Book: Fromont and Risler, Complete

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




No one was at the station, a lonely, cheerless little place, where no
traveller ever showed his face in winter. As Claire sat there awaiting
the train, gazing vaguely at the station-master's melancholy little
garden, and the debris of climbing plants running along the fences by the
track, she felt a moist, warm breath on her glove. It was her friend
Kiss, who had followed her and was reminding her of their happy romps
together in the old days, with little shakes of the head, short leaps,
capers of joy tempered by humility, concluding by stretching his
beautiful white coat at full length at his mistress's feet, on the cold
floor of the waiting-room. Those humble caresses which sought her out,
like a hesitating offer of devotion and sympathy, caused the sobs she had
so long restrained to break forth as last. But suddenly she felt ashamed
of her weakness. She rose and sent the dog away, sent him away pitilessly
with voice and gesture, pointing to the house in the distance, with a
stern face which poor Kiss had never seen. Then she hastily wiped her
eyes and her moist hands; for the train for Paris was approaching and she
knew that in a moment she should need all her courage.

Claire's first thought on leaving the train was to take a cab and drive
to the jeweller in the Rue de la Paix, who had, as her grandfather
alleged, supplied Georges with a diamond necklace. If that should prove
to be true, then all the rest was true. Her dread of learning the truth
was so great that, when she reached her destination and alighted in front
of that magnificent establishment, she stopped, afraid to enter. To give
herself countenance, she pretended to be deeply interested in the jewels
displayed in velvet cases; and one who had seen her, quietly but
fashionably dressed, leaning forward to look at that gleaming and
attractive display, would have taken her for a happy wife engaged in
selecting a bracelet, rather than an anxious, sorrow-stricken soul who
had come thither to discover the secret of her life.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon. At that time of day, in winter,
the Rue de la Paix presents a truly dazzling aspect. In that luxurious
neighborhood, life moves quickly between the short morning and the early
evening. There are carriages moving swiftly in all directions, a
ceaseless rumbling, and on the sidewalks a coquettish haste, a rustling
of silks and furs. Winter is the real Parisian season. To see that
devil's own Paris in all its beauty and wealth and happiness one must
watch the current of its life beneath a lowering sky, heavy with snow.
Nature is absent from the picture, so to speak. No wind, no sunlight.
Just enough light for the dullest colors, the faintest reflections to
produce an admirable effect, from the reddish-gray tone of the monuments
to the gleams of jet which bespangle a woman's dress. Theatre and concert
posters shine resplendent, as if illumined by the effulgence of the
footlights. The shops are crowded. It seems that all those people must be
preparing for perpetual festivities. And at such times, if any sorrow is
mingled with that bustle and tumult, it seems the more terrible for that
reason. For five minutes Claire suffered martyrdom worse than death.
Yonder, on the road to Savigny, in the vast expanse of the deserted
fields, her despair spread out as it were in the sharp air and seemed to
enfold her less closely. Here she was stifling. The voices beside her,
the footsteps, the heedless jostling of people who passed, all added to
her torture.

At last she entered the shop.

"Ah! yes, Madame, certainly--Monsieur Fromont. A necklace of diamonds and
roses. We could make you one like it for twenty-five thousand francs."

That was five thousand less than for him.

"Thanks, Monsieur," said Claire, "I will think it over."

A mirror in front of her, in which she saw her dark-ringed eyes and her
deathly pallor, frightened her. She went out quickly, walking stiffly in
order not to fall.

She had but one idea, to escape from the street, from the noise; to be
alone, quite alone, so that she might plunge headlong into that abyss of
heartrending thoughts, of black things dancing madly in the depths of her
mind. Oh! the coward, the infamous villain! And to think that only last
night she was speaking comforting words to him, with her arms about him!

Suddenly, with no knowledge of how it happened, she found herself in the
courtyard of the factory. Through what streets had she come? Had she come
in a carriage or on foot? She had no remembrance. She had acted
unconsciously, as in a dream. The sentiment of reality returned, pitiless
and poignant, when she reached the steps of her little house. Risler was
there, superintending several men who were carrying potted plants up to
his wife's apartments, in preparation for the magnificent party she was
to give that very evening. With his usual tranquillity he directed the
work, protected the tall branches which the workmen might have broken:
"Not like that. Bend it over. Take care of the carpet."

