Raindal avoided the
contest; he turned tail in courteous agreement or even, if necessary,
shammed sudden deafness.

His self-satisfaction increased at the dinner-table. Never had Uncle
Cyprien proved so gay, so affable or so little inclined to quarrel. He
teased Thérèse about her "forthcoming marriage," repeatedly addressed
her as "Mamzelle my nephew" or informed Brigitte, the young, ruddy-faced
maid from Brittany, that, _sapristi!_ it would soon be her turn.

Thérèse readily put up with his somewhat vulgar facetiousness. She
tolerated much from her uncle, because she guessed at all the real
tenderness hidden beneath his intolerance and his rabid abuse.

Mme. Raindal herself secretly admired her brother-in-law. She was
grateful for the fact that he hated the Jews, whom she saw as the
abhorred tormentors of the Saviour. She condoned his blasphemies
concerning the priests because of his aversion towards the deicide race.

Her small, round face with its soft, pale cheeks reddened with a sudden
flush of pride when he praised her pie. She laughed at all his remarks
to the end of the meal, although she often missed his real point.

For politeness' sake, M. Raindal smiled with her. When they had drunk
their coffee, he returned to his study with Cyprien while the two women
retired to dress. Left alone, they remained for a while in silent
meditation. The master of the house, his feet drawn towards the red glow
of the fire, dozed with his eyes half-closed, in that perfect coil of
peacefulness that one feels in the company of a trusted friend. Uncle
Cyprien lighted his heavy cherry-wood pipe from the Vosges mountains and
paced the room, blowing his smoke out in strong puffs. He was preparing
to let out his exterminating ammunition, all those deadly revelations
which he had been holding back for the last two hours in sheer
refinement of pleasure.

Brutally, he sent forth the first volley.

"By the way! Your chap of this evening, he is a nice bird!"

The effect was that of the alarm gun calling forth the soldier asleep in
his tent. M. Raindal shivered with emotion and asked angrily.

"What? Whom do you mean?"

"Your Saulvard, of course!... Yes, I have some fine lines on him....
That gentlemen may well boast of them!"

One after the other, all the munitions piled up by Schleifmann followed
in rapid succession.

"You surprise me very much!" M. Raindal muttered. "I admit that I do not
know Saulvard very much.... I never had any but professional relations
with him.... Yet, I never heard it said.... Your friend Schleifmann must
be exaggerating...."

His brother Cyprien smiled shyly at this evasion but did not reply at
once. He emptied his pipe in an ash tray. After a while, he broke the
silence.

"Tell me ... where does this Saulvard live?"

The query made M. Raindal restless in his chair. He foresaw how grave
was the reply he would have to give and tried to equivocate:

"Why, really, I don't know.... It is the first time we are going
there.... Thérèse has the invitation; she will be able to tell you...."

"You don't know!" Cyprien replied, aggressively sarcastic. "Go on! I am
willing to grant you may not know the number of the house; but surely
you know the name of the street; you must at least know in what district
it is!"

M. Raindal hid his uneasiness and pretended deeply to search into his
memory.

"It seems to me," he replied at length, "that he lives in the avenue
Kléber.... Yes, that's it, avenue Kléber."

"Of course! I would have laid a bet on it!" Uncle Cyprien said
victoriously.

Thereupon the dreaded storm burst upon the master in a tumult of abuse
and imprecations.

Cyprien had effectively found the opportunity once more to air his
theory of the "two banks" and he hurled it out with a crash.

As a matter of fact, it was not altogether his own. The Galician had
supplied the idea and Cyprien had but added the eloquent developments
and the vigor of his lungs. But they had so often recited it to each
other, chiseled it together and together enlarged upon it that they no
longer discerned their particular share in the collaboration, and each
of them claimed the authorship, whenever the other happened to be
absent.

According to them, Paris was composed of two cities, absolutely distinct
in population, ways of life and customs. The river Seine divided these
two enemy cities. On its two banks, Sion the venerable faced Gomorrah.

Sion, the left bank, that was, stood for the home of virtue, science and
faith. Her people were chaste, modest and diligent; they had preserved,
in poverty and toil, the honest and decent national traditions. There
the men were pure and the women beyond reproach. The whole inheritance
of the ancestors--loyalty, devotion and high-mindedness were transmitted
from fathers to sons, sheltered from the corruption of money and the
shameful example of the foreigners. In sooth, it was the holy city.

Gomorrah, the right bank, was the region of vice, license and
dishonesty. It was the hunting-ground of all the cosmopolitan riff-raff,
all the shifty hordes of exotics who had gradually foregathered and
silently slipped into France after the war of 1870. They formed a
nomadic, rascally and thievish multitude, without principles, country or
morals and were united solely by their greed for gold or a thirst for
coarse pleasures. Gambling in stocks had filled their coffers and
criminal transactions paid for their fatuous homes. The women were no
better than the men; the adultery of the former flourished by the side
of the swindling of the latter. Whole districts, and some of the finest,
had become their domicile. Chaillot, Monceau, Malesherbes and the Roule
bowed at their orders and their money. There were long rows of hotels
all filled with _rastaquouères_, and houses which the Jews had conquered
from top to bottom, occupying every floor. Semites from Frankfort
fraternized there with adventurers from the New World, shady Americans
with dubious Orientals. And the whole country was sucked dry in the
service of that impudent mob which gave its orders in doubtful French.
The right bank--it was the cursed city!

Cyprien always drew great effects and lengthy orations from these
descriptions and parallels; he used them also as a sort of touchstone by
which to appreciate people. If one lived on the left bank of the river,
he was at once entitled to Cyprien's sympathies. But if one dwelt on the
right bank, in a rich neighborhood, Cyprien was at once wary of him, and
would only make amends later after his title to respect had been
established.

M. Raindal had labored hard to point out how such a theory was
psychologically doubtful and topographically inexact; but his brother
persisted in it because it was simple, violent, and corroborated his
passions.

Especially this evening when he had been rested by two days' silence and
stimulated by Schleifmann's call, he was riding his hobby all around M.
Raindal with an increasing air of challenge and daring.

"Yes," he shouted at his brother, stamping the carpet, "you are
blind.... You know nothing, you see nothing.... You live in your corner,
buried among your mummies and your old books.... You have never been
further than the bridge of the Saints-Pères.... You are duped and
exploited; you are a child--a kid, as Schleifmann says. Why don't you go
for a walk some day through those places I am telling you about?...
Talk, ask, find out.... You will see.... In that world, in those houses,
abominable deeds are performed and all manner of foulness!"

The voiceless patience of M. Raindal was worn out. He risked one of
those defenses which he had used before in the course of that polemic
when the returns had at length become regular and mechanical as in a
stage duel:

"Yet you are not alleging that the whole virtue of Paris has found
asylum in our district!... I shall never be tired of repeating it to
you: on the other side of the water are to be found many people that
belong to decent society, and even to the aristocracy, people who have
left the Faubourg to go and live in the new sections, the Champs
Elysées, for instance.... Well! those people--you are not going to tell
me that they...."

Cyprien sneered with commiseration and took up the gauntlet.

"Ha! ha! I am not going to tell you?... Of course, I am going to tell
you!..."

And tell he did. He jumped from digression to digression, slashing right
and left, forward and back, twirling his ideas about and knocking heads
down everywhere in the craze of a wholesale assault. One after the
other, the degenerated aristocracy, the Jews, the grafters and the
priests fell under his blows. He reinforced himself with quotations from
his favorite masters and these excited him as a war cry.

M. Raindal kept his peace for a moment, but feeling that his silence was
perhaps even more exasperating to his adversary than mild retorts, he
turned on the tap of conciliatory generalities. They oozed from his lips
in amorphous, unfinished sentences, in small, intermittent streams,
similar to the colorless and limpid dribble that runs along the chin of
a baby; or else they suddenly dried up under the wind of invective.

"The plague of democracies.... A necessary evil.... This M. Rochefort is
truly clever.... Experience teaches us.... M. Drumont is not lacking in
spirit.... One of the vices of the plutocratic régime.... It is not a
new thing to see financiers and revenue farmers.... I do not deny that
M. Schleifmann is a very distinguished thinker.... We have come to a
turning point of history...."

Thérèse came in and interrupted him, for her Uncle Cyprien instinctively
lowered his voice when he saw her. The shy evasions of M. Raindal
increased his assurance; but he dreaded sarcastic remarks or the sharp
retorts of "Mademoiselle his nephew."

"Well, what is happening?" Thérèse asked sweetly.... "Uncle, I bet you
are teasing my poor father again?

"Hum! Not at all!" Uncle Cyprien replied shame-facedly.... "Not at all,
we were merely talking.... You understand, one warms up, one gets
excited...."

Thérèse pouted derisively.

"Yes, yes, I know, you warm up, you get excited.... I heard you from my
room...."

She turned to M. Raindal.

"Come on, father, it is eleven.... Mother is ready.... Go and dress...."

Alone with her uncle, she walked to the fireplace to straighten in front
of the mirror her hair which she had disarranged here and there when
inserting her flowers. She wore white carnations--in memory of _Albârt_.
Their spreading whiteness enlivened her face. Her neck seemed by
reflection less sallow and more delicate in the pink muslin frame of her
corsage.

Artlessly she smiled at herself, surprised to find herself thus dainty,
attractive, almost pretty. As a matter of fact, she did have that
ethereal iridescence of beauty which the unusual splendor of a party
dress projects at once upon women. It is an ephemeral charm, light as a
pastel, which fades away, evaporates in the heat and the jealousy of a
ball; but at home it encourages the most homely. For one instant in the
solitude of her own room, in front of her own mirror, a woman finds
herself beautiful enough, too beautiful--and she is willing to go, and
does, in fact, go.

Her Uncle Cyprien, in a friendly mood, observed her little coquettish
ways:

"Well, my nephew? And so we are going to make merry in the merry world?"

"Oh, prodigiously," Thérèse replied with a sigh. "We must enjoy
ourselves in this world.... There will always be people to enjoy
themselves.... Always there will be a frivolous and depraved society....
If they did not make merry on the other side of the river, they would do
it here.... It is the rule and you cannot alter it...."

Uncle Cyprien brushed back with his hand his hair which was so
close-trimmed that is crackled with a ruffling noise under his fingers.
He murmured disdainfully:

"Philosophy! Philosophy!... You know, my dear nephew, that we do not
argue, you and I, ... you are too strong and too sure of yourself.
There, I don't mind admitting it, you make me feel ill at ease!"

M. Raindal returned, followed by his wife, her form hidden in her long
cape. She wore in her hair an old mauve aigrette, the barbs of which
were limp and spread out like a worn-out paint-brush.

"Well, are we ready?" the master of the house asked, looking at his
brother.

"Yes, we'll all go down together. Come along!"

A cab was waiting outside. Brigitte gave the driver's number to M.
Raindal.

The family sat closely huddled in the back seat. Uncle Cyprien closed
the door on them and shouted as the carriage began to move:

"Good luck! A pleasant evening, nephew!"

He gave a friendly pinch to the chin of Brigitte, who stood stupidly
smiling.

"Good night, my girl.... Go and dream of a fiancé!"

He turned up the collar of his coat and took the rue Vavin. In the fever
of his triumph at every step he flourished his thick cornel stick as if
it had been a gory mace.




CHAPTER IV


The ball given by M. and Mme. Lemeunier de Saulvard (of the Institute)
"in their apartment" in the avenue Kléber, on the occasion of the
engagement of their niece, Mlle. Genevieve de Saulvard, to M. Brisset de
Saffry de Lamorneraie, lieutenant of the 21st hussars, had attracted a
large assembly of guests.

The army, the fine arts, literature, science, the upper bourgeoisie, men
of learning, club-men, men of finance and men of the drawing-room--the
full contingent of their acquaintances filled their apartment after 11
o'clock. All the guests, for lack of any other common ground, were at
least agreed on the subject of the party and voted it a success.

As a matter of fact, the Saulvards deserved the praise, for they had
shown themselves far from niggardly. The buffet was sumptuous, covered
with silver plate, viands and piles of sandwiches, ices, sweet-smelling
drinks and spread here and there with dishes of frozen fruit in large
pale pink or green rings like dull-colored silk plaques. And everywhere
there were flowers, in bushes, baskets and garlands. Rows of white
chrysanthemums concealed the upper parts of the windows with their
intricate strands, and chains of delicate winter roses climbed along the
chandeliers, whence fell through the crystal the calm, intense glow of
the electric lights.

The orchestra was made up of gypsies in red coats with heavy gold
braidings. They formed a sort of barbaric guard of honor in front of the
piano. In the interval between the dances people stopped to watch them
cleaning their strange instruments as if they were wild men in a camp.

They began to play their sensuous airs. One couple rose, then two, then
three. Then all at once the reflections made by the lights upon the
empty shiny floor disappeared under the mixed crowd of dancers. Mothers
smiled. Old savants dreamily beat the rhythm with their feet; the heads
of young women were bent backwards and their eyes shone in enamored
glances. The enervating beatitude of that music caused them all to
tremble for an instant in spite of themselves with the same pleasure
that drew them together. At those moments one might have imagined
himself witnessing one of those gatherings where people of the same set
are fused in joyous intimacy and with the feeling of being secure among
themselves.

But the illusion disappeared with the last note. It was like refractory
liquids which, as soon as one ceases to beat them together, separate and
naturally resume their own color and their own place. The whirlwind of
the dancers was broken up; close embraces ceased and steady glances
turned away. Instinctively everyone fell back among his own set,
returned to his caste. Once more between hostile groups the floor in
the center of the room stretched out under the lights a desert of
frightening barrenness.

There were but a few daring young men from the great clubs who ventured
on it; Gerald de Meuze, Tommy Barbier, Patrice de Vernaise, Saint-Pons
and the little prince of Tavarande; they had committed themselves at the
urgent entreaty of Mme. de Saulvard. There were also some brother
officers of the fiancé, in sky-blue coats and red trousers with light
bands, most of them titled or bearing those bourgeois names which, while
not noble, announced at least an ancient worth and a duly established
family.

They walked round the drawing-rooms alone, or by twos, seemingly
meditative, supporting their bent elbows with one hand and curling their
mustaches with the other. They examined the women, one by one,
studiously, as if these had been cattle at a fair. With their heavy,
disdainful eyelids, one could hardly tell whether they were purposely
shrinking their eyes to the dimensions of that small world or whether
they were perhaps tormented by a persistent and rebellious desire to
sneeze.

