Book: Fromont and Risler, Complete

A >> Alphonse Daudet >> Fromont and Risler, Complete




But that was no longer possible. He saw the impending disaster clearly,
in its full meaning; and Sigismond Planus's wrinkled, solemn face rose
before him with its sharply cut features, whose absence of expression
softened their harshness, and his light German-Swiss eyes, which had
haunted him for many weeks with their impassive stare.

Well, no, he had not the hundred thousand francs, nor did he know where
to get them.

The crisis which, a few hours before, seemed to him a chaos, an eddying
whirl in which he could see nothing distinctly and whose very confusion
was a source of hope, appeared to him at that moment with appalling
distinctness. An empty cash-box, closed doors, notes protested, ruin, are
the phantoms he saw whichever way he turned. And when, on top of all the
rest, came the thought of Sidonie's treachery, the wretched, desperate
man, finding nothing to cling to in that shipwreck, suddenly uttered a
sob, a cry of agony, as if appealing for help to some higher power.

"Georges, Georges, it is I. What is the matter?"

His wife stood before him, his wife who now waited for him every night,
watching anxiously for his return from the club, for she still believed
that he passed his evenings there. That night she had heard him walking
very late in his room. At last her child fell asleep, and Claire, hearing
the father sob, ran to him.

Oh! what boundless, though tardy remorse overwhelmed him when he saw her
before him, so deeply moved, so lovely and so loving! Yes, she was in
very truth the true companion, the faithful friend. How could he have
deserted her? For a long, long time he wept upon her shoulder, unable to
speak. And it was fortunate that he did not speak, for he would have told
her all, all. The unhappy man felt the need of pouring out his heart--an
irresistible longing to accuse himself, to ask forgiveness, to lessen the
weight of the remorse that was crushing him.

She spared him the pain of uttering a word:

"You have been gambling, have you not? You have lost--lost heavily?"

He moved his head affirmatively; then, when he was able to speak, he
confessed that he must have a hundred thousand francs for the day after
the morrow, and that he did not know how to obtain them.

She did not reproach him. She was one of those women who, when face to
face with disaster, think only of repairing it, without a word of
recrimination. Indeed, in the bottom of her heart she blessed this
misfortune which brought him nearer to her and became a bond between
their two lives, which had long lain so far apart. She reflected a
moment. Then, with an effort indicating a resolution which had cost a
bitter struggle, she said:

"Not all is lost as yet. I will go to Savigny tomorrow and ask my
grandfather for the money."

He would never have dared to suggest that to her. Indeed, it would never
have occurred to him. She was so proud and old Gardinois so hard! Surely
that was a great sacrifice for her to make for him, and a striking proof
of her love.

"Claire, Claire--how good your are!" he said.

Without replying, she led him to their child's cradle.

"Kiss her," she said softly; and as they stood there side by side, their
heads leaning over the child, Georges was afraid of waking her, and he
embraced the mother passionately.




CHAPTER XX

REVELATIONS

"Ah! here's Sigismond. How goes the world, Pere Sigismond? How is
business? Is it good with you?"

The old cashier smiled affably, shook hands with the master, his wife,
and his brother, and, as they talked, looked curiously about. They were
in a manufactory of wallpapers on Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the
establishment of the little Prochassons, who were beginning to be
formidable rivals. Those former employes of the house of Fromont had set
up on their own account, beginning in a very, small way, and had
gradually succeeded in making for themselves a place on 'Change. Fromont
the uncle had assisted them for a long while with his credit and his
money; the result being most friendly relations between the two firms,
and a balance--between ten or fifteen thousand francs--which had never
been definitely adjusted, because they knew that money was in good hands
when the Prochassons had it.

Indeed, the appearance of the factory was most reassuring. The chimneys
proudly shook their plumes of smoke. The dull roar of constant toil
indicated that the workshops were full of workmen and activity. The
buildings were in good repair, the windows clean; everything had an
aspect of enthusiasm, of good-humor, of discipline; and behind the
grating in the counting-room sat the wife of one of the brothers, simply
dressed, with her hair neatly arranged, and an air of authority on her
youthful face, deeply intent upon a long column of figures.