The atmosphere of pleasure and merry-making which had so revolted her a
moment before pursued her to her own house. It was too much, after all
the rest! She rebelled; and as Risler saluted her, affectionately and
with deep respect as always, her face assumed an expression of intense
disgust, and she passed without speaking to him, without seeing the
amazement that opened his great, honest eyes.

From that moment her course was determined. Wrath, a wrath born of
uprightness and sense of justice, guided her actions. She barely took
time to kiss her child's rosy cheeks before running to her mother's room.

"Come, mamma, dress yourself quickly. We are going away. We are going
away."

The old lady rose slowly from the armchair in which she was sitting,
busily engaged in cleaning her watch-chain by inserting a pin between
every two links with infinite care.

"Come, come, hurry. Get your things ready."

Her voice trembled, and the poor monomaniac's room seemed a horrible
place to her, all glistening as it was with the cleanliness that had
gradually become a mania. She had reached one of those fateful moments
when the loss of one illusion causes you to lose them all, enables you to
look to the very depths of human misery. The realization of her complete
isolation, between her half-mad mother, her faithless husband, her too
young child, came upon her for the first time; but it served only to
strengthen her in her resolution.

In a moment the whole household was busily engaged in making preparations
for this abrupt, unexpected departure. Claire hurried the bewildered
servants, and dressed her mother and the child, who laughed merrily amid
all the excitement. She was in haste to go before Georges' return, so
that he might find the cradle empty and the house deserted. Where should
she go? She did not know as yet. Perhaps to her aunt at Orleans, perhaps
to Savigny, no matter where. What she must do first of all was-go, fly
from that atmosphere of treachery and falsehood.

At that moment she was in her bedroom, packing a trunk, making a pile of
her effects--a heartrending occupation. Every object that she touched set
in motion whole worlds of thoughts, of memories. There is so much of
ourselves in anything that we use. At times the odor of a sachet-bag, the
pattern of a bit of lace, were enough to bring tears to her eyes.
Suddenly she heard a heavy footstep in the salon, the door of which was
partly open; then there was a slight cough, as if to let her know that
some one was there. She supposed that it was Risler: for no one else had
the right to enter her apartments so unceremoniously. The idea of having
to endure the presence of that hypocritical face, that false smile, was
so distasteful to her that she rushed to close the door.

"I am not at home to any one."

The door resisted her efforts, and Sigismond's square head appeared in
the opening.

"It is I, Madame," he said in an undertone. "I have come to get the
money."

"What money?" demanded Claire, for she no longer remembered why she had
gone to Savigny.

"Hush! The funds to meet my note to-morrow. Monsieur Georges, when he
went out, told me that you would hand it to me very soon."

"Ah! yes--true. The hundred thousand francs."

"I haven't them, Monsieur Planus; I haven't anything."

"Then," said the cashier, in a strange voice, as if he were speaking to
himself, "then it means failure."

And he turned slowly away.

Failure! She sank on a chair, appalled, crushed. For the last few hours
the downfall of her happiness had caused her to forget the downfall of
the house; but she remembered now.

So her husband was ruined! In a little while, when he returned home, he
would learn of the disaster, and he would learn at the same time that his
wife and child had gone; that he was left alone in the midst of the
wreck.

Alone--that weak, easily influenced creature, who could only weep and
complain and shake his fist at life like a child! What would become of
the miserable man?

She pitied him, notwithstanding his great sin.

Then the thought came to her that she would perhaps seem to have fled at
the approach of bankruptcy, of poverty.

Georges might say to himself:

"Had I been rich, she would have forgiven me!"

Ought she to allow him to entertain that doubt?

To a generous, noble heart like Claire's nothing more than that was
necessary to change her plans. Instantly she was conscious that her
feeling of repugnance, of revolt, began to grow less bitter, and a sudden
ray of light seemed to make her duty clearer to her. When they came to
tell her that the child was dressed and the trunks ready, her mind was
made up anew.

"Never mind," she replied gently. "We are not going away."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Abundant details which he sometimes volunteered
Exaggerated dramatic pantomime
Void in her heart, a place made ready for disasters to come
Would have liked him to be blind only so far as he was concerned




FROMONT AND RISLER

By ALPHONSE DAUDET




BOOK 4.




CHAPTER XXI

THE DAY OF RECKONING

The great clock of Saint-Gervais struck one in the morning. It was so
cold that the fine snow, flying through the air, hardened as it fell,
covering the pavements with a slippery, white blanket.