Saulvard had vainly attempted at first to merge the other elements of
the assembly. He had had to give it up in the face of resistance.

Thus high finance and great industry and their satellites formed a
compact clan in the right-hand corner of the first drawing-room. They
laughed, cackled and chattered, and were sufficient unto themselves;
the minute a stranger dared to break in, seeking a chair or a little
more elbow room, in short, the slightest opening, this group assumed
dark countenances. They had a welcome for none but the representatives
of the aristocracy. The latter, however, were massed a little away from
them; they formed a small élite, had closed their ranks after the
necessary greetings, and henceforth affected to ignore their jovial
neighbors, reserving for each other their cordiality and their smiles.
Apart from a few noblemen whom the smell of blood or the need for
financial advice moved to approach the other clan, the aristocratic
group remained effectively faithful to its principles of separatism and
its arrogant virtuosity.

The Academicians also kept their distance. The five sections of the
Institute kept to their circle but did not fraternize. They hardly even
exchanged brief amenities or passed chairs to each other in order to
avoid any promiscuity with the Academy of Medicine--intruders who were
signaled to all by a volatile smell of iodoform or phenol brought in
their clothing.

The literary men and their wives had constituted a close circle with the
groups of painters and musicians. But even that brought forth constraint
or reciprocal animosity.

The result was that Saulvard, who stood on duty near the door, assumed
more and more the air of a guardian of a public dancing hall, or the
controller of a casino who checked the entrance of the subscribers and
jollied equally all his diverse classes of patrons.

He was short and bald; his yellow face was framed by two short white
whiskers--the face of a Japanese turned butler; he smiled ceaselessly,
bowed and straightened himself up again; he hopped on his high pointed
heels as if waiting, or thanking for, a tip. He murmured, following them
five or six steps, appropriate flatteries to all his invited guests, as
soon as they reached the doorstep. His glances wandered round, discreet
and confidential. From afar one might have thought that he was showing
the newcomers the way to the cloakroom.

As soon as the Raindal family appeared, he nimbly rose to meet them.

"Ah, my dear colleague!... What joy!... I was almost despairing...."

His two hands caught that of M. Raindal and he went on:

"I have not seen you since your success!... What a triumph!... What a
beautiful book!... Madame.... Mademoiselle...."

He bowed, then, standing on tiptoe so as to reach the ear of M. Raindal,
he whispered:

"You know, our young man is here ... a charming fellow. He will attract
your daughter very much.... No escape.... _Fata volunt_.... This way,
please, come, my dear colleague, and I shall bring you that phenix...."

By an instinctive pressure on the shoulder he shunted Raindal towards a
corner of the drawing-room where the section of the Inscriptions had
disposed its trenches. A few chairs were left unoccupied in the first
and second rows. M. and Mme. Raindal settled down behind and Thérèse sat
in front of them between the two daughters of one of her father's
colleagues. They were thin and small, like the raw-boned hectic teams
that draw the Paris public cabs. They conversed, but furtively inspected
the girl's dress. Thérèse looked up when she heard the voice of Saulvard
who was making his reappearance, followed by a young man of very short
stature.

"My dear friend, dear master," he called over the heads of the girls,
"allow me to introduce one of our young confrères, whose name you surely
know: M. Pierre Boerzell...." Each of the two savants mumbled courteous
expressions which the other could not catch. Then Saulvard added:

"M. Pierre Boerzell ... Mlle. Raindal."

The young man bowed awkwardly. The orchestra was preluding with the slow
harmonies of a waltz. He murmured:

"Mademoiselle, will you give me the pleasure of this waltz?"

Sympathetically Thérèse refused.

"No, Monsieur, thank you.... I don't dance ... but if you wish ... we
might, as one says, I believe, talk it...."

Boerzell stammered a grateful acceptance. The two "hackney horses" had
started immediately for the waltz. He took one of the chairs they had
left empty by the side of Thérèse. The conversation, which she had
cleverly directed at once towards scientific matters, became cordial and
almost familiar.

He was not handsome. His chest was narrow, his nose short; his cheeks
were bloated and flabby, almost falling over a suspicion of a beard. His
eyelids were heavy from night work. His eyes, however, behind the thick
glasses of his pince-nez, shone with a kind and tender light. When he
talked, his voice had those caressing and particular inflections of
intellectual people who enjoy having their words sound like true coin;
and while he spoke his gestures became more alert and vivacious; his
arms relaxed as he grew less embarrassed.

M. Raindal out of curiosity soon brought his chair forward and took part
in the discussion of the two young people. They were flirting over the
interpretation of a tri-lingual inscription recently discovered in
Mesopotamia. Thérèse was defending her interpretation with that
professional assurance, that man's voice, which she always assumed in
the course of scientific discussions.

"Ah, Monsieur!" Boerzell exclaimed in discouragement. "Mademoiselle is
very strong; she knows much more than I.... She has beaten me...."

Smilingly M. Raindal agreed.

"Well, you are not the first!... Often I myself...."

The waltz had finished and the two cab horses were coming back to their
stand which the young savant had to leave. He asked Thérèse:

"Would you allow me to take you to the buffet with Madame, your mother?"

"With pleasure, monsieur! Will you come, Mother?"

Mme. Raindal took Boerzell's arm and Thérèse followed behind, going
towards the buffet through the crowd of dancers who were returning to
their seats.

M. Raindal watched them go. He was sitting in his favorite position: his
elbows were pressed against his sides, his forearms up, and his hands
hung limp at the end of his wrists like the paws of a "begging" dog.
From his seat through the wide open door he could see without effort
into the dining-room. He perceived the back of his wife; she was bent
over the elaborate table hastily making her choice. Against the high
chimney covered with white blossoms Thérèse stood with Boerzell; they
were sipping out of their spoons a pink fruit-like ice; they stopped at
times and looked at each other laughingly, chatting, their heads close
together, like life-long friends.

If only she could make up her mind! If she would accept that young
man!... No, that would be too fine!... And yet, who knew!... The ebb and
flow of contradictory thoughts caused M. Raindal's lips to stretch in
softened smiles or to purse in bitter grimaces.

Then his colleagues approached and began to congratulate him upon his
new book. More of them joined the first ones. A small, applauding group
surrounded M. Raindal and hid his daughter from his sight. The last
comers tipped their heads to one side, straining their ears to catch the
master's replies. "You are very good...." "I am ashamed, really...." "Be
sure that on my side...." The complimenters vied with each other in
outbidding and protested their sincerity in extravagant praise.

At length the enthusiasm came to an end. They became silent and listened
to M. Raindal, who was recalling memories of his youth and the misery of
his early efforts.

Suddenly the purring voice of Saulvard caused the ranks of the audience
to open.

"Pardon, Gentlemen! Pardon!"

With one hand bent like the prow of a boat, he was making a path for a
dark-haired young woman who hung on his arm; he came to a stop near M.
Raindal.

"My dear friend.... Will you help me satisfy the wishes of one of your
lady admirers who is longing to make your acquaintance?... M. Eusèbe
Raindal ... Mme. Georges Chambannes...."

M. Raindal rose and bowed, one hand resting on the back of his chair.

"Madame, I am delighted...."

Mme. Chambannes protested.

"It is I, on the contrary, Monsieur...."

They stood facing each other in distress as if, in spite of their
mutual good will, they did not know what to say.

Shyly M. Raindal glanced at the young woman. Her little eagle face was
softened by light brown eyes with a languorous expression; the waves of
her black hair, brushed in classic style back towards her neck,
concealed in its rich coils something savage and willful. At length she
spoke again in halting sentences, the words often lacking the precision
which she might have desired.

"Yes, Monsieur, I greatly admire your book.... It is a charming book, a
great masterpiece.... I cannot say how much I was charmed with it, and
how much amused.... Ah! it must be so interesting to write books like
that.... And the style is so delightful, so pleasant to read!..."

"Well, I must leave you!" M. Saulvard interrupted, as he blinked his
slanting eyes.... "My guests.... Excuse me!..."

He disappeared leaving them alone, as the members of the little group
had discreetly vanished one by one.

After a glance of mutual agreement M. Raindal and the young woman sat
down to continue their conversation.

But he noticed the pale blue satin dress of Mme. Chambannes so close to
the black cloth of his trousers that instinctively he withdrew slightly
to one side. Smilingly she piled up her compliments. Then the discomfort
which the master habitually felt when conversing with people of
inferior culture--ignorant people, men or women of society--was
increased by the embarrassment he felt at being so close to the low-cut
dress of his admirer. Despite himself his glances were fastened to it
and followed her full and easy curves. It seemed to him that an
invisible force compelled his eyes to look at that skin, dull and
diaphanous like a piece of fine china, at those perfumed breasts that
rose and fell quietly against the ruffles of the opening without needing
its support for their young firmness. Distractedly, all out of place,
with sudden flights of thought, he answered the exclamations and
multiple queries of Mme. Chambannes. And while he tried to listen to her
he was comparing her to one of Cleopatra's attendants, one of those
dainty Greek slaves whose saucy prettiness provided a setting for the
Queen of Egypt, as nymphs around a goddess.

Nevertheless the lady's flow of praise was ceasing. Her smooth little
brow, framed by the two flat curls, was furrowed by a searching frown.
She found no more chapters or passages in which to plant her "so
charming" and her "so pretty" like equal good marks of alternate colors.
Suddenly her graceful face smiled again and her wide nostrils palpitated
with mischief. She teased M. Raindal with the challenge that he could
not guess her last reason for liking his book so much.

The master pretended to search. Finally he declared with modesty:

"I don't know."

"Well, think a moment," commanded Mme. Chambannes familiarly, rolling
her r's.

M. Raindal was not trying to find the answer but thought to himself.

"She is very attractive but somewhat silly!"

What he said aloud, imitating her tone, was:

"No, I really can't think what it is."

Then she resigned herself and voiced her secret, her final surprise, and
indeed her pretext for further acquaintanceship, her supreme bait. Well!
precisely, next winter, she intended to travel with her husband, to go
to Cairo, Alexandria and the Nile. M. Raindal's book had come in most
handy, at the precise moment when she was beginning to study the
Egyptian antiquities in view of that expected trip and naturally....

"My dear lady," a guttural voice interrupted them. "Forgive me.... Would
you be kind enough to introduce me to Monsieur...."

"Why, of course!"

Then she made the presentations.

"Monsieur le Marquis de Meuze ... one of our best friends ... and one
who adores your book."

He was a powerful old man with a majestic waistband and an aristocratic
carriage. His white whiskers and curled up white mustache gave him the
air of an Austrian general, for his was one of those heads which one
readily fancies wearing a gold-braided cocked hat ornamented with a
panache of green feathers. At the time of the financial smash of 1882,
he had suffered from an attack of facial paralysis which had deprived
him of the use of his left eyelid. It hung gray and lifeless and hid
three quarters of his eye--this infirmity completed, like a glorious
wound, his resemblance to an old warrior.

He multiplied protests of admiration. Then, following the immutable rule
which prompts most people to conclude their compliments with an apology,
he broached the true cause that had brought him to the master. He had
once possessed a collection of cameos, a quite remarkable and
exceptional collection. (As to the quality of the different pieces of
which it had been composed, M. Raindal could consult several of his
colleagues: the Count de Lastreins, of the Academy of Inscriptions;
Baron Grollet, unattached member of the Beaux Arts, or the Viscount de
Sernhac, of the Académie Française, all good friends or old comrades of
the Marquis.) Well, one of the gems of that collection had been a cameo
of Cleopatra. Alas! M. de Meuze had had to part with it, following
financial losses. But he knew where it had gone; into the hands of a
Jewish stock broker, a M. Stralhaus, and, if M. Raindal so desired, the
Marquis fancied that he could obtain permission to examine that piece.

The master neither accepted nor refused. The conversation circled around
the art of cameo-making, with a few comments on the closely-related
subject of numismatics, of which the marquis was not altogether
ignorant. Out of her element Mme. Chambannes piped softly at intervals
her "very prettys" and "very charmings." M. Chambannes, a tall,
fair-haired man, with a faded complexion, a weak eye and fine and scanty
hair, had joined her in the meantime. His thick cylindrical mustache was
like a hinged cover, so closely did it fit his lips. Taken as a whole,
his tired appearance might have been either that of a flabby scoundrel
or of a pleasant young man worn out by his excesses.

All three surrounded M. Raindal, who replied to their chatter with
assenting but weary smiles. He would have reproached himself had he
rebuffed ever so slightly strangers who were so courteous for all their
stupidity. Nevertheless, after a while he grew impatient with this
strained politeness, the end of which he could not foresee. He was now
equally bored by that old marquis with his verbose chatter, which was
worthy of a second-hand dealer, his stories about cameos, sales, and
bargains, and his quotations from catalogues.

At last reinforcements arrived to rescue him. Mme. Raindal returned with
Thérèse and Boerzell. Then began new introductions. Immediately Mme.
Chambannes briefly repeated her compliments. Mme. Raindal, blushing
continually, stammered replies that were like so many apologies. Thérèse
observed in silence; her virile glance judged it all mercilessly. Then
Mme. Chambannes asked what their receiving day was and if she might have
permission to call. There came a period of quiet when they merely
talked for the sake of talking, of the ball, the orchestra and the
dances. Of a sudden Mme. Chambannes called the marquis.

"M. de Meuze...."

"Madame?"

"A little secret. Will you permit me, ladies?"

Behind her spread-out fan she whispered a few words to M. de Meuze, who
listened, bent towards her, his eyebrows arched in deep attention.

"Do you think so?... I don't know whether he will.... Well, I shall take
a chance!"

He stepped uncertainly towards the next room, holding aloft his proud
field-marshal's head and searching the groups with his one small green
eye. At the door of the buffet he promptly turned to one side, his hand
stretched out like a hook to catch someone who was walking away from
him.

Thérèse could distinguish nothing but the square shoulders and the brown
neck above the shining white collar of the tall young man whom the
marquis had caught. No doubt M. de Meuze must be asking something absurd
and impracticable, for she could see that brown neck shaken in indignant
denials; the young man was apparently asserting that they were mad or
playing a trick upon him.... But suddenly she saw the neck assent and
the tall man turned right about, shrugging his shoulders. The heart of
Thérèse was suddenly twisted like a wounded serpent.

It was almost Albârt. An older Albârt, more refined, more fashionable,
of a superior class, but himself: the same big eyes of the color of a
dark agate, the same black mustache with its impertinent tips, the same
swaying of the body over two straight legs. He was coming towards her
preceded by the marquis, his eyes awake as if to reconnoitre from afar
and see what enemy it was against whom he was led.

