Book: Fromont and Risler, Complete

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




The second floor was deserted. The servants, who had been paid and
dismissed in the morning, had abandoned the apartments to the disorder of
the day following a ball; and they wore the aspect peculiar to places
where a drama has been enacted, and which are left in suspense, as it
were, between the events that have happened and those that are still to
happen. The open doors, the rugs lying in heaps in the corners, the
salvers laden with glasses, the preparations for the supper, the table
still set and untouched, the dust from the dancing on all the furniture,
its odor mingled with the fumes of punch, of withered flowers, of
rice-powder--all these details attracted Risler's notice as he entered.

In the disordered salon the piano was open, the bacchanal from 'Orphee
aux Enfers' on the music-shelf, and the gaudy hangings surrounding that
scene of desolation, the chairs overturned, as if in fear, reminded one
of the saloon of a wrecked packet-boat, of one of those ghostly nights of
watching when one is suddenly informed, in the midst of a fete at sea,
that the ship has sprung a leak, that she is taking in water in every
part.

The men began to remove the furniture. Risler watched them at work with
an indifferent air, as if he were in a stranger's house. That
magnificence which had once made him so happy and proud inspired in him
now an insurmountable disgust. But, when he entered his wife's bedroom,
he was conscious of a vague emotion.

It was a large room, hung with blue satin under white lace. A veritable
cocotte's nest. There were torn and rumpled tulle ruffles lying about,
bows, and artificial flowers. The wax candles around the mirror had
burned down to the end and cracked the candlesticks; and the bed, with
its lace flounces and valances, its great curtains raised and drawn back,
untouched in the general confusion, seemed like the bed of a corpse, a
state bed on which no one would ever sleep again.

Risler's first feeling upon entering the room was one of mad indignation,
a longing to fall upon the things before him, to tear and rend and
shatter everything. Nothing, you see, resembles a woman so much as her
bedroom. Even when she is absent, her image still smiles in the mirrors
that have reflected it. A little something of her, of her favorite
perfume, remains in everything she has touched. Her attitudes are
reproduced in the cushions of her couch, and one can follow her goings
and comings between the mirror and the toilette table in the pattern of
the carpet. The one thing above all others in that room that recalled
Sidonie was an 'etagere' covered with childish toys, petty, trivial
knickknacks, microscopic fans, dolls' tea-sets, gilded shoes, little
shepherds and shepherdesses facing one another, exchanging cold,
gleaming, porcelain glances. That 'etagere' was Sidonie's very soul, and
her thoughts, always commonplace, petty, vain, and empty, resembled those
gewgaws. Yes, in very truth, if Risler, while he held her in his grasp
last night, had in his frenzy broken that fragile little head, a whole
world of 'etagere' ornaments would have come from it in place of a brain.

The poor man was thinking sadly of all these things amid the ringing of
hammers and the heavy footsteps of the furniture-movers, when he heard an
interloping, authoritative step behind him, and Monsieur Chebe appeared,
little Monsieur Chebe, flushed and breathless, with flames darting from
his eyes. He assumed, as always, a very high tone with his son-in-law.

"What does this mean? What is this I hear? Ah! so you're moving, are
you?"

"I am not moving, Monsieur Chebe--I am selling out."

The little man gave a leap like a scalded fish.

"You are selling out? What are you selling, pray?"

"I am selling everything," said Risler in a hollow voice, without even
looking at him.

"Come, come, son-in-law, be reasonable. God knows I don't say that
Sidonie's conduct--But, for my part, I know nothing about it. I never
wanted to know anything. Only I must remind you of your dignity. People
wash their dirty linen in private, deuce take it! They don't make
spectacles of themselves as you've been doing ever since morning. Just
see everybody at the workshop windows; and on the porch, too! Why, you're
the talk of the quarter, my dear fellow."

"So much the better. The dishonor was public, the reparation must be
public, too."

This apparent coolness, this indifference to all his observations,
exasperated Monsieur Chebe. He suddenly changed his tactics, and adopted,
in addressing his son-in-law, the serious, peremptory tone which one uses
with children or lunatics.

"Well, I say that you haven't any right to take anything away from here.
I remonstrate formally, with all my strength as a man, with all my
authority as a father. Do you suppose I am going to let you drive my
child into the street. No, indeed! Oh! no, indeed! Enough of such
nonsense as that! Nothing more shall go out of these rooms."

And Monsieur Chebe, having closed the door, planted himself in front of
it with a heroic gesture. Deuce take it! his own interest was at stake in
the matter. The fact was that when his child was once in the gutter he
ran great risk of not having a feather bed to sleep on himself. He was
superb in that attitude of an indignant father, but he did not keep it
long. Two hands, two vises, seized his wrists, and he found himself in
the middle of the room, leaving the doorway clear for the workmen.