Old Sigismond thought bitterly of the difference between the house of
Fromont, once so wealthy, now living entirely upon its former reputation,
and the ever-increasing prosperity of the establishment before his eyes.
His stealthy glance penetrated to the darkest corners, seeking some
defect, something to criticise; and his failure to find anything made his
heart heavy and his smile forced and anxious.

What embarrassed him most of all was the question how he should approach
the subject of the money due his employers without betraying the
emptiness of the strongbox. The poor man assumed a jaunty, unconcerned
air which was truly pitiful to see. Business was good--very good. He
happened to be passing through the quarter and thought he would come in a
moment--that was natural, was it not? One likes to see old friends.

But these preambles, these constantly expanding circumlocutions, did not
bring him to the point he wished to reach; on the contrary, they led him
away from his goal, and imagining that he detected surprise in the eyes
of his auditors, he went completely astray, stammered, lost his head,
and, as a last resort, took his hat and pretended to go. At the door he
suddenly bethought himself:

"Ah! by the way, so long as I am here--"

He gave a little wink which he thought sly, but which was in reality
heartrending.

"So long as I am here, suppose we settle that old account."

The two brothers and the young woman in the counting-room gazed at one
another a second, unable to understand.

"Account? What account, pray?"

Then all three began to laugh at the same moment, and heartily too, as if
at a joke, a rather broad joke, on the part of the old cashier. "Go along
with you, you sly old Pere Planus!" The old man laughed with them! He
laughed without any desire to laugh, simply to do as the others did.

At last they explained. Fromont Jeune had come in person, six months
before, to collect the balance in their hands.

Sigismond felt that his strength was going. But he summoned courage to
say:

"Ah! yes; true. I had forgotten. Sigismond Planus is growing old, that is
plain. I am failing, my children, I am failing."

And the old man went away wiping his eyes, in which still glistened great
tears caused by the hearty laugh he had just enjoyed. The young people
behind him exchanged glances and shook their heads. They understood.

The blow he had received was so crushing that the cashier, as soon as he
was out-of-doors, was obliged to sit down on a bench. So that was the
reason why Georges did not come to the counting-room for money. He made
his collections in person. What had taken place at the Prochassons' had
probably been repeated everywhere else. It was quite useless, therefore,
for him to subject himself to further humiliation. Yes, but the notes,
the notes!--that thought renewed his strength. He wiped the perspiration
from his forehead and started once more to try his luck with a customer
in the faubourg. But this time he took his precautions and called to the
cashier from the doorway, without entering:

"Good-morning, Pere So-and-So. I want to ask you a question."

He held the door half open, his hand upon the knob.

"When did we settle our last bill? I forgot to enter it."

Oh! it was a long while ago, a very long while, that their last bill was
settled. Fromont Jeune's receipt was dated in September. It was five
months ago.

The door was hastily closed. Another! Evidently it would be the same
thing everywhere.

"Ah! Monsieur Chorche, Monsieur Chorche," muttered poor Sigismond; and
while he pursued his journey, with bowed head and trembling legs, Madame
Fromont Jeune's carriage passed him close, on its way to the Orleans
station; but Claire did not see old Planus, any more than she had seen,
when she left her house a few moments earlier, Monsieur Chebe in his long
frock-coat and the illustrious Delobelle in his stovepipe hat, turning
into the Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes at opposite ends, each with the
factory and Risler's wallet for his objective point. The young woman was
much too deeply engrossed by what she had before her to look into the
street.

Think of it! It was horrible. To go and ask M. Gardinois for a hundred
thousand francs--M. Gardinois, a man who boasted that he had never
borrowed or loaned a sou in his life, who never lost an opportunity to
tell how, on one occasion, being driven to ask his father for forty
francs to buy a pair of trousers, he had repaid the loan in small
amounts. In his dealings with everybody, even with his children, M.
Gardinois followed those traditions of avarice which the earth, the cruel
earth, often ungrateful to those who till it, seems to inculcate in all
peasants. The old man did not intend that any part of his colossal
fortune should go to his children during his lifetime.

"They'll find my property when I am dead," he often said.