Thérèse bent her head down; her back was strained against her chair; she
was gathered upon herself with fright. No longer did she see her parents
nor the Chambannes, nor Boerzell, nor the couples that were beginning to
dance, nor the people near her, nor those beyond. She saw nothing but
the long patent leather shoes, the long narrow feet of the young man,
and they were coming nearer, nearer still.

When they were quite close to her the marquis effaced himself and bowed.

"Mademoiselle, may I introduce my son, M. Gerald de Meuze...."

The young count was slightly swaying before her.

"Mademoiselle, will you please grant me the end of this dance?"

Unconsciously, in the tone of a schoolgirl, Thérèse replied:

"Monsieur, I cannot dance.... I do not know how."

"What does it matter? It all depends on your partner...."

He gave Mme. Chambannes a quick wink, either friendly or ironical, as if
he were winning a bet.

"No danger, Mademoiselle, I guarantee the waltz...."

Sharply, in a sudden need to see him well, to take in all his features,
Thérèse looked at him fixedly. She could not resist. Perspiration ran
down her back. She was dominated by the desire to be in those arms, as
once she had been in others so very much like them. She rose shortly,
her voice almost harsh in spite of the smile with which she tried to
correct it, and said:

"Very well, monsieur, let us try."

Gerald put one arm round her and they began to whirl. At the first steps
she stumbled out of ignorance and fear of losing the rhythm. Then he
lifted her as if she were a child and carried her off gently among the
dancers. Her feet no longer touched the floor. Couples brushed lightly
against her. She had the impression of sliding in rhythms upon clouds
with a robust lover. She closed her eyes. Voluptuous sobs choked her
throat. He thought she was out of breath and stopped.

"Well, mademoiselle.... What did I say?... It goes beautifully...."

Thérèse approved with a nod; her thin lips were pale with pleasure. The
count went on paternally:

"Dancing is like swimming!... You must throw yourself blindly into
it.... Music pushes you along like waves.... Then, after that, you have
nothing to do but let yourself go...."

In order to avoid an impolite silence he continued his theory and his
comparisons.

Thérèse gave him only half answers, in indistinct monosyllables. She was
regaining control of herself as she did upon awaking from those guilty
dreams when Albârt sometimes came in the night so gently to press her.

What! She, Thérèse Raindal, giving way as if she were a perverse child,
a boarding-school girl, in the arms of this insipid male! She was
disgusted with herself. In order to hide her chagrin she applied herself
to watching the leader of the gypsies, a big, olive-skinned man who
played with serious expression. The long movements of his bow tore from
his violin these panting melodies and his fat scarlet-coated chest
swayed with the effort; he had the listening eye and his eyelids
trembled. Thérèse envied his bestiality and the unthinking joy which
animated that man's dark face. Why was she not like that, a thoughtless
brute, without subtlety, one who lived only by his senses, which
supported him even in his art?... A movement from Gerald brought her
back.

"Do we start again?..."

She was still hoping she might refuse and, constraining herself,
murmured:

"But, monsieur, the dance is nearly over!"

"All the more reason.... One more round."

He had said this without enthusiasm and already his eyes turned to the
place where he had to bring her back. A sudden fear seized her. She saw
herself duly thanked, sitting down again, weaned for the rest of the
evening from these rediscovered delights. In a surge of stronger desire
she said resolutely:

"Well, yes, one more round."

He fell back with her among the dancing couples. His stretched arm gave
the beat in an imperceptible palpitation; at each of these soft passes
Thérèse felt the floor giving way under them. Unwittingly she fastened
herself to Gerald, squeezed herself in his embrace. At this contact the
whole past flew back to her in brutal jerks that maddened her.

She wanted to make a last appeal to her reasoning powers, to her
dignity, to that Mlle. Raindal that she was. But she was dazed,
ravished. She ceased to struggle and, her eyes once more closed,
abandoned herself as a woman who gives in with dread and frenzy.

Gerald guessed nothing at all of this confusion. He smiled at his
comrades. His scornful glances called upon them to witness what a
"wall-flower," what a "package," what a "wood-basket" he had to steer
around. Another great idea they had had, his father and Zozé!...
Moreover that young child was pulling all the skin off his shoulder with
her bony fingers that clung to him to save her from falling. Ah! Well!
This was really too much! A feverish pinching gripped his shoulder. As
he bent down to see if by chance the little one was not losing her head,
he had to hold Thérèse back with his two arms. She had fainted, white
and stiff as a corpse.

"This is the last drop! Just my luck!..."

He swung her rapidly towards the hall, jostling a little the people who
were in his way. He set her upon a bench against a wall and ran out to
warn the family.

In a twinkle the Raindals, the Chambannes, Boerzell and the marquis
jumped to their feet and rushed with him to Thérèse.

Mme. Chambannes pulled out of her pocket a gold bottle of salts, the top
of which was a shining ruby; almost on her knees she brought it to the
young girl's nostrils, but Thérèse made no movement. Only a faint sad
moan escaped from her parted lips which showed her uneven teeth. They
bathed her temples with fresh water but this brought no result either.
As one goes to requisition the firemen on duty, Saulvard had marched
straight to the corner where the Academy of Medicine was encamped in
order to find a doctor. One came, put his ear to the moist skin of
Thérèse and gave his diagnosis.

"The girl is choking.... You must loosen her dress!"

At last she opened her eyes in Mme. Saulvard's room, where her mother
and Mme. Chambannes had taken her.

At once her glance fell with stupefaction upon her opened dress. Then
she recognized Mme. Chambannes bending over her in the pose of a
guardian angel, and her mother praying beside her as if she were at the
bedside of someone on the point of death.

She turned her head away. She saw again all the details of her
accident, the unavoidable intoxication that had made her lose her head
and her ridiculous fall in the middle of a dance. What a double insult
to her pride! She wanted to plunge into nothingness, to destroy with her
own body the memory of it all. Revolt caused her to choke and suddenly
she burst into tears.

"That's right! That's right! Cry! Quiet your nerves!" Mme. Chambannes
encouraged her.

This vulgar solicitude merely exasperated Thérèse. She mastered herself
suddenly, stood up, and in a rage began to fasten her dress again.

In the mirror she shunned the eyes of her mother and of Mme. Chambannes.
A growing anger put fresh speed into her fingers. Yes! They might well
look at her! She had indeed the look of a woman who had just fainted.
She could not have jumped up in worse disorder and less command of
herself had a man seen her thus undressed and disheveled. Her eyes shone
bigger; her eyelids showed a dark shadow as if she had spent a sleepless
night. Perspiration had laid oily tints on the wings of her nostrils and
marked her powdered cheeks with greasy lines. Her bunch of carnations
had fallen down; there was a deep gap in her hair, just over her
forehead, like a dark-edged wound. In her haste she had hooked her
corsage awry and the gauze gaped over her breast, a loose, transparent
cord.

"Poor girl!" Mme. Chambannes risked.... "Do you feel better?"

Thérèse coldly replied:

"Much better, madame, thank you."

She turned to her mother and asked in a tone of command:

"Well, mother, are we going?"

"Just as you say, dear," Mme. Raindal replied.

They went to the anteroom where the men were waiting.

As she came in sight, Gerald rushed forward to inquire and Boerzell
imitated him. But Thérèse, with intentional oversight, hurried towards
the cloakroom. When she came back, leaning on her father's arm, they
were gone. Stupefied, M. Raindal, his satin hat curled under his arm,
supported her wearily. Mme. Raindal closed the cortège, her back bent
under her cape as if she had been an aged servant. Saulvard escorted
them to the top of the stairs.

"It is the heat, that damned heat!" he repeated petulantly.

Bending his little form over the ebony banisters, he shouted:

"To-morrow, I shall send for news.... It will be nothing, I hope, my
dear colleague!"

       *       *       *       *       *

In the cab that took them home M. Raindal had sat opposite them, leaving
the back seat to his wife and daughter. For a long time they were
silent. Dreamily they gazed through the windows dimmed by the steam,
watching the black streets and the gas street-lamps with their yellow
flames flattened in fanshape. Sitting sideways the master lost his
balance at every jump of the wheels. He had to catch himself up with the
help of the strap that hung in front of the windows; the hard leather
cut his hands and the wooden door hurt his bones. A heavier jolt threw
him against his daughter. Thérèse exclaimed impatiently:

"Father, you are very uncomfortable. Come and sit here between us."

"No," M. Raindal replied, "not at all.... Don't you move.... Well, how
are you getting on?"

"Very well, father, thank you."

Silence fell again and once more Thérèse sat motionless.

Through the semi-darkness M. Raindal contemplated her pouting profile
behind which, no doubt, lurked sorrowful thoughts. He mustered all his
energy and gently asked:

"Well, dear?"

She repeated, "Well, what, father?"

A pause. Then M. Raindal spoke.

"Well, this young man.... At the dance." Thérèse started; she looked at
him fiercely and replied with bravado:

"What young man?"

"This M. Boerzell!"

A sigh of relief escaped her. Oh, only that one.... Poor fellow, she had
forgotten him so! She smiled, and her voice firmly uttered:

"No, father, never!"

M. Raindal insisted.

"Why? You seemed to like him...."

"Yes, to talk to, perhaps ... but that's all."

"And so you don't want him?... You have thought it over well? Let me
know at least...."

"You know since I told you.... I don't want him."

She grabbed her father's hand and tenderly bent towards him, offering
her cheek.

M. Raindal kissed her and grunted:

"As you like. I have no right to compel you."

Then cunningly, to make sure, he added, without releasing her hand:

"To be sure, he is not such a good-looking man as the other one."

He paused, feeling the contraction in his daughter's hand.

"Yes, the other one.... Your dancer.... What was his name?... This M. de
Meuze...."

Sharply Thérèse pulled her hand back and said with vexation:

"Oh, father, don't make any comparison, please.... M. Boerzell does not
appeal to me.... I refuse him.... That's enough.... I think I am old
enough, am I not?"

The master did not reply. There was no doubt about it. It was that tall
man, that sort of worldly Dastarac, who had spoiled everything and
ruined the prospects of little Boerzell owing to that advantageous
height of his. A lost attempt! M. Raindal became absorbed in
self-recriminations. Nothing more was heard but the noise of the wheels
on the pavement and the vibrations of the carriage windows in their
frames.

Thérèse, her head bent back, was apparently dozing, and so was Mme.
Raindal in her corner. But she was not asleep. A remorseful torture,
more atrocious than a nightmare, kept her eyes awake under their lids.
With anguish she was estimating the number of hours that would stretch
before the next morning, the blessed moment when she could confess her
recent sins in the peace of the Church. Had she not, prompted by thirst,
or led into temptation, helped herself three times to iced coffee and
twice to _marquise au champagne_, without counting a number of
_petits-fours_ and other dainties?




CHAPTER V


It was past eleven o'clock and Mme. Chambannes had almost finished
dressing when someone knocked at her door. Her maid opened it just
enough to allow one arm to pass in, holding a special delivery letter,
while a voice proclaimed:

"Telegram for Madame."

"Give it to me ... quick!" Mme. Chambannes said.

Her maid was fastening her dress, but left it and hurried to take the
message.

Mme. Chambannes tore it open with trembling fingers and read rapidly,
glancing hurriedly at the lines:

Tuesday morning, 10 A. M.

     My dear little Zozé: I am sure I don't know what I could have been
     thinking of at the dance last night when I told you we would lunch
     together in our little nest. I pledged myself to the Mathays a week
     ago. Thank Heaven, I remembered it in time. We shall make up for
     this. Forgive my carelessness; till to-day at 4. In haste, all the
     kisses of your old

G.

Quietly she folded the note and laid it on the wash-stand. Then she
selected two small pearl-headed pins and carefully pinned them on her
broad-winged cravat. She found it growing too hard for her to repress
her feelings, however, and there was a catch in her voice as she
murmured:

"Leave these things, Anna! Bring me my pink negligé...."

"Madame, then, is not going out?" the maid protested, in feigned
surprise.

Mme. Chambannes threw her corsage on a chair and feverishly began to
unfasten her skirt.

"No! I am not going out."

"Will Madame lunch here? Shall I call the cook?" "Yes.... No...." Zozé
stammered out. "Tell her to prepare lunch for me ... whatever she
has...."

"Very well, Madame."

A moment later she returned holding on her arm a long soft gown with
pink ribbons. Mme. Chambannes slipped into it; while she fastened the
ribbons she ordered dryly:

"Go now!"

Anna disappeared. Mme. Chambannes dropped into a little cretonne-covered
armchair.

       *       *       *       *       *

They were not to lunch together. It was certain, definite, irrevocable.
Between her and that Mathay woman Gerald had not even hesitated. Yet he
must have foreseen how it would hurt her, and what poignant
disappointment he would cause her by breaking his promise at the last
moment.

Wretch! She conjured up a picture of him, sitting at the dining table
beside the countess, that small fair-haired woman with her turned-up
nose, her childish, impudent, saucy face. He was making himself
pleasant, prattling pretty nonsense, fashioning his glances to hers and
using his big eyes to offer himself. The lunch was perhaps ending, they
were going into the hall to drink their coffee! Who knew? Mathay might
be going out, leaving them alone, like the great fool of a husband he
was! Well, then, what would happen? Did they not all know that young
giddy countess? She had no name for being a stronghold, the Capitol!...
Oh! what infamy! what an abject situation!

Mme. Chambannes would have liked to snatch out her own heart and hurl it
through the window, far, far away. Her nails caught at her gown where it
was beating against the armor of her corset. Her mind dwelt on
reprisals, as it did whenever she saw Gerald's treason as an
accomplished fact.

Yes! She would have revenge! She would do as he did; she would give
herself to another, to anyone of the many who made love to her. Names of
men began to surge in her mind, with proper settings. There was the
studio of Mazuccio, the little sculptor, the flat of Burzig or that of
Pums, the husband of her friend Flora. They were all eager to welcome
her; all would receive her as a queen who condescended to offer herself.
She would cry out from the door: "Here I am! Take me!" And they would
fall on their knees, stammering their thanks with tears of happiness.

These flattering visions quieted her. She walked to her dressing-room,
trying to fix upon her choice. To whom would she appeal? They were
equally repugnant to her. As she imagined herself in the arms of any of
them, a shiver of repulsion caused her to shake her head. Phew! She
would require too much courage for her spite to make her lower herself
to that extent! Moreover, it might be that none of them was free. She
would then risk a polite refusal! No ... everything was against it ...
and she admitted sadly to herself that, besides, she never could go
through with it!