Risler, wrapped in his cloak, was hastening home from the brewery through
the deserted streets of the Marais. He had been celebrating, in company
with his two faithful borrowers, Chebe and Delobelle, his first moment of
leisure, the end of that almost endless period of seclusion during which
he had been superintending the manufacture of his press, with all the
searchings, the joys, and the disappointments of the inventor. It had
been long, very long. At the last moment he had discovered a defect. The
crane did not work well; and he had had to revise his plans and drawings.
At last, on that very day, the new machine had been tried. Everything had
succeeded to his heart's desire. The worthy man was triumphant. It seemed
to him that he had paid a debt, by giving the house of Fromont the
benefit of a new machine, which would lessen the labor, shorten the hours
of the workmen, and at the same time double the profits and the
reputation of the factory. He indulged in beautiful dreams as he plodded
along. His footsteps rang out proudly, emphasized by the resolute and
happy trend of his thoughts.

Quickening his pace, he reached the corner of Rue des
Vieilles-Haudriettes. A long line of carriages was standing in front of
the factory, and the light of their lanterns in the street, the shadows
of the drivers seeking shelter from the snow in the corners and angles
that those old buildings have retained despite the straightening of the
sidewalks, gave an animated aspect to that deserted, silent quarter.

"Yes, yes! to be sure," thought the honest fellow, "we have a ball at our
house." He remembered that Sidonie was giving a grand musical and dancing
party, which she had excused him from attending, by the way, knowing that
he was very busy.

Shadows passed and repassed behind the fluttering veil of the curtains;
the orchestra seemed to follow the movements of those stealthy
apparitions with the rising and falling of its muffled notes. The guests
were dancing. Risler let his eyes rest for a moment on that
phantasmagoria of the ball, and fancied that he recognized Sidonie's
shadow in a small room adjoining the salon.

She was standing erect in her magnificent costume, in the attitude of a
pretty woman before her mirror. A shorter shadow behind her, Madame
Dobson doubtless, was repairing some accident to the costume, retieing
the knot of a ribbon tied about her neck, its long ends floating down to
the flounces of the train. It was all very indistinct, but the woman's
graceful figure was recognizable in those faintly traced outlines, and
Risler tarried long admiring her.

The contrast on the first floor was most striking. There was no light
visible, with the exception of a little lamp shining through the lilac
hangings of the bedroom. Risler noticed that circumstance, and as the
little girl had been ailing a few days before, he felt anxious about her,
remembering Madame Georges's strange agitation when she passed him so
hurriedly in the afternoon; and he retraced his steps as far as Pere
Achille's lodge to inquire.

The lodge was full. Coachmen were warming themselves around the stove,
chatting and laughing amid the smoke from their pipes. When Risler
appeared there was profound silence, a cunning, inquisitive, significant
silence. They had evidently been speaking of him.

"Is the Fromont child still sick?" he asked.

"No, not the child, Monsieur."

"Monsieur Georges sick?"

"Yes, he was taken when he came home to-night. I went right off to get
the doctor. He said that it wouldn't amount to anything--that all
Monsieur needed was rest."

As Risler closed the door Pere Achille added, under his breath, with the
half-fearful, half-audacious insolence of an inferior, who would like to
be listened to and yet not distinctly heard:

"Ah! 'dame', they're not making such a show on the first floor as they
are on the second."

This is what had happened.

Fromont jeune, on returning home during the evening, had found his wife
with such a changed, heartbroken face, that he at once divined a
catastrophe. But he had become so accustomed in the past two years to sin
with impunity that it did not for one moment occur to him that his wife
could have been informed of his conduct. Claire, for her part, to avoid
humiliating him, was generous enough to speak only of Savigny.

"Grandpapa refused," she said.

The miserable man turned frightfully pale.

"I am lost--I am lost!" he muttered two or three times in the wild
accents of fever; and his sleepless nights, a last terrible scene which
he had had with Sidonie, trying to induce her not to give this party on
the eve of his downfall, M. Gardinois' refusal, all these maddening
things which followed so closely on one another's heels and had agitated
him terribly, culminated in a genuine nervous attack. Claire took pity on
him, put him to bed, and established herself by his side; but her voice
had lost that affectionate intonation which soothes and persuades. There
was in her gestures, in the way in which she arranged the pillow under
the patient's head and prepared a quieting draught, a strange
indifference, listlessness.

"But I have ruined you!" Georges said from time to time, as if to rouse
her from that apathy which made him uncomfortable. She replied with a
proud, disdainful gesture. Ah! if he had done only that to her!