"Chebe, my boy, just listen," said Risler, leaning over him. "I am at the
end of my forbearance. Since this morning I have been making superhuman
efforts to restrain myself, but it would take very little now to make my
anger burst all bonds, and woe to the man on whom it falls! I am quite
capable of killing some one. Come! Be off at once!--"

There was such an intonation in his son-in-law's voice, and the way that
son-in-law shook him as he spoke was so eloquent, that Monsieur Chebe was
fully convinced. He even stammered an apology. Certainly Risler had good
reason for acting as he had. All honorable people would be on his side.
And he backed toward the door as he spoke. When he reached it, he
inquired timidly if Madame Chebe's little allowance would be continued.

"Yes," was Risler's reply, "but never go beyond it, for my position here
is not what it was. I am no longer a partner in the house."

Monsieur Chebe stared at him in amazement, and assumed the idiotic
expression which led many people to believe that the accident that had
happened to him--exactly like that of the Duc d'Orleans, you know--was
not a fable of his own invention; but he dared not make the slightest
observation. Surely some one had changed his son-in-law. Was this really
Risler, this tiger-cat, who bristled up at the slightest word and talked
of nothing less than killing people?

He took to his heels, recovered his self-possession at the foot of the
stairs, and walked across the courtyard with the air of a conqueror.

When all the rooms were cleared and empty, Risler walked through them for
the last time, then took the key and went down to Planus's office to hand
it to Madame Georges.

"You can let the apartment," he said, "it will be so much added to the
income of the factory."

"But you, my friend?"

"Oh! I don't need much. An iron bed up under the eaves. That's all a
clerk needs. For, I repeat, I am nothing but a clerk from this time on. A
useful clerk, by the way, faithful and courageous, of whom you will have
no occasion to complain, I promise you."

Georges, who was going over the books with Planus, was so affected at
hearing the poor fellow talk in that strain that he left his seat
precipitately. He was suffocated by his sobs. Claire, too, was deeply
moved; she went to the new clerk of the house of Fromont and said to him:

"Risler, I thank you in my father's name."

At that moment Pere Achille appeared with the mail.

Risler took the pile of letters, opened them tranquilly one by one, and
passed them over to Sigismond.

"Here's an order for Lyon. Why wasn't it answered at Saint-Etienne?"

He plunged with all his energy into these details, and he brought to them
a keen intelligence, due to the constant straining of the mind toward
peace and forgetfulness.

Suddenly, among those huge envelopes, stamped with the names of business
houses, the paper of which and the manner of folding suggested the office
and hasty despatch, he discovered one smaller one, carefully sealed, and
hidden so cunningly between the others that at first he did not notice
it. He recognized instantly that long, fine, firm writing,--To Monsieur
Risler--Personal. It was Sidonie's writing! When he saw it he felt the
same sensation he had felt in the bedroom upstairs.

All his love, all the hot wrath of the betrayed husband poured back into
his heart with the frantic force that makes assassins. What was she
writing to him? What lie had she invented now? He was about to open the
letter; then he paused. He realized that, if he should read that, it
would be all over with his courage; so he leaned over to the old cashier,
and said in an undertone:

"Sigismond, old friend, will you do me a favor?"

"I should think so!" said the worthy man enthusiastically. He was so
delighted to hear his friend speak to him in the kindly voice of the old
days.

"Here's a letter someone has written me which I don't wish to read now. I
am sure it would interfere with my thinking and living. You must keep it
for me, and this with it."

He took from his pocket a little package carefully tied, and handed it to
him through the grating.

"That is all I have left of the past, all I have left of that woman. I
have determined not to see her, nor anything that reminds me of her,
until my task here is concluded, and concluded satisfactorily,--I need
all my intelligence, you understand. You will pay the Chebes' allowance.
If she herself should ask for anything, you will give her what she needs.
But you will never mention my name. And you will keep this package safe
for me until I ask you for it."

Sigismond locked the letter and the package in a secret drawer of his
desk with other valuable papers. Risler returned at once to his
correspondence; but all the time he had before his eyes the slender
English letters traced by a little hand which he had so often and so
ardently pressed to his heart.




CHAPTER XXIII

CAFE CHANTANT

What a rare, what a conscientious clerk did that new employe of the house
of Fromont prove himself!

Every day his lamp was the first to appear at, and the last to disappear
from, the windows of the factory. A little room had been arranged for him
under the eaves, exactly like the one he had formerly occupied with
Frantz, a veritable Trappist's cell, furnished with an iron cot and a
white wooden table, that stood under his brother's portrait. He led the
same busy, regular, quiet life as in those old days.

He worked constantly, and had his meals brought from the same little
creamery. But, alas! the disappearance forever of youth and hope deprived
those memories of all their charm. Luckily he still had Frantz and Madame
"Chorche," the only two human beings of whom he could think without a
feeling of sadness. Madame "Chorche" was always at hand, always trying to
minister to his comfort, to console him; and Frantz wrote to him often,
without mentioning Sidonie, by the way. Risler supposed that some one had
told Frantz of the disaster that had befallen him, and he too avoided all
allusion to the subject in his letters. "Oh! when I can send for him to
come home!" That was his dream, his sole ambition: to restore the factory
and recall his brother.