She fell back into her armchair. Her muscles pained her as if she had
been walking all day.

She took up the note from the marble. As she read it again, every word
in it seemed an insult or a lie. Tears rushed to her eyes. Sorrow took
the place of rage. How nasty, how cold and pitiless Gerald was
sometimes! She wished for the near presence of some mothering friend who
could understand and pity her, in whom she could confide and who would
weep with her. Yet she had none! Alas, neither Flora Pums, nor Rose
Silberschmidt, nor Germaine de Marquesse, her friends with whom she had
followed the lessons of Levannier, nor her kind Aunt Panhias had a soul
that was lofty and charitable enough! Zozé's pride revolted at the very
idea of their concealed joy or their coarse comforting words.

She fell to sobbing again.

An impression rose in her that she was stranded on a desert island. She
would have readily welcomed death. In such dramatic moments she felt
forlorn, very much the "little Mouzarkhi girl," quite alone and alien,
this unfortunate Mme. Chambannes, for all her French name and Parisian
education! She was only a poor exotic flower, planted near the surface
of an alien land and the short roots she had taken gave way at the
slightest storm as if they were mere threads! There was no help for her
in her distress! She had not even the solace of a trust in Heaven, of a
refuge in God, since she had been brought up without any religion. When
she wanted to pray, there came back to her nothing but a short, strange
prayer, one that her kind Aunt Panhias used to make her repeat every
night when she was a child, kneeling down in her nightdress by the side
of her bed. Unconsciously she now repeated it.

"Be blessed, O my God!

"Help me to be good, to work well, to satisfy Father, Mother, my aunt
and my uncle and not to let Father be ruined on the Stock Exchange
to-morrow. Amen!"

The last words brought a smile to her lips. She remembered her father,
dead these seven years, her good old father, at once so strangely kind
and so dishonest.

He had been a type, that Mouzarkhi. His origin had remained obscure and
inexplicable to his intimates, to his own countrymen as much as to the
others.

He had, one day, landed in Paris from Aleppo, without knowing anyone,
with no references, no patrons of any kind. In six months he had gained,
on 'Change, one of the most powerful situations any broker could secure
there. Of course, people said that he gambled and gained more by his
coups than through his commissions. But he enjoyed the benefit of the
respectful indulgence which, in such circles, is readily bestowed upon
lucky gamblers. Nor did he hide his speculations. He had sworn to stop,
to give up all work, as soon as he reached the million mark. He was on
the eve of touching it when he met with his first smash. His liabilities
amounted to twice his assets. He disappeared discreetly for a few weeks.
Then he came back. He was active, cordial, and ingenuous and rapidly
built himself up a new credit and a new clientele. His activities had
now assumed a nobler aim, that of paying his debts. During the next two
years he was most regular in paying sums on account. At the end of that
time, there was left only an amount of 300,000 francs for him to pay. He
lost patience, however, gambled once more to liberate himself faster,
and thus he met his second "smash." Ill-luck did not break him. Once
more he took up his traffic, leading a merry, easy-going life, working,
paying off, speculating, being "hammered," springing up again like a
light, strong balloon. He did not, however, survive his sixth smash.
That time he had fallen from too high a flight, from a fictitious
fortune of at least two millions down to nothing. He died of apoplexy,
right on 'Change, insolvent, of course, but leaving the reputation of a
very sympathetic fellow and of a highly gifted financier.

He had, nevertheless, as a good father should, assured beforehand the
future of his family.

First of all, when Mme. Mouzarkhi had died a few years after their
arrival in Paris, he had called his brother-in-law, M. Panhias, and his
wife, and entrusted them with the bringing up of little Zozé. Where had
they come from? From Aleppo, Ghazir or Stambul? Were they Greeks, Jews,
Turks or Maronites? Nobody had been able to find out, since the Panhias
had proved as reserved concerning their origin as M. Mouzarkhi himself.
Both had an undefinable accent which suggested all in one the Spanish,
the Hungarian and the Moldo-Vallach languages. Panhias, modest and
reserved, acted as confidential clerk in his brother-in-law's business
house. Mme. Panhias watched with faithful care over the education of the
little girl; she took her to her lessons during the day and sat up with
her in the evenings, while the father went to the theater or elsewhere.
She was large, pleasant and, by fits, communicative. Through her, people
learned that the Panhias had not been seriously affected by the débâcle
of their relation and that they still had, despite their losses, about
15,000 a year. Upon the other points, she had preserved the silence
which was a traditional virtue of the family.

Again, M. Mouzarkhi had had the foresight to give his daughter a
husband, a year before taking his final jump. The affair, which had been
broached by one of his Bourse colleagues, had not been settled without
difficulties. They were cautious on both sides. Inquiring agencies had
been consulted and forwarded particulars that induced certain fears.
They gave M. Mouzarkhi the character of a man personally popular among
his colleagues but with a credit that was doubtful and often weak. As to
George Chambannes, the son of a little doctor in the province of Berri,
himself an ex-student of the École Centrale, they made him out to be an
engineer of talent, industrious and daring, but one who had, so far,
achieved nothing and who sought his way through dubious enterprises.
They had, however, debated the matter on both sides, each side feeling
that too much precaution would be out of place. A compromise was struck,
on the ground of future expectations, of respective faith in better
times to come. Finally the negotiations came to a successful issue.

Zozé, who had but one wish--marriage which would free her from the
Panhias guardianship and assure her liberty, showed her willingness from
her first meeting with young Chambannes. He was, moreover, good-looking
and smart and had caressing, winning ways. He did not insist upon a
Church wedding when M. Mouzarkhi, who was anxious to preserve
neutrality--or was it his incognito?--in religious matters, declared it
would be contrary to his principles, as an "Old Republican" and a
positivist. In truth, Zozé would have had to exhibit a baptismal
certificate; M. Mouzarkhi had neglected to provide her with one; the
need to obtain one now would further delay the marriage. Thus they were
married at the city hall. The whole of the Petite Bourse flocked to the
place; there were even a few persons from the Haute Banque, among whose
numbers M. Mouzarkhi counted, if no friends, at least some admirers. The
evening came and the young couple settled down in a pretty mansion on
the rue de Prony, a wedding present from the financier. To the house he
had added a capital of 100,000 francs in order to help the engineer find
that road to success which he was seeking.

George Chambannes found nothing at all, but he spent the whole amount in
the course of the next two years and heavily mortgaged the mansion.

Nor did he cut down expenses. Quite the contrary. He kept them up and
even increased them, by means of gambling, secret expedients and
unsavory manipulations. Gossips said that he was in receipt of money
from some generous old ladies, whose names were quoted. These rumors
found few incredulous listeners, because Chambannes was handsome, a
spendthrift, and with no visible profession or resources. Discredit is
like glory; it has its own legends which everyone, out of spite or
stupidity, wishes to credit. Zozé was not alarmed at his spending his
nights in gambling houses, leaving his own bed untouched, or at his
seeming peevish. She had never known what financial embarrassment meant,
even during the unlucky periods of her father's career. To pocket sums
of money and, when these were squandered, to ask for, and receive more,
seemed to her to be woman's natural functions. Only a refusal, a
reproach or a check upon her luxurious ways could have worried her. But
George never was stingy.

It was only after she heard from a friend that George was running after
women that she modified her existence. The change was hardly
perceptible; it took place without scenes or noise. She took a lover.

The latter was a relation of hers whom she deemed her cousin. His name
was Demetrius Vassipoulo. He had not been more than eighteen months in
Paris, was quite young--just turned three and twenty--and sported a thin
brown mustache that seemed drawn with a pencil; yet Demetrius was
already racing up on the footsteps of his Uncle Mouzarkhi. His future
was already being discounted "on 'Change," as if it had been a state
loan; he would surely make a colossal fortune or suffer a far-echoing
bankruptcy.

All day he ran through Paris, reclining in his carriage, which was hired
by the month. His languid arm lay on the folded hood, like that of a
rich capitalist stretching himself out. The brass on the harness and the
horse's bell signaled his arrival and sparkled in the sunshine, his
ensigns of triumph.

Zozé loved him three months. He had the hot passion of an animal and the
ingenuousness of a savage. He amused her and she told of his ardor to
two or three intimate friends who drew comparisons with their own
lovers. She initiated him into the attractions of social life, covering
his candor with the web of established customs, just as his tailor
dressed him according to fashion.

However, she was tired of Demetrius after three months. She kept him for
another two, out of kindness, she thought, albeit it was really out of
caution and, perhaps unwittingly, because she had not found a better.

The moment she fancied that she had discovered the matchless lover, she
wasted no time in breaking with the youthful financier. She gave as a
pretext that her husband had been warned and that she had to safeguard
her honor. Demetrius wept bitterly and roared out his sorrow in words so
harsh sounding that one might have thought it the cry of a stricken
lion. Zozé felt remorseful during a whole week. At night she imagined
herself hearing again his unintelligible cries. She dreamt of wild
animals threatening her. Her new lover reproached her with being gloomy
and sighing without cause.

Her grief was not really eased until she saw Demetrius one night at the
_Noveau Cirque_. He was in evening dress, with a white bow and
carnations in his buttonhole; leaning on the front seat of a private
box, by the side of a fat blonde girl, he was blowing his smoke in the
faces of the clowns.

Henceforth she felt no qualms; Lastours, her new lover, had no further
cause to complain.

He dealt in paintings in a little house in the rue d'Offémont. He was
dark and bald, with the beard of a minion, a brutal mouth and the hands
of a street-porter. He held an advantageous place in the syndicate of
those painter-dealers whom the Paris of the _parvenus_ freely provides
with both a living and notoriety. He frequented assiduously the
fashionable drawing-rooms of the smart set, mixed with the élite of
clubs and art circles, dressed like a sportsman, was as funny as a low
comedian and carried about him a vague perfume of something beyond, an
aristocratic vapor which seemed to float above his square shoulders.
Listening to him, Zozé felt nearer the world of fashion. He was to her
the higher step on the social ladder; merely to see that step was as
good as believing she was on it and she clung to it with delight. She
admired, as if they stood for the finest wit, his studio gossip, his
prankish school ditties and the obscenity of his conversation. He had
but to say a word and she laughed outright; she rushed to satisfy his
slightest whim; in three months Chambannes took three paintings off his
hands. Nevertheless Lastours soon abused his privilege. She dreamed of
nothing else but the satisfaction of his desires and yet he treated her
like a servant, ill-treated her when he was in bad humor; he even
ordered the gentle Zozé, after their meetings, to fasten his boots for
him.

Such insolence, daily renewed, exasperated the unhappy woman and acted
upon her love as water upon flames.

She was fresh, loving and of a pleasant disposition; why should she be
denied that happiness of the heart which fell to the lot of so many
other women less beautiful than she was? In moments of passing
intuition, Zozé gave herself the melancholy reply: They were often less
beautiful, that was true, but they were Parisiennes; they were well read
and resolute; they operated upon their native soil, while she was a
little Mouzarkhi, blindly floating at the whim of her instincts, groping
and stranded more than any girl lost on alien soil!... The next day,
with renewed hope, she would go back to Lastours!

When she ceased to love him, she wanted to avenge the outrages he had
piled upon her. Following a banal, instinctive strategy, she gave
herself to one of his friends--also a painter and one of Lastours'
competitors--by the name of Montiers, who lived two doors further down
the street.

This man was fat and red-headed and concealed his nature even less than
the other had done. He was more ambitious and greedy for money than
Lastours and entertained not the least intention of wasting his time
with women. It was business before anything else with him. For the sake
of a prospective sale, a meeting with a client or a patron's call, he
would dismiss Zozé or put off her visit without hesitation. Once he had
kept her, frozen and crazy with fear, shut up for a whole hour in the
dark closet used by his models to disrobe in, because some rich American
had chanced to turn up at the studio during her visit.

When the American had departed, Montiers walked about the room so elated
by his successful transaction that he forgot to deliver his prisoner. He
only opened the door when he heard her cries; and when he opened it he
smiled, seeing only the humorous side of the affair, while Zozé wept for
vexation and grief.

After six weeks such treatment she was thoroughly disgusted with
Montiers, and with fashionable painters, and indeed--or so she
thought--with adventurous _affaires_ in general.

Who would have thought that these men, who were outwardly so courteous,
so much made of and so much petted by the most beautiful women, could
prove themselves so mean upon intimacy? Why should she keep up these
casual liaisons, expose herself to such insults which lacked even the
excuse of accompanying tenderness; why seek happiness in love instead of
waiting for it?

What, moreover, did she lack in order to be the most envied young woman?

George was spending more nights at home: he showed himself more
courteous and took her frequently to dances and plays. On her last
birthday he had hired a carriage by the month for her. His affairs were
at last taking a better turn. He was gradually paying off his bills and
the interest due on the mortgage. Zozé had a vague idea that he was
consulting engineer to a large mining company owning mines in Bosnia.

A sort of Indian summer of affection brought her suddenly nearer to her
husband. She boasted of it to her friends and declared that the age of
folly had passed for her. In order to fill the vacancy left by her
lovers, she threw herself with ardor into the pleasures of the mind.

Mercilessly, without choice or respite, she read every new book her
bookseller offered her. Memoirs, fiction, poetry and travel books merely
whetted her appetite. "I am devouring them!" she would say. And in point
of fact, that was precisely what she did; she swallowed and engulfed her
readings; she digested nothing, retained nothing.

She became a subscriber to lectures, delighted in old songs and waxed
enthusiastic over new ones. She went to concerts on Sundays and dreamt
in music of her past liaisons. The only branch of intellectual pleasure
she neglected was painting; she never went to the Salon, out of spite
for the painters. However, no light of understanding pierced through
this chaos of contrary studies. Mme. Chambannes was surprised that,
having learned so much, she had not acquired more assurance. Her
opinions ran away from her call, like so many flies. She stammered
whenever she had to express a personal view. And, in the end, the joys
of the intellect bored her....

Her memories of the next two years were misty....