Acting upon that principle, he had married off his daughter, the elder
Madame Fromont, without one sou of dowry, and he never forgave his
son-in-law for having made a fortune without assistance from him. For it
was one of the peculiarities of that nature, made up of vanity and
selfishness in equal parts, to wish that every one he knew should need
his help, should bow before his wealth. When the Fromonts expressed in
his presence their satisfaction at the prosperous turn their business was
beginning to take, his sharp, cunning, little blue eye would smile
ironically, and he would growl, "We shall see what it all comes to in the
end," in a tone that made them tremble. Sometimes, too, at Savigny, in
the evening, when the park, the avenues, the blue slates of the chateau,
the red brick of the stables, the ponds and brooks shone resplendent,
bathed in the golden glory of a lovely sunset, this eccentric parvenu
would say aloud before his children, after looking about him:

"The one thing that consoles me for dying some day is that no one in the
family will ever be rich enough to keep a chateau that costs fifty
thousand francs a year to maintain."

And yet, with that latter-day tenderness which even the sternest
grandfathers find in the depths of their hearts, old Gardinois would
gladly have made a pet of his granddaughter. But Claire, even as a child,
had felt an invincible repugnance for the former peasant's hardness of
heart and vainglorious selfishness. And when affection forms no bonds
between those who are separated by difference in education, such
repugnance is increased by innumerable trifles. When Claire married
Georges, the grandfather said to Madame Fromont:

"If your daughter wishes, I will give her a royal present; but she must
ask for it."

But Claire received nothing, because she would not ask for anything.

What a bitter humiliation to come, three years later, to beg a hundred
thousand francs from the generosity she had formerly spurned, to humble
herself, to face the endless sermons, the sneering raillery, the whole
seasoned with Berrichon jests, with phrases smacking of the soil, with
the taunts, often well-deserved, which narrow, but logical, minds can
utter on occasion, and which sting with their vulgar patois like an
insult from an inferior!

Poor Claire! Her husband and her father were about to be humiliated in
her person. She must necessarily confess the failure of the one, the
downfall of the house which the other had founded and of which he had
been so proud while he lived. The thought that she would be called upon
to defend all that she loved best in the world made her strong and weak
at the same time.

It was eleven o'clock when she reached Savigny. As she had given no
warning of her visit, the carriage from the chateau was not at the
station, and she had no choice but to walk.

It was a cold morning and the roads were dry and hard. The north wind
blew freely across the arid fields and the river, and swept unopposed
through the leafless trees and bushes. The chateau appeared under the
low-hanging clouds, with its long line of low walls and hedges separating
it from the surrounding fields. The slates on the roof were as dark as
the sky they reflected; and that magnificent summer residence, completely
transformed by the bitter, silent winter, without a leaf on its trees or
a pigeon on its roofs, showed no life save in its rippling brooks and the
murmuring of the tall poplars as they bowed majestically to one another,
shaking the magpies' nests hidden among their highest branches.

At a distance Claire fancied that the home of her youth wore a surly,
depressed air. It seemed to het that Savigny watched her approach with
the cold, aristocratic expression which it assumed for passengers on the
highroad, who stopped at the iron bars of its gateways.

Oh! the cruel aspect of everything!

And yet not so cruel after all. For, with its tightly closed exterior,
Savigny seemed to say to her, "Begone--do not come in!" And if she had
chosen to listen, Claire, renouncing her plan of speaking to her
grandfather, would have returned at once to Paris to maintain the repose
of her life. But she did not understand, poor child! and already the
great Newfoundland dog, who had recognized her, came leaping through the
dead leaves and sniffed at the gate.

"Good-morning, Francoise. Where is grandpapa?" the young woman asked the
gardener's wife, who came to open the gate, fawning and false and
trembling, like all the servants at the chateau when they felt that the
master's eye was upon them.

Grandpapa was in his office, a little building independent of the main
house, where he passed his days fumbling among boxes and pigeonholes and
great books with green backs, with the rage for bureaucracy due to his
early ignorance and the strong impression made upon him long before by
the office of the notary in his village.

At that moment he was closeted there with his keeper, a sort of country
spy, a paid informer who apprised him as to all that was said and done in
the neighborhood.

He was the master's favorite. His name was Fouinat (polecat), and he had
the flat, crafty, blood-thirsty face appropriate to his name.

When Claire entered, pale and trembling under her furs, the old man
understood that something serious and unusual had happened, and he made a
sign to Fouinat, who disappeared, gliding through the half-open door as
if he were entering the very wall.