At last, however, his nerves became calmer, the fever subsided, and he
fell asleep.

She remained to attend to his wants.

"It is my duty," she said to herself.

Her duty. She had reached that point with the man whom she had adored so
blindly, with the hope of a long and happy life together.

At that moment the ball in Sidonie's apartments began to become very
animated. The ceiling trembled rhythmically, for Madame had had all the
carpets removed from her salons for the greater comfort of the dancers.
Sometimes, too, the sound of voices reached Claire's ears in waves, and
frequent tumultuous applause, from which one could divine the great
number of the guests, the crowded condition of the rooms.

Claire was lost in thought. She did not waste time in regrets, in
fruitless lamentations. She knew that life was inflexible and that all
the arguments in the world will not arrest the cruel logic of its
inevitable progress. She did not ask herself how that man had succeeded
in deceiving her so long--how he could have sacrificed the honor and
happiness of his family for a mere caprice. That was the fact, and all
her reflections could not wipe it out, could not repair the irreparable.
The subject that engrossed her thoughts was the future. A new existence
was unfolding before her eyes, dark, cruel, full of privation and toil;
and, strangely enough, the prospect of ruin, instead of terrifying her,
restored all her courage. The idea of the change of abode made necessary
by the economy they would be obliged to practise, of work made compulsory
for Georges and perhaps for herself, infused an indefinable energy into
the distressing calmness of her despair. What a heavy burden of souls she
would have with her three children: her mother, her child, and her
husband! The feeling of responsibility prevented her giving way too much
to her misfortune, to the wreck of her love; and in proportion as she
forgot herself in the thought of the weak creatures she had to protect
she realized more fully the meaning of the word "sacrifice," so vague on
careless lips, so serious when it becomes a rule of life.

Such were the poor woman's thoughts during that sad vigil, a vigil of
arms and tears, while she was preparing her forces for the great battle.
Such was the scene lighted by the modest little lamp which Risler had
seen from below, like a star fallen from the radiant chandeliers of the
ballroom.

Reassured by Pere Achille's reply, the honest fellow thought of going up
to his bedroom, avoiding the festivities and the guests, for whom he
cared little.

On such occasions he used a small servants' staircase communicating with
the counting-room. So he walked through the many-windowed workshops,
which the moon, reflected by the snow, made as light as at noonday. He
breathed the atmosphere of the day of toil, a hot, stifling atmosphere,
heavy with the odor of boiled talc and varnish. The papers spread out on
the dryers formed long, rustling paths. On all sides tools were lying
about, and blouses hanging here and there ready for the morrow. Risler
never walked through the shops without a feeling of pleasure.

Suddenly he spied a light in Planus's office, at the end of that long
line of deserted rooms. The old cashier was still at work, at one o'clock
in the morning! That was really most extraordinary.

Risler's first impulse was to retrace his steps. In fact, since his
unaccountable falling-out with Sigismond, since the cashier had adopted
that attitude of cold silence toward him, he had avoided meeting him. His
wounded friendship had always led him to shun an explanation; he had a
sort of pride in not asking Planus why he bore him ill-will. But, on that
evening, Risler felt so strongly the need of cordial sympathy, of pouring
out his heart to some one, and then it was such an excellent opportunity
for a tete-a-tete with his former friend, that he did not try to avoid
him but boldly entered the counting-room.

The cashier was sitting there, motionless, among heaps of papers and
great books, which he had been turning over, some of which had fallen to
the floor. At the sound of his employer's footsteps he did not even lift
his eyes. He had recognized Risler's step. The latter, somewhat abashed,
hesitated a moment; then, impelled by one of those secret springs which
we have within us and which guide us, despite ourselves, in the path of
our destiny, he walked straight to the cashier's grating.

"Sigismond," he said in a grave voice.

The old man raised his head and displayed a shrunken face down which two
great tears were rolling, the first perhaps that that animate column of
figures had ever shed in his life.

"You are weeping, old man? What troubles you?"

And honest Risler, deeply touched, held out his hand to his friend, who
hastily withdrew his. That movement of repulsion was so instinctive, so
brutal, that all Risler's emotion changed to indignation.

He drew himself up with stern dignity.

"I offer you my hand, Sigismond Planus!" he said.

"And I refuse to take it," said Planus, rising.

There was a terrible pause, during which they heard the muffled music of
the orchestra upstairs and the noise of the ball, the dull, wearing noise
of floors shaken by the rhythmic movement of the dance.