What had she been doing during those two years? She remembered that
George had received the Légion d'Honneur on the 14th of July. But the
rest, her furious hunt for the perfect lover whom her heart and her
senses called for in spite of herself--what was there left of it? Was it
not withered, pressed tight at the back of her brain by weightier and
more urgent affairs? Two anemic shadows re-appeared at her conjuring,
standing in a dim, gray light: herself invariably one of them; while the
other was this one or that one, names and features forgotten, or
confusedly mixed up under the stamp of time. There had been flirtations
at dances, some mild drives in closed carriages, unfinished kisses, mere
sketches of self-giving, several vain attempts to reach the ideal and
many false hopes and shattered illusions. How could she have felt any
affection for those men, those German bank clerks, those exotic, dumpy
fellows, more elaborately dressed than gentlemen should be and more
caddish than the worst bounders could be! Had she given herself to them?
Perhaps she had. To one or two of them, or to none at all? In sooth, she
was not at all positive about it. Later, when she gravely swore to
Gerald that she had never had but one lover, her conscious fib put that
bungling little Mouzarkhi girl only two out of reckoning!

Her search was not guided solely by mere animality.

She longed secretly for an ideal lover. Her day dreams accentuated one
feature after the other of his exquisite portrait. But the imagination
of many women acts as their body does. It can reproduce but not create.
That of Mme. Chambannes, impregnated by the reading of fashionable
novels, was acting on a given formula.

She imagined the expected hero with a large blonde beard, melancholy
eyes wherein passed at times the moist shadow of an old sorrow; he would
also have an income of 30,000 or 40,000 francs and a name which, if not
a noble one, belonged at least to the smart and wealthy bourgeoisie.

He would have bitterly suffered at the hands of women, of one
especially, a treacherous actress, in love with deceit, notoriety and
money. Unwittingly, Mme. Chambannes allowed her mind to dwell on this
last point.... The disillusioned lover to come would lift his upper lip
in a contraction that showed what bitter experiences he had undergone.
From his lips would surge blasphemies against the perfidious sex, man's
enemy. Thereupon Mme. Chambannes would tenderly stop the anathemas with
her kisses; she would lay that sorrowful head upon her breast and bring
smiles back to those defiant lips. If necessary, and he wished it, she
would go away with him. They would then become exiles on a small English
island, far from the wicked world, and stay for hours together sitting
alone on the sands of the seashore, hand in hand, indefinitely
contemplating the changing play of the waves or the ships returning
home.

Why did this hero fail to arrive? She had made everything ready to
receive him, even to follow him; down to an imaginary list of dresses
and things which she would hurriedly pile up in a wicker trunk held by
yellow straps and covered on the outside with a shining piece of black
cowhide!

He tarried on his way, but he did arrive.

He was of the stay-at-home variety, selfish, titled, a libertine, he
wore no beard, he had no languorous airs and no spite against anyone.
Nevertheless Mme. Chambannes adored him from the very first.

His name was Gerald de Meuze, son of the Marquis de Meuze, of the Poitou
branch of the Meuzes. George had known him at college and later lost
sight of him.

The introduction occurred at one of the Auteuil races. It was a quiet
Thursday, almost an intimate spring meeting. It proved decisive.

George, out of pride or his passion for gambling, soon left them alone
to look after his bets, and Gerald stuck close to Mme. Chambannes.

He walked her out before the reserved seats, escorted her to the
paddock, lost his way with her behind the buildings on the broad green
expanses which were deserted by the public whenever a new race began.

A strong odor of hay, damp and sharp as a sea air-laden breeze, entered
their lungs. Mme. Chambannes could hardly speak for happiness. A new
ecstasy caused her breasts to tremble under her light silk blouse. She
walked with her head bent forward, her eyes aimlessly watching the tips
of her shiny patent leather shoes sliding on the grass. At last the
longed-for lover had come! She had got hold of him! No power could have
dissuaded her! She laughed nervously at all the remarks of Gerald,
thinking that, when she looked at him she was replying to him; she
thought she was losing her mind; the handle of her saffron sunshade
trembled against her shoulder.

The little Mouzarkhi girl would have felt even more intoxicated had she
heard what was being said of her in the exclusive club members' tribune,
among the friends of the young Count.

They were asking each other, with sly winks, who that pretty little
woman was Gerald was keeping so close to. Not one of them knew. A
professional? No, she could not be that. Probably a little woman from
some sunny, hot land, whom that rascal de Meuze made feel warmer still,
in order to tease the baroness.... Why, yes ... the Baroness Mussan ...
from whom he had parted ... it was over ... didn't you know?... Oh, not
more than a fortnight.... Just the same, this one was a jolly,
good-looking creature!

And the success of Zozé was no less real in the ladies' tribune.

Of course, the good ladies did not spare her the contemptuous tone
which they used indiscriminately when passing judgment upon all women
who were not of their caste: demi-mondaines, actresses or plain
bourgeoises. Yet, apart from that disdain, their verdict was a favorable
one. They found the strange woman nice, her dress a good fit and Gerald
a man of taste. Several maliciously inquired about Zozé's name of the
baroness who, to save her face, joined the others in praising her.

Yet, Mme. Chambannes perceived nothing of this exciting triumph. How
could she discern it? She saw no one in the whole crowd but Gerald, her
true mate, her lover to be. She walked on, with evasive glances, like a
happy bride advancing to the altar on her wedding day.

She was almost there when the races were over. Gerald had begged her,
had pressed her as if he were already her master. He wanted to see her
again, to possess her, the very next day. She remembered his ardent
voice when, on leaving her, he had dared to whisper in the midst of the
crowd, within George's own hearing:

"Why won't you to-morrow? Oh! please, don't refuse me!"

Nevertheless, she had refused, with a slow movement of her head, while
her eyes turned up as if plunging into despair.

She had to resist, to oppose this man with as much coldness and as much
caution as he was deserving of her love; she had to make him gain her
instead of abandoning herself to him. A voice within her dictated this
unusual reserve to Mme. Chambannes; she heeded it like the voice of
duty, being persuaded that her delays were safeguarding the future.

She gave in only after a siege of three weeks, at the moment when he had
grown discouraged and was on the verge of renouncing his intentions.

During that period, she had thought deeply and found out what she
wanted, with that superhuman cunning which women often show in order to
arm and defend their threatened passion.

She now knew everything about Gerald. He had led an idle, discontented
life since the time of the financial smash of 1882, when, in a fit of
juvenile anger, he had resigned his commission in the _30th
cuirassiers_. From the disaster his father had saved him a yearly income
of about 40,000 francs. She learned also the names of the people of his
set; heard of many of his liaisons, without names this time, all about
the last one ... with the baroness; she was told of his antipathy for a
world wherein his reduced circumstances no longer allowed him to figure
as he wished.

Upon this information, she had rapidly drawn her plans. Two methods were
possible in order to keep Gerald a prisoner.

Either she could rise and enter, with his help, the haughty circles of
his peers, where he would find no difficulty in introducing and imposing
her. She could thus know of all his movements, easily keep an eve on
him and fend off any possible danger.

Or else she could take advantage of his weariness, gently lead him away
from this set of which he affected to be tired and afford him, in her
own house, a home that would be brighter, easier and more novel.

In the first case, a thousand obstacles stood before her. There would be
innumerable petty deeds to perpetrate in the midst of much uncertainty,
delay and humiliation. A short while back, George's candidacy had been
"adjourned" in two sporting clubs. The committees of those clubs, more
rigorous in their verdicts than a Council of Ministers, had successively
denied the white balls of their assent to a man upon whom the Government
had bestowed the guarantee of the Cross of Honor. She would therefore
expose herself to a rebuff, on this hostile ground, where she would be
on an inferior footing. Mme. Chambannes chose the second method.

A few months proved sufficient for her to transform her life, organize
receptions and assume regular visiting days. She convened her most
attractive friends, some of Gerald's comrades, men of letters, musicians
and even artists, when she had conquered her own repugnance for them.
Thus, gradually she established for his evenings, as a supplement to
their afternoon meetings elsewhere, a composite but sympathetic salon, a
place for simple enjoyment where both men and women could come, without
putting on any airs and without afterthoughts, with the sole intention
of meeting each other and the firm desire to have a pleasant time.

Mme. Chambannes was near her goal. Gerald was captivated, attracted and
firmly held; he surrendered to his lady, swore fealty, faithfulness and
lasting love--and made Zozé's house his own. He reigned therein, an
all-powerful despot, coaxed by the husband, flattered by the visitors,
servilely obeyed by Mme. Chambannes who rejoiced in, and was thankful
for, the love at last acquired and conquered, the love unique forever,
and more than legitimate, since it was even romantic and glorious!...
Then came one evening when the young Count brought in his father. The
Marquis de Meuze was charmed with his "daughter-in-law," as he nicknamed
Zozé to his own soul. He came again, of his own accord, having found the
place attractive, the women pretty and the cooking excellent....

Yet, what struggles, what efforts she had made before she achieved
victory! Every day she still had to use her craft and stratagems in
order to keep her nobleman, to keep the thieves off and take care of the
competition.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mme. Chambannes thought of these things and gave a deep sigh. She stared
aimlessly at the iridescent foam that the sugar sent up to the top of
her coffee cup. Suddenly the sullen voice of Anna called her back to her
reflections.

"Is Madame going out? May I get Madame's clothes ready?"

Mme. Chambannes was stupefied.

"What is the time?" she asked.

"Almost two o'clock, Madame."

Two! Why, she had left her room, gone to lunch, eaten and drunk and sat
there all that time, not knowing what she was doing, her mind wandering
far away, on the obscure paths of the past!

Sleepily, she replied:

"Yes, I am going out.... Give me my blue dress.... My astrakhan
coat...."

She went wearily to the window and lifted the curtains. A heavy white
mist hung low between the houses. It seemed as if a smoke was rising
from everything, from the trees in the park, at the end of her street,
from the street pavement and from the asphalt on the sidewalks; even men
and horses that passed by threw it out of their nostrils in thick,
parallel clouds. Far, far above, the sun gave out a pale light, like a
lamp in a room where men have smoked much.

Such a cold, funereal day was a good day for lovemaking, was it not?
Mme. Chambannes dreamt. To love Gerald, all kinds of weather seemed
propitious to her, as the lower classes think all days are good for
drinking.

Where was her _Raldo_ now, he of the great, wide, beloved eyes? How she
detested the unworthy wretch!... What were they talking about at the
Mathays', in the drawing-room darkened by the fog? Naïvely, she let the
curtains down again, as if she feared to see. Once more sobs came to her
throat! Well, she must forgot, get some distraction, take a walk until
four! Where could she go?

She raked her mind for names; she thought of visits to pay, of
dressmakers and modistes. Then all at once she skipped and beat her
hands with a childish gesture.

Of course! She had decided on the previous day to invite M. Raindal to
her house, to make of him a super, if not a star, at her receptions, a
noted and venerable pillar of her salon; why should she waste time, why
not seize the opportunity? Tuesday was Mme. Raindal's day. Again, there
was their daughter's accident; to go there and inquire about her--why,
these were all pretexts that no one could suspect. She must not lose an
instant!

She ran to her room. Ten minutes later, her muff under her arm, she was
fastening her gloves outside the house, waiting for the cab she had sent
for.




CHAPTER VI


The cab passed slowly through the parc Monceau, and proceeded faster
through the Champs Elysées towards the boulevard Saint Germain.

Mme. Chambannes sat huddled up in the left-hand corner; her feet pressed
on the hot water bottle, scorching her soles on the white metal; rocked
by the motions of the carriage, she all but closed her eyes.

She opened them for an instant on entering the boulevard Saint Germain,
looking out to peep at the rue de Bourgogne where Gerald lived with the
Marquis; then she dozed off again.

She preferred not to think, to let herself remain benumbed with
sleepiness. Yet, when the cab left the rue de Rennes and turned into the
rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Mme. Chambannes instinctively straightened
herself up, as does a traveler at a change of scenery.

The street was deserted and lined with long, austere buildings. Were
they colleges, seminaries or convents? Mme. Chambannes did not know.
Most of them had black iron bars that stretched their dark stems against
daylight and the noise from outside. Here and there she noticed a few
houses that had none and were not quite so high as the others. Beyond
them, the bare heads of the trees spread their leafless branches. She
could guess at courtyards behind, immense gardens and discreet paths
where people walked and meditated.

In her own district of the plaine Monceau, there were streets that Mme.
Chambannes had thought no less mournful. On some afternoons, even during
the week, they gave an impression of Sunday calm and the houses seemed
empty of people, as if all had gone to the center, to the gayety of the
boulevards. Yet here the aspect was a different one; the quietness was
less idle and seemed to vibrate with thought. She felt that there were
crowds behind these strong walls, all busy with pious or cherished
occupations: a silent activity, zeal, ambition and faith, and
disciplined passions. At moments a hidden bell sent a deep note into the
air.

Without much understanding, Mme. Chambannes felt a little shiver of
surprise. She imagined a multitude of monks and nuns dwelling in these
buildings. They knelt down and prayed, in long black or gray rows. The
dark sanctuaries softened their silhouettes and the smoke of incense
twisted its curls above their heads. She had a sudden curiosity to be
among them, to learn their prayers and share their ecstasies. Especially
she wished to go in and see.

Her driver had to knock at the window to warn her that they had reached
the house. The concierge was an old woman with catarrh. She told her
where M. Raindal's apartment was: at the end of the path, on the fifth
floor, and the door on the right.

She paused a little while before pulling the cord of the bell. She
wanted to look about her. Opposite stood the wall of the next house on
the other side of the path. But to her right, she saw gardens, uneven
houses, a whole panorama of strange roofs, separated by streets or a
purple mixture of trees. A perfume of _pot-au-feu_ escaped from the door
of the Raindal family.

She rang at last and was ushered into the drawing-room by Brigitte.

Mme. Raindal, dressed in black silk, was chatting with two elderly
ladies whose dresses showed no care for the fashions of the day. She
hesitated on seeing Zozé, then recognized her and went to her.

"I came to inquire about the young patient," Mme. Chambannes said, as
she sat in the dark-red plush arm-chair which Mme. Raindal offered her.

"Thérèse! She is quite well again.... She is working with her father....
You shall see her very shortly.... How kind of you to...."

Mme. Chambannes thanked her with a smile.

Mme. Boudois, one of the two visitors, the wife of a professor at the
Sorbonne, exclaimed:

"Poor child!... Has she been ill?"

"Not much, thank Heaven!" Mme. Raindal replied. "A mere indisposition
while she was dancing at the Saulvards last night...."

The other lady, Mme. Lebercq, the wife of the famous mathematician,
inquired:

"Dizziness, was it?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Mme. Raindal replied.