"What's the matter, little one? Why, you're all 'perlute'," said the
grandfather, seated behind his huge desk.

Perlute, in the Berrichon dictionary, signifies troubled, excited, upset,
and applied perfectly to Claire's condition. Her rapid walk in the cold
country air, the effort she had made in order to do what she was doing,
imparted an unwonted expression to her face, which was much less reserved
than usual. Without the slightest encouragement on his part, she kissed
him and seated herself in front of the fire, where old stumps, surrounded
by dry moss and pine needles picked up in the paths, were smouldering
with occasional outbursts of life and the hissing of sap. She did not
even take time to shake off the frost that stood in beads on her veil,
but began to speak at once, faithful to her resolution to state the
object of her visit immediately upon entering the room, before she
allowed herself to be intimidated by the atmosphere of fear and respect
which encompassed the grandfather and made of him a sort of awe-inspiring
deity.

She required all her courage not to become confused, not to interrupt her
narrative before that piercing gaze which transfixed her, enlivened from
her first words by a malicious joy, before that savage mouth whose
corners seemed tightly closed by premeditated reticence, obstinacy, a
denial of any sort of sensibility. She went on to the end in one speech,
respectful without humility, concealing her emotion, steadying her voice
by the consciousness of the truth of her story. Really, seeing them thus
face to face, he cold and calm, stretched out in his armchair, with his
hands in the pockets of his gray swansdown waistcoat, she carefully
choosing her words, as if each of them might condemn or absolve her, you
would never have said that it was a child before her grandfather, but an
accused person before an examining magistrate.

His thoughts were entirely engrossed by the joy, the pride of his
triumph. So they were conquered at last, those proud upstarts of
Fromonts! So they needed old Gardinois at last, did they? Vanity, his
dominating passion, overflowed in his whole manner, do what he would.
When she had finished, he took the floor in his turn, began naturally
enough with "I was sure of it--I always said so--I knew we should see
what it would all come to"--and continued in the same vulgar, insulting
tone, ending with the declaration that, in view of his principles, which
were well known in the family, he would not lend a sou.

Then Claire spoke of her child, of her husband's name, which was also her
father's, and which would be dishonored by the failure. The old man was
as cold, as implacable as ever, and took advantage of her humiliation to
humiliate her still more; for he belonged to the race of worthy rustics
who, when their enemy is down, never leave him without leaving on his
face the marks of the nails in their sabots.

"All I can say to you, little one, is that Savigny is open to you. Let
your husband come here. I happen to need a secretary. Very well, Georges
can do my writing for twelve hundred francs a year and board for the
whole family. Offer him that from me, and come."

She rose indignantly. She had come as his child and he had received her
as a beggar. They had not reached that point yet, thank God!

"Do you think so?" queried M. Gardinois, with a savage light in his eye.

Claire shuddered and walked toward the door without replying. The old man
detained her with a gesture.

"Take care! you don't know what you're refusing. It is in your interest,
you understand, that I suggest bringing your husband here. You don't know
the life he is leading up yonder. Of course you don't know it, or you'd
never come and ask me for money to go where yours has gone. Ah! I know
all about your man's affairs. I have my police at Paris, yes, and at
Asnieres, as well as at Savigny. I know what the fellow does with his
days and his nights; and I don't choose that my crowns shall go to the
places where he goes. They're not clean enough for money honestly
earned."

Claire's eyes opened wide in amazement and horror, for she felt that a
terrible drama had entered her life at that moment through the little low
door of denunciation. The old man continued with a sneer:

"That little Sidonie has fine, sharp teeth."

"Sidonie!"

"Faith, yes, to be sure. I have told you the name. At all events, you'd
have found it out some day or other. In fact, it's an astonishing thing
that, since the time--But you women are so vain! The idea that a man can
deceive you is the last idea to come into your head. Well, yes, Sidonie's
the one who has got it all out of him--with her husband's consent, by the
way."

He went on pitilessly to tell the young wife the source of the money for
the house at Asnieres, the horses, the carriages, and how the pretty
little nest in the Avenue Gabriel had been furnished. He explained
everything in detail. It was clear that, having found a new opportunity
to exercise his mania for espionage, he had availed himself of it to the
utmost; perhaps, too, there was at the bottom of it all a vague,
carefully concealed rage against his little Chebe, the anger of a senile
passion never declared.