"Why do you refuse to take my hand?" demanded Risler simply, while the
grating upon which he leaned trembled with a metallic quiver.

Sigismond was facing him, with both hands on his desk, as if to emphasize
and drive home what he was about to say in reply.

"Why? Because you have ruined the house; because in a few hours a
messenger from the Bank will come and stand where you are, to collect a
hundred thousand francs; and because, thanks to you, I haven't a sou in
the cash-box--that's the reason why!"

Risler was stupefied.

"I have ruined the house--I?"

"Worse than that, Monsieur. You have allowed it to be ruined by your
wife, and you have arranged with her to benefit by our ruin and your
dishonor. Oh! I can see your game well enough. The money your wife has
wormed out of the wretched Fromont, the house at Asnieres, the diamonds
and all the rest is invested in her name, of course, out of reach of
disaster; and of course you can retire from business now."

"Oh--oh!" exclaimed Risler in a faint voice, a restrained voice rather,
that was insufficient for the multitude of thoughts it strove to express;
and as he stammered helplessly he drew the grating toward him with such
force that he broke off a piece of it. Then he staggered, fell to the
floor, and lay there motionless, speechless, retaining only, in what
little life was still left in him, the firm determination not to die
until he had justified himself. That determination must have been very
powerful; for while his temples throbbed madly, hammered by the blood
that turned his face purple, while his ears were ringing and his glazed
eyes seemed already turned toward the terrible unknown, the unhappy man
muttered to himself in a thick voice, like the voice of a shipwrecked man
speaking with his mouth full of water in a howling gale: "I must live! I
must live!"

When he recovered consciousness, he was sitting on the cushioned bench on
which the workmen sat huddled together on pay-day, his cloak on the
floor, his cravat untied, his shirt open at the neck, cut by Sigismond's
knife. Luckily for him, he had cut his hands when he tore the grating
apart; the blood had flowed freely, and that accident was enough to avert
an attack of apoplexy. On opening his eyes, he saw on either side old
Sigismond and Madame Georges, whom the cashier had summoned in his
distress. As soon as Risler could speak, he said to her in a choking
voice:

"Is this true, Madame Chorche--is this true that he just told me?"

She had not the courage to deceive him, so she turned her eyes away.

"So," continued the poor fellow, "so the house is ruined, and I--"

"No, Risler, my friend. No, not you."

"My wife, was it not? Oh! it is horrible! This is how I have paid my debt
of gratitude to you. But you, Madame Chorche, you could not have believed
that I was a party to this infamy?"

"No, my friend, no; be calm. I know that you are the most honorable man
on earth."

He looked at her a moment, with trembling lips and clasped hands, for
there was something child-like in all the manifestations of that artless
nature.

"Oh! Madame Chorche, Madame Chorche," he murmured. "When I think that I
am the one who has ruined you."

In the terrible blow which overwhelmed him, and by which his heart,
overflowing with love for Sidonie, was most deeply wounded, he refused to
see anything but the financial disaster to the house of Fromont, caused
by his blind devotion to his wife. Suddenly he stood erect.

"Come," he said, "let us not give way to emotion. We must see about
settling our accounts."

Madame Fromont was frightened.

"Risler, Risler--where are you going?"

She thought that he was going up to Georges' room.

Risler understood her and smiled in superb disdain.

"Never fear, Madame. Monsieur Georges can sleep in peace. I have
something more urgent to do than avenge my honor as a husband. Wait for
me here. I will come back."

He darted toward the narrow staircase; and Claire, relying upon his word,
remained with Planus during one of those supreme moments of uncertainty
which seem interminable because of all the conjectures with which they
are thronged.

A few moments later the sound of hurried steps, the rustling of silk
filled the dark and narrow staircase. Sidonie appeared first, in ball
costume, gorgeously arrayed and so pale that the jewels that glistened
everywhere on her dead-white flesh seemed more alive than she, as if they
were scattered over the cold marble of a statue. The breathlessness due
to dancing, the trembling of intense excitement and her rapid descent,
caused her to shake from head to foot, and her floating ribbons, her
ruffles, her flowers, her rich and fashionable attire drooped tragically
about her. Risler followed her, laden with jewel-cases, caskets, and
papers. Upon reaching his apartments he had pounced upon his wife's desk,
seized everything valuable that it contained, jewels, certificates,
title-deeds of the house at Asnieres; then, standing in the doorway, he
had shouted into the ballroom:

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