Mme. Boudois confirmed these presumptions. There was her husband, for
instance; God knew he had his sea-legs and sailed up and down the seas
every summer, at Langrune, in a fisherman's boat. Well, her husband
never could waltz; he felt giddy at once.

On the other hand, Mme. Lebercq was no sailor but had been able to bear
dancing without inconvenience when she was young.

A silence followed and Mme. Chambannes began again:

"The party was charming, was it not?"

"Delightful!" Mme. Raindal admitted.

Mme. Boudois and Mme. Lebercq asked for details, and received them. But
at the turning point of a sentence, the conversation was directed toward
another subject. Mme. Boudois spoke of the forthcoming festivities of
Advent. She advised Mme. Raindal to attend some of the Benedictions of
the Host at Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, where the Noël _O_ would be sung
with rare brilliancy. Mme. Raindal rather preferred those of
Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. The discussion grew quite heated. Mme. Lebercq,
who was not devout, remained silent. Mme. Chambannes, ill at ease at
this talk of things that were mysteries to her, examined the pattern of
the red and black carpet around which the arm-chairs were disposed.

She took advantage of a pause for breath and asked:

"Would it be indiscreet to disturb the master and your daughter?... I
would be so glad to say how do you do to them!"

"Of course not! Quite the contrary.... They will be delighted."

She knocked at a side door.

"What is it?" the voice of M. Raindal grunted.

"A visitor!"

She made way for the younger woman. Thérèse lifted her head at the sound
and rose from the table at the same time as her father.

"It is Mme. Chambannes who comes to inquire after you, dear," Mme.
Raindal explained.

Thérèse, whose lips were already pursed with vexation, attempted a
smile.

"Oh, you are too kind, dear Madame.... It was not worth it...."

M. Raindal joined his grateful protestations to those of his daughter.
Mme. Raindal excused herself and returned to her visitors. As on the
previous day, at the ball, when he had been introduced to Zozé, the
master stood still, embarrassed. At length he said:

"Won't you sit down, please?"

She took a chair and said:

"How gay your study is!... How light!"

"Oh, we don't lack daylight here!" M. Raindal replied. "The room has
quite a good light."

Mme. Chambannes continued:

"You were working?... I interrupted you...."

"With the most agreeable of possible surprises," M. Raindal answered,
with a wave of his hand.

The conversation dragged on. Thérèse wore a persistent frown, said
little and was absorbed in drawing lines on a sheet of paper. Mme.
Chambannes' visit roused her indignation. Why had that woman come? What
more did she want? What right had she to disturb them with her
prattling, her childish queries and her very presence which brought back
the memories of the previous evening, the shame of that accursed party?

"Your windows look out on gardens, do they not?" Mme. Chambannes asked.

"Upon gardens and our whole Paris! We have a marvelous view from here!"
he replied.

She walked with him to the window. At last the sun had burst through the
clouds and scattered the fog. Below them was all M. Raindal's Paris, the
whole of the religious, studious and simple-minded Paris, stretching out
its stiff endless stone buildings in a milky light. The tops of certain
edifices rose high above the level of the others. To the right was the
square tower of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, then the immense dome of the
Pantheon, then a thin, fine point--the spire of the Sorbonne. Further to
the left rose the shining sphere of the cupola of the Missions and at
the end a truncated pyramid upon which floated a tiny, discolored flag:
the palace of the Louvre. Between these, the houses sketched in the air
the irregular lines of their roofs. The thin-hooded chimneys bristled
in compact ranks, like reversed bayonets. At the back was a deep hollow
space, indicating avenues and a park; it was the Luxemburg, but it could
not be seen.

M. Raindal complacently commented upon this panorama. Mme. Chambannes
gushed over it all, finding everything either charming or pretty. When
he had finished, he pointed out the garden next to their house.

"It is the garden of the _Visitandine_ Sisters of
Notre-Dame-du-Saint-Rosaire.... See, there are two of our neighbors out
for a walk!"

Mme. Chambannes bent forward to look at them. They walked one behind the
other around the enclosure of brown earth. They held chaplets in their
hands that were red with cold, and let the beads slip one by one. Their
bonnets were bent down and hid their faces. One of them, thin and light,
seemed young; the other was stouter and appeared old. Both had the
square, unshapely waist which the bands of their aprons mark on the
corsetless flesh of nuns. Mme. Chambannes examined them in silence for a
few seconds, but thought it wiser not to ask what it was these holy
sisters were doing with their rosaries. She turned round and, perceiving
a glass case set up against the wall, near the window, exclaimed.

"Oh, the pretty things! what charming little mummies!... They seem to be
asleep standing up...."

She pointed out the middle shelf where peacock blue, pale green and
white china statuettes stood in rows. All wore the Egyptian headdress
that fell down on their shoulders like manes. Their eyes were black
lines above squat noses which were in several cases worn out at the tip.
There were inscriptions all down their bodies even to the feet, which
were swollen like those of gouty people. Some had their arms crossed in
front. Others showed only their hands as if they had bathing gowns on.
The sand of the desert had stuck to many of them, leaving upon them the
mark of its centuries-old atoms.

M. Raindal explained the use of those statues. They had been placed in
the tombs in order to help the dead in their labors in the other life.
He then gave Mme. Chambannes the names of the divinities on the shelf
above: Hathor the cow-headed, jackal-headed Anubis, hawk-headed Horus,
Osiris, the god of the netherworld, with his huge tiara; Thueris, a
frightful idol with the head of a hippopotamus and a woman's breast, who
was, it was thought, consecrated to motherhood or to preserving people
from ill-luck. The master spoke of them all tenderly and volubly as if
he had imagined them and made them himself with his own hands. Well, had
he not created them? Had he not given them life when he tore them one by
one from the Nothingness of the sands or the depths of the tombs? The
scarabs of colored stones were also, every one of them, his own
discoveries. He had put a pin through them and laid them side by side on
white grooves as one does with a collection of real insects. Near these
scarabs there was a case in which had been thrown three heavy gold
rings, their bezels engraved with hieroglyphics, which had doubtless
been worn on the dry, yellow fingers of imperious Pharaohs.

"All these things are terribly old, are they not?" Mme. Chambannes
asked.

"It depends," M. Raindal replied. "On an average, they date back 3000,
perhaps 4000 or 5000 years!"

"Really!... And if I went to Egypt, next year ... I could find some like
these?..."

"It is possible ... if one digs deep enough.... The desert is chock full
of them!"

"How interesting!" the young woman murmured dreamily.

Behind her, Thérèse stamped the floor with impatience. She started when
she heard Mme. Chambannes proceed:

"And now, my dear master, I have a small favor to ask of you.... Are you
free in a fortnight, on December 12th?"

"Well, Madame!..." M. Raindal stammered, trying hard to guess, in spite
of his poor eyesight, the meaning of the grimaces Thérèse was making at
him.

"Because, if you were free, you would do me great honor and give me much
pleasure if you would dine with me at my house."

M. Raindal bowed.

"Hm! Hm!... Certainly, Madame.... I can ask Mme. Raindal.... At least,
I do not think she is engaged for that evening...."

He turned to his daughter.

"Is it not so, dear? Your mother has not, so far as I know...."

Thérèse cut his sentence short with the brutal admission:

"No, father, we are free!"

She felt her hand tremble on the glass case where it lay. Anything,
anything, just so she could get rid of that woman! So that she would go
away, back to her tall coxcomb, that Gerald whose mistress she must
surely be! Later they could get out of the engagement. Let her only go!
Not to see her any more in the room, not to hear her voice any more, no
longer to breathe in her perfume, like that of Gerald, heavy!

They returned to the drawing-room. Mme. Raindal, surprised, accepted at
once. The whole family saw Zozé off at the door. Even Thérèse followed
them. When Mme. Chambannes reached the stairs and looked up for a last
parting word, it was the girl's challenging glance that met her last
one.

       *       *       *       *       *

"A peculiar look!" Mme. Chambannes thought in the cab that took her
away. It was a look that held both admiration and a little envy, such as
the poor give when they watch the beautiful women going into the
opera.... Well, this little Raindal girl was strange!

Her cab passed the bridge of La Concorde and entered the Champs Élysées.

Zozé could not refrain from making eyes at the first well-dressed young
man she passed. At last she was back in her own element, on her own
soil, in her own district.

Once before, she had had a similar impression; it was when she had
returned from abroad and saw, on crossing the frontier, the first French
customs inspector. As she returned now to the right bank of the river,
she found everything different from the place she had just left.
Clothes, faces and gait--it was all different. The cold seemed less
bitter, less cruel to her cheeks. Men walked down the avenue,
comfortable, peaceful, covered with soft fur coats. Women passed in
rapid victorias, their faces a smile in the midst of furs; children
played and ran among the trees. Everywhere the pleasures of summer were
carried on in spite of the hostile winter. Rich people met rich people,
all well dressed, quite _au courant_ of the latest thing, among
connoisseurs, in their own sets. Zozé shut her eyes tight in an attempt
to visualize again the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, so far away, in the
provinces as it were, gray and flat as a stereopticon view....

Her mental comparisons were cut short when she heard the Élysée clock
strike four. What! already! She would be late! What would Gerald say?
Fortunately she was almost there. Yet it was not fast enough for Zozé
who, with her feet propped up against the back seat of the cab, pushed
the hot water can with her two feet, as if to help the horse along.

At length, the cab came to a stop in rue d'Aguesseau, before a
quiet-looking house. Carelessly, she settled her fare, ran madly up one
flight and entered the apartment, all out of breath. Gerald was there.
He was dozing on the divan of the dressing room. His arms were folded
around his head, making a dark setting for it. The obscurity of the
corner where he lay further heightened his peaceful expression.

Mme. Chambannes contemplated him tenderly. Poor little Raldo! How
beautiful he was in his sleep!

Emboldened, she whispered:

"Are you asleep? Are you asleep, darling?"

Without opening his eyes, Gerald replied:

"No, I am not asleep but I am affecting a deep sleep!..."

"Why?" Zozé asked smilingly.

"Because," he replied in the same way, "you are late, Madame, and I
detest that kind of joke."

He rose to kiss her. She returned his caress with effusion and asked
saucily:

"Guess where I have been!"

"I take orders from no one!" Gerald replied.

"Well, I have been to see père Raindal!"

"The Kangaroo!"

Surprised, Zozé opened her eyes wide.

"The Kangaroo!"

"Why, of course!" Gerald said. "Didn't you notice the way he held his
arms and his hands? A regular kangaroo! All he lacks is the pocket in
front, and little ones inside."

Zozé laughed. Then she gave him a humorous account of her visit,
described the furniture, the carpet, the hangings; she told of the
smelling pot-au-feu; she gave an imitation of Mme. Raindal, of Mme.
Boudois and of Mme. Lebercq, all in the hope of amusing Gerald.

The young man had a certain amount of natural acrobatic talent, although
he had not appeared in amateur circus performances. While he listened to
Zozé he stretched his limbs by walking round the room on his hands, his
legs bent back and his feet hanging over his neck. When she had finished
her story, he turned a somersault, slipped his arms behind his knees
and, in that uncomfortable position, took a few frog-like jumps. Then he
straightened himself up smartly and asked:

"Well then, are you going to engage this mummy merchant?"

"Why not; do you mind?" Zozé ventured, somewhat frightened.

"I!" Gerald replied. "No, not at all!... All tastes exist in nature!...
You already have a novelist, three artists, two musicians and an
_abbé_.... The kangaroo will complete your collection.... I congratulate
you!"

He bowed with an affected grand manner and declared, as he pointed to
the next room.

"You are at home here, dear Madame."

Zozé obeyed him, throwing him as she passed a passionate look. Gerald
joined her after a few minutes. While he lit the candles on the
mantelpiece, Mme. Chambannes lay silent, looking up to the ceiling, with
a sudden serious expression.

She had a fleeting vision of the two nuns who were walking in the cold,
in the grassless garden, with their chaplets in their hands.

That brought her a sensation of shame. Confusedly, an idea came to her
mind, showing her another life, as good and even probably better than
her own, a life devoted to other aims than to go to bed every afternoon,
with candles lit.

But Gerald approached and asked imperiously.

"What are we thinking about?"

Suddenly, like a child caught doing a forbidden thing, Zozé assumed
again her happy, lover-like expression.

"We are thinking.... We are thinking that we adore you, wicked Raldo,
who made me feel so miserable this morning."

She stretched out her arms in a gesture of surrender and appeal.

Gerald slipped into her embrace, coaxing her in naughty whispers.




CHAPTER VII


Thérèse had never worked so hard as she did during the following days.
It was her own way to cure herself, her one infallible medicine whenever
her "crises of remembrances" as she termed them, returned to haunt her.
She punished her brain with a surfeit of study, as devout people tame
their rebellious flesh by means of pious exercises.

For weeks at a stretch, she only left her father's study to go to one of
the libraries. The moment she came back, she fell to work again. She
started once more immediately after dinner and worked until she felt too
sleepy to continue. And the next morning she started again.

The remedy had seldom failed to bring prompt relief. Her effervescence
calmed down gradually under the icy blast of accumulated knowledge. She
was so tired that her desires weakened; the immense drama of the history
of humanity helped her to hold as futile her little sentimental regrets.
These lofty thoughts brought forth a supreme breath of pride and dried
the inner tears which her heart persisted in distilling. Caught up once
more by discipline, like a refractory horse brought back to the shafts,
she assumed once more her customary existence; her soul was quieted and
joyless but also too weary to attempt another revolt.

An excess of scruples even caused her this time to make no attempt
whatsoever to avoid the Chambannes dinner. Her relapse had been so
serious, so sudden and so childish that she stood in need of punishment.
She wanted to meet again, face to face, that handsome M. de Meuze, in
order to prove to herself by a defiance of the danger how foolish she
had been.

Her bravery, however, much resembled the confidence inspired by an
underestimated adversary. She no longer stood in dread of Gerald because
she thought him the lover of Mme. Chambannes and he shared in her mind
the contempt she felt towards the young woman.

But was it really contempt? Thérèse was too proud to admit a feeling of
jealousy towards this little brainless creature. The only feeling she
avowed was one of pity.

She delighted in remembering the ill-chosen expressions and the bad
grammar which characterized the conversation of dainty Mme. Chambannes.
And Gerald himself, how futile his words were! His voice was that of a
debauchee, an oily drawl, with accents that were imperious but carried
no authority; he seemed to be in the habit of giving orders to no one
but maîtres d'hôtel and loose women. The two of them made a pretty pair,
a nicely matched couple!