Claire listened to him without speaking, with a smile of incredulity.
That smile irritated the old man, spurred on his malice. "Ah! you don't
believe me. Ah! you want proofs, do you?" And he gave her proofs, heaped
them upon her, overpowered her with knife-thrusts in the heart. She had
only to go to Darches, the jeweller in the Rue de la Paix. A fortnight
before, Georges had bought a diamond necklace there for thirty thousand
francs. It was his New Year's gift to Sidonie. Thirty thousand francs for
diamonds at the moment of becoming bankrupt!

He might have talked the entire day and Claire would not have interrupted
him. She felt that the slightest effort would cause the tears that filled
her eyes to overflow, and she was determined to smile to the end, the
sweet, brave woman. From time to time she cast a sidelong glance at the
road. She was in haste to go, to fly from the sound of that spiteful
voice, which pursued her pitilessly.

At last he ceased; he had told the whole story. She bowed and walked
toward the door.

"Are you going? What a hurry you're in!" said the grandfather, following
her outside.

At heart he was a little ashamed of his savagery.

"Won't you breakfast with me?"

She shook her head, not having strength to speak.

"At least wait till the carriage is ready--some one will drive you to the
station."

No, still no.

And she walked on, with the old man close behind her. Proudly, and with
head erect, she crossed the courtyard, filled with souvenirs of her
childhood, without once looking behind. And yet what echoes of hearty
laughter, what sunbeams of her younger days were imprinted in the tiniest
grain of gravel in that courtyard!

Her favorite tree, her favorite bench, were still in the same place. She
had not a glance for them, nor for the pheasants in the aviary, nor even
for the great dog Kiss, who followed her docilely, awaiting the caress
which she did not give him. She had come as a child of the house, she
went away as a stranger, her mind filled with horrible thoughts which the
slightest reminder of her peaceful and happy past could not have failed
to aggravate.

"Good-by, grandfather."

"Good-by, then."

And the gate closed upon her harshly. As soon as she was alone, she began
to walk swiftly, swiftly, almost to run. She was not merely going away,
she was escaping. Suddenly, when she reached the end of the wall of the
estate, she found herself in front of the little green gate, surrounded
by nasturtiums and honeysuckle, where the chateau mail-box was. She
stopped instinctively, struck by one of those sudden awakenings of the
memory which take place within us at critical moments and place before
our eyes with wonderful clearness of outline the most trivial acts of our
lives bearing any relation to present disasters or joys. Was it the red
sun that suddenly broke forth from the clouds, flooding the level expanse
with its oblique rays in that winter afternoon as at the sunset hour in
August? Was it the silence that surrounded her, broken only by the
harmonious sounds of nature, which are almost alike at all seasons?

Whatever the cause she saw herself once more as she was, at that same
spot, three years before, on a certain day when she placed in the post a
letter inviting Sidonie to come and pass a month with her in the country.
Something told her that all her misfortunes dated from that moment. "Ah!
had I known--had I only known!" And she fancied that she could still feel
between her fingers the smooth envelope, ready to drop into the box.

Thereupon, as she reflected what an innocent, hopeful, happy child she
was at that moment, she cried out indignantly, gentle creature that she
was, against the injustice of life. She asked herself: "Why is it? What
have I done?"

Then she suddenly exclaimed: "No! it isn't true. It can not be possible.
Grandfather lied to me." And as she went on toward the station, the
unhappy girl tried to convince herself, to make herself believe what she
said. But she did not succeed.

The truth dimly seen is like the veiled sun, which tires the eyes far
more than its most brilliant rays. In the semi-obscurity which still
enveloped her misfortune, the poor woman's sight was keener than she
could have wished. Now she understood and accounted for certain peculiar
circumstances in her husband's life, his frequent absences, his
restlessness, his embarrassed behavior on certain days, and the abundant
details which he sometimes volunteered, upon returning home, concerning
his movements, mentioning names as proofs which she did not ask. From all
these conjectures the evidence of his sin was made up. And still she
refused to believe it, and looked forward to her arrival in Paris to set
her doubts at rest.

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