The day of the dinner party seemed to her a long time coming, so much
did she long at once to challenge them both, to hold them under the
hostile coldness of her gray eyes....

Several times, M. Raindal had to drag her away from her work at night.
She always grumbled before she allowed herself to be persuaded. He
chided her gently and took her arm to lead her to her bedroom. They
walked together along the dark passage. Everything was quiet in the
house. Sometimes they paused, smilingly listening to Mme. Raindal, whose
snores reached them through the closed doors. Then M. Raindal kissed his
daughter and retired, feeling his way about in the dark.

"Poor girl!" he thought in mingled admiration and tenderness.

Had he but known! Had he but guessed at the struggles and the anguish of
her masculine soul! Had he but heard the "Poor Father!" with which his
daughter expressed to herself pity for his lack of understanding!...

The weeks passed rapidly and the day came at last when they were going
to dine with the Chambannes.

Shortly after seven, Thérèse was putting on the heavy dark coat she wore
when she went out in evening dress, when she heard a sudden outburst of
discussion in the hall and someone knocked at her door.

"Come in!" she said.

Her father entered in his shirt sleeves. His white tie hung unfastened
over his waistcoat.

"Do you know what is happening?" he exclaimed. "Your mother now thinks
we have been too ready to accept this invitation of Mme. Chambannes;
she says that we should have tried to find out more about her.... Find
out!... Find out what, I ask you, and where?... All this because of a
dinner that has no importance!... She wants us to put it off now, five
minutes before we are due to leave the house. What can one do? I ask
you! especially I fancy that you yourself did not take greatly to the
lady?..."

"Phew!" Thérèse said doubtfully.

"You can guess where she gets such ideas," M. Raindal went on, as he
paced the room. "She gets them from those fellows! From the vestry!...
Oh, she didn't deny it long.... And I have warned her that the next time
they have the audacity to...."

He did not finish his sentence. Mme. Raindal entered the room, her
corsage unfastened:

"Hush!" she whispered. "Someone has rung the bell. Thérèse, go and open
the door, dear! Brigitte has run down to get a cab."

"Very well, mother."

Thérèse went to open the door and was surprised to find her Uncle
Cyprien, who was wiping his shoes on the yellow mat in the dark hall.

"Good evening, nephew!" he exclaimed merrily. Then he noticed that
Thérèse had her cloak on and wore white gloves.

"Oh! you are going out! And I came to share your dinner.... What bad
luck!"

He walked in. Thérèse replied with constraint. They had said nothing to
him about the Chambannes dinner party, for fear of his criticism.

"Yes, uncle, we are dining out."

Hearing his brother's voice, the master came out of the room. He
exchanged the customary greetings and said, to fend off any query:

"You are unlucky.... We are not dining here.... Can you come to-morrow?"

"Of course!" replied Uncle Cyprien. After a pause he added:

"Hm! Is it indiscreet to ask where you are dining?"

Thérèse dared no longer to deny.

"We are going to the rue de Prony, to Mme. Chambannes', a lady whom we
met at the dance at the Saulvard's."

"Chambannes! How do you spell it?" Cyprien asked, with a suspicious
grimace.

Thérèse spelled it out for him. The younger M. Raindal frowned.

"Chambannes, Chambannes!" he repeated, as if he were testing the sound
of a name with which his ear was not familiar.

Finally he gave it up.

"Well, au revoir!" he said, "till to-morrow!"

He shook hands with them and walked down the stairs, still muttering to
himself, "Chambannes, Chambannes!"

In spite of its general aspect, the name sounded vaguely Jewish to him.
Then, he reflected, everybody knew how cunning Jews were in disguising
their original names and changing them into French names. They called
themselves Duval, Durand or Dubourg and hid under those Gallic, Roman or
Frankish syllables, names bestowed on the mount of Sinai, and Uncle
Cyprien boasted of an exceptionally good scent when it came to
unearthing such deceptions. He had not even admitted the purity of his
own family name until after a thorough search in the libraries. The
moment he reached the street, therefore, he hurried towards the
Brasserie Klapproth where Schleifmann could, he felt sure, throw some
light on his suspicions.

       *       *       *       *       *

"How late you are!" the Galician exclaimed, as he started to enjoy a
plateful of roast veal and jelly.

Uncle Cyprien sat beside him and studied the bill of fare.

"Yes!" he said. "I am late; I wanted to dine with my brother ... but
they are dining out, at Mme. Chambannes'."

"Rue de Prony?" Schleifmann asked.

"Then you know the lady?" Cyprien inquired.

"Oh! very little.... She is charming.... I meet her sometimes at the
house of one of my pupils' parents, young Pums, the son of M. Pums,
assistant manager of the Bank of Galicia."

"Well, I never ..." Cyprien exclaimed.

"I even knew that your brother was to dine there.... Mme. Chambannes
invited Mme. Pums and gave her the names of the other guests.... She
seems to think a great deal of your brother."

"You knew it and you said nothing of it to me?" said Raindal, with a
reproachful glance.

Schleifmann repressed a smile.

"Well, no! _You_ said nothing about it.... I assumed that your brother
had not told you ... out of discretion, you understand?"

Cyprien became thoughtful.

"Listen, Schleifmann.... Tell me the truth!... What kind of people are
these Chambannes?... Are they all right?"

Schleifmann pretended to have some trouble in swallowing the last
mouthful, in order to gain time for thinking. Of course, he could not
tell a falsehood to his friend. But why, on the other hand, should he
further excite this savage ill-will, ever ready to spring up; why should
he help to stir up family troubles? He chose to answer with harmless
fibs and did it with studied indifference.

"Well!... I couldn't say.... The husband seemed to me a somewhat
colorless person.... He is an engineer and specializes in mining
affairs, I believe.... The woman is pretty, smart and pleasant....
Besides, as I told you, I hardly know them."

Cyprien was not eating. He bit his mustache; then suddenly he burst out,
as if a spring had been released:

"They are Jews, are they not?"

"I am not sure!" Schleifmann replied. "The husband comes from the
Berri, where Jews have not, as a rule, colonized very much.... His wife
appears rather of the Semitic type ... but so refined, so very mixed,
that I dare not affirm...."

"Yet, their name!" Cyprien insisted.

"Their name!" the Galician replied, feeling his philologist's pride
provoked. "Actually, there is nothing to prevent it from being a
Frenchified Jewish name.... Chambannes might well be derived from
Rhâm-Bâhal, or from the corrupted Rhâm-Bâhan, which means, if my
recollections are correct, something like _high-idol_, a _lofty
idol_...."

"Rhâm-Bâhan!" Uncle Cyprien repeated complacently.... "Rhâm-Bâhan!... Of
course ... that's what it is.... I thought to myself...."

The admissions made by Schleifmann had whetted his appetite and, his
mouth full of food, he insinuated:

"It seems to me you spoke a little while ago of a list of guests who
would be there...."

"Yes, yes," Schleifmann said evasively.

"Well, who are they?" Cyprien insisted.

The Galician shifted uneasily.

"I have not a very clear recollection of them.... I assure you.... I
have forgotten."

"I don't believe it, Schleifmann! Try to remember; there is no hurry."

The temptation proved too strong for his friend. He could not miss such
an occasion to air his rancor; he could not refrain from flaying the
whole dubious clique of men who had in the past refused him a hearing.
He began to feel that he lacked the strength to resist his inclination.
He began, mildly at first, a few points at a time, throwing his venom
upon those he hated least.

"Very well," he said. "Let's see!... To-night there will be M. Givonne,
an artist who paints fans and dancing tambourines for society balls and
sells anything he likes to the Americans.... Hm!... M. Mazuccio, a
little Italian sculptor who spends his time telling how the women whose
busts he has made are fashioned below the waist...."

"A pretty lot!" Cyprien encouraged him.

"M. Herschstein," Schleifmann went on, more vigorously, "that excellent
Herschstein.... Ho, ho! here is one I recommend to your notice.... A
patriarch's gray beard, fat cheeks, the head of a pleasant grandfather,
as good as gold.... This does not prevent him from being one of the
heads of the black band.... You know, the clan of German financiers who
daily speculate against the French bonds.... Ah! many legends, many lies
are told concerning the Jews.... But, alas, this is not an invention;
the foul black band does exist! And it is on the cards that your comrade
Schleifmann will be one of those, when the people take a fancy, on the
first day of the riots, to go and find out, under their very noses, what
they are brewing in that corner!"

"Good man!" M. Raindal said with emotion.

"M. Herschstein, then ... and Madame ... a tall, lanky woman with a
narrow mind, who thinks she can wipe out these crimes by throwing money
to all the poor people and contributing to charitable works...."

Schleifmann hit the table with his fist.

"Charity! The damned fool. It's charity she'll get on the day when her
rascally husband has had us all expelled from here!"

"Hush, hush! Calm yourself, Schleifmann!" Uncle Cyprien whispered. He
knew now he could rely on the Galician, as one could trust a roaring,
flaming fire. "Calm yourself, my friend!... Who else, did you say?"

"M. de Marquesse!..." Schleifmann continued. "Another pretty fellow!...
A consulting engineer.... Adviser! Ha, ha! Legal adviser, I have no
doubt!... Already two societies which he "advised" have ended before a
magistrate.... But he gets on just the same!... People say that his wife
helps him.... Not that she is good-looking ... a head like a horse....
But men are so stupid in that set.... For the sake of an aristocratic
name, my dear friend, they would entertain a mare."

"How delightful!" Cyprien remarked, his lips twisted in a disgusted
pout.

"Then there is my countryman Pums, a dark little man with a black
mustache, the face of a gypsy, and his wife, a small red-headed
woman.... But she is pretty, this one! plump, with a turned-up nose ...
regular painter's meat!"

"What's that?" Cyprien asked.

"Yes, it is my name for these ladies, because of their inclination
towards artists.... Any painter has but to stoop down to pick them up,
like a 'rag and bones' man in a heap of rubbish."

"And so you think that Mme. Chambannes herself...."

Schleifmann stopped him quickly.

"No, no! not at all.... Quite the contrary!"

He added maliciously:

"Mme. Chambannes leads a regular life, absolutely regular...."

Thereupon he took up the normal thread of his ideas:

"Let us go back to our people.... The Marquis de Meuze and his son, the
Comte de Meuze."

"Ah!" said M. Raindal with irony.... "Sham nobility, are they?"

"No, true.... They are very friendly with the Chambannes.... By the way,
you would like the old Marquis very much.... I have been assured that he
shared your horror for the Jews, who nearly ruined him at the time of
the panic...."

The flame of his anger was abating. He gave a few more names, but
without commenting upon them: Jean Bunel, the novelist; M. Burzig, a
young broker; M. Silberschmidt and his wife.

He became silent and Cyprien asked:

"Is that all?"

"Yes, absolutely," Schleifmann replied, as he took off his gold-rimmed
spectacles to wipe the glasses, tarnished by the perspiration caused by
his excitement.

M. Raindal the younger assumed a jocular expression.

"One more question, please!"

"I am listening," Schleifmann said.

Cyprien came closer to him and asked engagingly:

"Of course, they are all Prussians?"

"No, my dear Raindal," the Galician replied. "They are all French,
or--and it is all one--naturalized Frenchmen.... Since the war.... The
little Pums is their veteran.... He has been French since 1878, this
little Pums.... Well I remember how proud he was of it when he came back
to Lemberg, at his next annual visit.... He ran from house to house, to
his friends, to his relations, showing everywhere his naturalization
papers.... Anyone might have thought he was showing the diploma of a
degree...."

"It is one!" remarked Cyprien.

"Yes, yes, all are naturalized French citizens," Schleifmann continued,
"with the exception of Burzig whom I was forgetting.... It is not his
fault, however.... He owes that to his father.... They have the mania
for change in that family. The grandfather was born in Mayence and
became an American. Good! The father came to Paris and turned into a
Frenchman.... Pouf! It was not enough!... He made an Englishman of his
son to save him from military service.... I tell you, these damned
Burzigs are never satisfied!"

He laughed, a sneer on his lips.

"If the Jews of France had red blood in their veins, I can assure you
that they would have thrown out all these tourists! You, the true
Frenchmen, should have made life so unbearable, so hard for them
that...."

"What about yourself, Schleifmann?" Raindal asked. "Are you not going to
be naturalized also?"

The Galician gave a melancholy smile.

"I, my good friend?... At my age!... What is the use? Fate made me a man
without a country and a man without a country I must remain.... I am
plain M. Schleifmann, a citizen of humanity, as someone said...."

"That is all very well!" Cyprien objected. "But what would happen to you
if war broke out?"

"War!" Schleifmann murmured dreamily.... "First of all, shall I see
it?... Then I am very old, my dear Raindal; I would make a poor kind of
a soldier.... I am sorry.... However much I do detest war and the
imbecile reasons for which nations massacre each other, I would have
liked nevertheless to serve France, the least stupid of all nations,
after all, and the most generous I have ever known...."

"Phew! You could make yourself useful in other ways," M. Raindal said.

"True!..." Schleifmann said in a low voice, as if he were addressing
his own soul. "In 1871, the Commune came!"

But Cyprien missed the tragic retort. He was already lost in joyful
thoughts of the morrow. He imagined with glee how stupefied his brother
would be when he heard: "Well! How is old Herschstein! And that charming
Mme. Pums?... and the honorable M. Burzig!..." He laughed so loudly that
he apologized to Schleifmann.

"Forgive me, I was thinking of something so funny.... Ha, ha! It is
wonderful!"

He felt moved to show his gratitude:

"Here, Schleifmann, you will not refuse a glass of kirchenwasser?...
Garçon, kirchenwasser and two glasses, two big ones, customers' glasses,
you know!..."

The waiter returned with a bottle protected by a cover of twisted straw.
Cyprien poured two big drinks and lifted his glass to touch that of his
friend.

"To humanity, Schleifmann!" he said courteously.

"To France!" the Galician replied, and they toasted.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the same time, the Raindal family were making their entry into the
salon of Mme. Chambannes.

Zozé stepped out rapidly to meet them. She wore a loose dress of pink
silk with subdued flowered-work. It gave her the silhouette of a Spanish
princess. Chambannes followed her; he was perhaps smiling under the
mystery of his huge blonde mustache. Then began the series of
introductions.

Ladies first: little Mme. Pums, in a tight-fitting black robe with gold
spangles, which made her plump face appear even fresher, whiter by
contrast and gave added zest to her red hair; Mme. de Marquesse, a tall
blonde with a horsy jaw, whose mauve crêpe dress showed, revealed about
the hips, the massive bones of a Republic or a Liberty; Mme.
Silberschmidt, a thin dark woman with the face of a sick hen; Mme.
Herschstein, more angular and haughty in her white satin corsage than a
lady of ancient lineage. Then came the men, one by one, as they
happened. They bowed low; all gave deferential yet curious looks; all
shook hands eagerly and yet with shyness; they spoke in respectful but
unfinished sentences, as one does in the presence of a foreign potentate
with whose etiquette and language one is not very well acquainted.

Pums, the dean of the naturalized ones, was introduced last. Small,
neat, yellow-faced, dressed with sober correctness--what struck one most
in his physiognomy was not his Viennese stockbroker type, nor his thick
black mustache, nor the gray about his temples; it was the projection of
his two big light chocolate eyes, so keen in seeing things, so ingenuous
and so languorous that, but for a flicker of sly archness at the bottom
of them, one might have thought them the eyes of a good little boy
surprised at seeing so many people. He spoke a decent French, with not
more than the suspicion of a Teutonic accent: a French that was, like
himself, naturalized. He was the only one who succeeded in reaching the
end of his compliment.

M. Raindal had no time to thank him; they were passing into the
dining-room.

Mme. Chambannes sat between the master and the Marquis de Meuze. Her
husband faced her, with Mme. Raindal to his right and Mme. de Marquesse
on the left. The neighbors of Thérèse were Gerald and Mazuccio; the
latter a sort of brown faun, who droned his s's with the fury of a
Venetian mosquito. The rest of the company sat round the table, at seats
marked by cards bearing their names. The soup was served in attentive
silence.

They were obviously waiting for the master to say something important
and unusual; the ladies were especially anxious to hear M. Raindal whom
they imagined, after his _Life of Cleopatra_, to be a famous raconteur
who would surely deliver some "stiff ones" during the dinner.

They were soon undeceived. He was really not very amusing, this M.
Raindal, nor very original, with his fat, flabby neck, his hands that
hung loose, his manners of an ill at ease ex-prefect--and his almost
inaudible voice. Moreover, they were not missing much. Details on the
climate of Egypt, the means of transportation, the favorable time of the
year for traveling in that region--I ask you, wouldn't Baedeker or the
Joanne guide give one as much?

Soon, M. Raindal had but two left to listen to him, the Marquis and
Mme. Chambannes who was never tired of asking questions.

To tell the truth, he did not feel in the mood. It was not that he felt
intimidated by Mme. Chambannes' fervent glances, or the caressing roll
of her _r_'s which made her voice softly imperious. On the contrary, he
was grateful to her for not wearing a lower dress; he found her most
graceful in that corsage which barely showed a modest opening and
exposed a small square of skin with her fine neck free from jewelry. The
surrounding sumptuousness embarrassed him much more than the tender
glances of the young woman. He had written a whole chapter on the Pomp
of Cleopatra; he had not winced at the gems, the gold, the incense and
all the sumptuousness of the Inimitable Life; but he now remained as one
dazed before the reality of a magnificence that was much inferior to it.
The profusion of flowers running in garlands all over the table, the
light shining in the cut glass, the dainty silver, the shining elegance
of the guests were to him as so many sharp points of brilliancy that
caught his eye and his thoughts. He was, moreover, further distracted by
a noise that resembled the purring of an engine, the _schh_, the
_harrh_, the _horrh_ and the _pff_ which were now fusing from the group
of the Silberschmidts, the Herschsteins and the Pums, who were massed on
one side of the table.

They had evidently made themselves at home; their tongues wagged, they
used their native language, which sounded like a gargle. The French
language? Why, that was a dialect for official use, good enough when
one had to be polite, for social life.... But why should they place such
a check upon themselves when they talked business, when it came to
serious or intimate matters? How could they do it, anyhow? Was not this
native language of theirs which sprang to their lips with a naïve
instinctive vigor stronger than anything else, stronger than any decree
or any oath of allegiance? You should have seen the jeering wink that
accompanied Pums' inquiries concerning the _krankheit_ (illness) of the
Sultan and the no less knowing look in the eyes of Herschstein when he
replied. That indisposition of the Sultan had proved devilishly
successful; it was Herschstein's idea, had been sent from Paris to
Vienna, re-telegraphed from Vienna to Paris, and had upset the Bourse
throughout the afternoon. Turkish stocks had tumbled down, 3 francs, 6
francs, 10 francs at a time and the panic had spread to the French rent!
Result: about 100,000 francs for each of the active members of the black
band and a paltry 25,000 for Pums, who was only an ally, a sort of
honorary accomplice. However, he was not dissatisfied with his share and
even wished to pay back Herschstein who explained to him the new plans
of the Bank of Galicia concerning certain gold mines. That scheme
consisted in forming a syndicate which would be named an Investigating
Society and would glean from the market the least suspicious mining
bonds. Moreover, it was an easy operation; they had first only to
depreciate these values by means of alarming news and then send them
soaring up to the highest point by means of optimistic news. The art of
the market at its infancy! The infallible process. Young Burzig who,
being a British subject, had been ceaselessly flirting in English with
pretty Mme. Pums, brusquely returned to the German of his family in
order to take part in the discussion and the projects of the group. They
were discussing with de Marquesse what bonds they could choose, what
mines would be drained in the course of the operation. English or Dutch
names, more blazing than tiaras, were quoted: the Pink Star of South
Africa, the Transvaal Sun, the Source of the Carbuncles....

Suddenly there were signs of restlessness in the one little green eye of
the Marquis de Meuze. It rolled, turned and trembled in its orbit like a
fishing cork. He tried hard to take in what was being said. What! There
was no mistake about it this time! They were talking about gold mines at
the end of the table. Quite so.... Gold mines! _Nom d'un bon homme! Nom
d'un chien!_ How could he listen to these gentlemen without being
discourteous to the other one, that M. Raindal with his damned stories
about mummies and Mariette Bey?... The marquis tried vainly to follow
both conversations and his face became purple in the attempt. He could
only hear a few words of the one that was carried on further from him:
_fontein_ ... _rand_ ... _chartered_ ... _Cecil Rhodes_ ... _de Beers_
... _claim_ ... and their technical syllables further pricked his
curiosity. Well, it was no small matter to him! 120,000 francs engaged
on the mining market. "120,000" the marquis repeated to himself; did it
not give him a right to a certain amount of anxiety? And it seemed that
it was in answer to him that he heard the voice of Pums in a half
silence.

"_Ya! Gewiss.... Ich glaube das die Red-Diamond...._"

_The Red-Diamond--Fontein!..._ Why, that was the favorite mine of the
marquis, his most beloved stock, "his little Red Diamond," as he called
it victoriously! This time M. de Meuze could no longer contain himself.
Brutally he turned right about and addressed the financiers:

"Excuse me, M. Pums, you have just mentioned the _Red Diamond_, I
believe? Would it be indiscreet to ask what you were saying about it?"

"Not at all, marquis," Pums replied, for he always felt honored when M.
de Meuze consulted him.

And out of regard for the aged nobleman, the sizing up of the different
mining stocks was carried on in French.

However, M. Raindal had not noticed this desertion. It was some time
already since he had been speaking for Zozé's benefit alone; he felt
that a gradual mist of sympathy isolated them together from the rest of
the party. He thought to himself, charmed and perhaps also emboldened by
the mixture of wines he had been drinking:

"I was right.... One of Cleopatra's followers!... A little Greek
girl.... A true little Greek!"

Then he went on:

"One day the fellahs refused to carry our luggage on board; Mariette Bey
rushed upon them, revolver in hand...."

Zozé exclaimed, amazed by his tales. She was not lacking in good will or
respect for philosophical maxims; she only relaxed her zeal when she
could not understand. At such time her eyes wandered, innocently
settling in turn upon each of the guests, in an impersonal and almost
mechanical need for tenderness which she still preserved from her past
quests.

The little Pums rushed forward; his eyelids quivered; he was like a
gymnast anxious to catch his trapeze. Poor fellow, he was so much in
love! Gerald's reply was a cordial grimace, made with his nose or his
mouth or his cheeks, and Zozé understood him: "Yes, of course, it is
quite understood, we two are lovers!" But Mlle. Raindal, alas, seemed
less satisfied. Poor girl! Gerald and Mazuccio--they were leaving her
shamelessly alone. One inclined his face towards the flat chest of
Germaine de Marquesse and almost touched her; the other's face was
aflame; he had turned entirely to one side, close to that lascivious
hen, Mme. Silberschmidt! What a gap there was on each side of the poor
girl! No, it was really not nice for them to treat her in this fashion
as if she were a governess.

Thereupon Mme. Chambannes would look again into M. Raindal's eyes. That
had the same effect upon him as if someone had poured something hot
inside him, and he became quite red. His eyes blinked with pleasure. He
coughed to gather himself together again and lifted his head,
unconsciously awaiting the next soulful look, or else he admired Zozé's
profile; it was so neat, so delicate under her gathered hair which was
caught behind by a tiny bow of pearls. And as he went on with his
anecdotes, he repeated to himself:

"A true little Greek!... A little Greek girl from the Islands."

Suddenly the true little Greek became restless on her chair; her face
showed suspicion; she looked hard towards Mlle. Raindal who was
half-hidden from her behind a bunch of mauve orchids set up in the
middle of the table.

Well! What was amusing the girl so? What was it that brought to the
corners of her mouth this set, oldish smile like a wrinkle? What was the
meaning of the contemptuous glances and the commiserating attitude with
which she scrutinized all the guests one after the other!

"Upon my word," Mme. Chambannes thought, "one might think she was
looking at savages or niggers!"

But a new thought came to her.

"Oh, well! The poor girl is annoyed!... I can well understand it!..."

Mme. Chambannes called Gerald in friendly words, to bring him back to
his duties. They were serving the finger bowls. It was too late, after
all! She would see to it next time! She pressed her nails into the
translucent slice of lemon which floated on the surface of the water.
She pushed back her chair with slow discretion and everybody rose.

"Mademoiselle!" Gerald said, offering his arm to Thérèse.

The young girl laid her hand on it but avoided his eyes, disdainfully
turning her head away. They walked to the drawing-room without a word.
Gerald multiplied his courteous, deferential attitudes; he drew in his
chest and gave all the signs of a well-bred man of the world who knew
that he was at fault and exonerated himself silently. He escorted her to
Mme. Raindal and softly withdrew his arm.

"Mademoiselle!"

He bowed with much ceremony and directed his steps towards the
smoking-room. Thérèse could not prevent herself from watching him.

The balancing of his tall frame on his bent legs gave him the relieved,
weary gait of a man who has just come down from his horse, or of one who
has accomplished an imposed task. Outside the smoking-room he took
Mazuccio familiarly by the shoulders to make him pass in front; she
heard them still laughing behind the old tapestry portière--a mysterious
throaty laugh which even at a distance had an obscene sound.

"Well, dear?" M. Raindal murmured, as he approached in short and
somewhat heavy steps. "How was the dinner?"

"Excellent," Thérèse replied coldly, and sat down to the right of her
mother. "I am delighted that we came...."

"That is what I thought," M. Raindal continued softly, mistaking his
daughter's tone. "This Mme. Chambannes entertains people in the most
perfect fashion.... Now ... you agree that I was right not to let myself
be stopped by certain prejudices, certain preconceived ideas!..."

This allusion caused Mme. Raindal to blush suddenly, but Thérèse, a
sneer on her lips, whispered:

"Why, surely, father, I told you.... These people improve very much on
closer acquaintance...."

M. Raindal turned round. Mme. Chambannes was calling him away to offer
him some coffee.

At the other end of the drawing-room little Mme. Pums and tall Mme. de
Marquesse were holding each other by the waist and exchanged joyful
secrets concerning the use they had made of their afternoon. Their
outward contrast brought out all the more the best points of each. One
guessed that they shared the same tastes and the same aptitudes,
everything they needed to take part in full agreement in some party of
four, especially with two pleasant men of corresponding height.

Still linked together they marched through the room. Mme. de Marquesse
pulled aside the curtain of the smoking-room; joyful exclamations
greeted the graceful pair. They went in altogether and the shouts
increased. These gentlemen were not ungrateful.

The conversation dragged until their return. Mme. Chambannes tried to
make small talk with Thérèse and Mme. Raindal, while Mme. Herschstein
paid compliments to the master. But the subjects of conversation were
getting scarce. She remarked on the late hours of modern dinners and
gave out some prognostications concerning the forthcoming winter; and
then Zozé began to feel ill at ease. Great Heavens! What could she talk
about? Dresses! She must not think of it! Poor women, they were rather
"trussed up!" Theaters? They had admitted that they had not been to one
for two years. Zozé tried; she groped for ideas; the gray eyes of
Thérèse looked sternly into hers and put her further out of countenance.
She was very intelligent perhaps, this Mlle. Raindal, but she was not
easy to get on with.... "No go in her," as Gerald would declare. Zozé
was on the verge of forgiving him his brutal silence during the dinner.

At last the men returned, with the exception of the marquis, whose
apologies George Chambannes offered to M. Raindal. As a rule, that was
the hour for smutty stories. They would go by twos to whisper in the
dark corners; the old people usually remained in sight in the center of
the room, peacefully discussing aloud their money matters or their
infirmities.

The presence of the Raindal family probably made the guests feel ill at
ease, for they did not attempt their usual customary maneuver. Two of
them only, Givonne the painter of tambourines, and little Mme. Pums,
who had been last in leaving the smoking-room, dared to maintain the
tradition. They settled down in a window corner. With the exact
expression of an English commercial traveler it seemed, at a distance,
as if Givonne was praising to Mme. Pums some article which, he promised,
would give her complete satisfaction.

M. Raindal examined them for a moment with a mechanical benevolence. But
he felt his eyelids becoming heavy. The abundant meal or the efforts to
recall his memories which he had made during the dinner made him feel
very tired. To avoid speaking he made free use of affable smiles.

The entrance of Jean Bunel, whom Mme. Chambannes brought towards him,
gave him a pretext to rise.

"M. Jean Bunel, whose beautiful novels I'm sure you have read," Zozé
said in presenting him.

"To be sure.... Delighted, my dear confrère!" said M. Raindal warmly, as
he pressed the hand of Bunel, whose name he was nevertheless hearing for
the first time.

He was a young man with a fine brown beard; rapidly he turned out an
admiring sentence, as pointed and pretty as a candy cone.

M. Raindal thanked him with a bow, and made a sign 

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