Meanwhile the days succeeded one another, always the same to him in the
restless activity of business and the heartrending loneliness of his
grief. Every morning he walked through the workshops, where the profound
respect he inspired and his stern, silent countenance had reestablished
the orderly conditions that had been temporarily disturbed. In the
beginning there had been much gossip, and various explanations of
Sidonie's departure had been made. Some said that she had eloped with a
lover, others that Risler had turned her out. The one fact that upset all
conjectures was the attitude of the two partners toward each other,
apparently as unconstrained as before. Sometimes, however, when they were
talking together in the office, with no one by, Risler would suddenly
start convulsively, as a vision of the crime passed before his eyes.

Then he would feel a mad longing to spring upon the villain, seize him by
the throat, strangle him without mercy; but the thought of Madame
"Chorche" was always there to restrain him. Should he be less courageous,
less master of himself than that young wife? Neither Claire, nor Fromont,
nor anybody else suspected what was in his mind. They could barely detect
a severity, an inflexibility in his conduct, which were not habitual with
him. Risler awed the workmen now; and those of them upon whom his white
hair, blanched in one night, his drawn, prematurely old features did not
impose respect, quailed before his strange glance-a glance from eyes of a
bluish-black like the color of a gun-barrel. Whereas he had always been
very kind and affable with the workmen, he had become pitilessly severe
in regard to the slightest infraction of the rules. It seemed as if he
were taking vengeance upon himself for some indulgence in the past,
blind, culpable indulgence, for which he blamed himself.

Surely he was a marvellous employe, was this new officer in the house of
Fromont.

Thanks to him, the factory bell, notwithstanding the quavering of its
old, cracked voice, had very soon resumed its authority; and the man who
guided the whole establishment denied himself the slightest recreation.
Sober as an apprentice, he left three-fourths of his salary with Planus
for the Chebes' allowance, but he never asked any questions about them.
Punctually on the last day of the month the little man appeared to
collect his little income, stiff and formal in his dealings with
Sigismond, as became an annuitant on duty. Madame Chebe had tried to
obtain an interview with her son-in-law, whom she pitied and loved; but
the mere appearance of her palm-leaf shawl on the steps put Sidonie's
husband to flight.

In truth, the courage with which he armed himself was more apparent than
real. The memory of his wife never left him. What had become of her? What
was she doing? He was almost angry with Planus for never mentioning her.
That letter, above all things, that letter which he had had the courage
not to open, disturbed him. He thought of it continually. Ah! had he
dared, how he would have liked to ask Sigismond for it!

One day the temptation was too strong. He was alone in the office. The
old cashier had gone out to luncheon, leaving the key in his drawer, a
most extraordinary thing. Risler could not resist. He opened the drawer,
moved the papers, and searched for his letter. It was not there.
Sigismond must have put it away even more carefully, perhaps with a
foreboding of what actually happened. In his heart Risler was not sorry
for his disappointment; for he well knew that, had he found the letter,
it would have been the end of the resigned and busy life which he imposed
upon himself with so much difficulty.

Through the week it was all very well. Life was endurable, absorbed by
the innumerable duties of the factory, and so fatiguing that, when night
came, Risler fell on his bed like a lifeless mass. But Sunday was long
and sad. The silence of the deserted yards and workshops opened a far
wider field to his thoughts. He tried to busy himself, but he missed the
encouragement of the others' work. He alone was busy in that great, empty
factory whose very breath was arrested. The locked doors, the closed
blinds, the hoarse voice of Pere Achille playing with his dog in the
deserted courtyard, all spoke of solitude. And the whole neighborhood
also produced the same effect. In the streets, which seemed wider because
of their emptiness, and where the passers-by were few and silent, the
bells ringing for vespers had a melancholy sound, and sometimes an echo
of the din of Paris, rumbling wheels, a belated hand-organ, the click of
a toy-peddler's clappers, broke the silence, as if to make it even more
noticeable.

Risler would try to invent new combinations of flowers and leaves, and,
while he handled his pencil, his thoughts, not finding sufficient food
there, would escape him, would fly back to his past happiness, to his
hopeless misfortunes, would suffer martyrdom, and then, on returning,
would ask the poor somnambulist, still seated at his table: "What have
you done in my absence?" Alas! he had done nothing.

Oh! the long, heartbreaking, cruel Sundays! Consider that, mingled with
all these perplexities in his mind, was the superstitious reverence of
the common people for holy days, for the twenty-four hours of rest,
wherein one recovers strength and courage. If he had gone out, the sight
of a workingman with his wife and child would have made him weep, but his
monastic seclusion gave him other forms of suffering, the despair of
recluses, their terrible outbreaks of rebellion when the god to whom they
have consecrated themselves does not respond to their sacrifices. Now,
Risler's god was work, and as he no longer found comfort or serenity
therein, he no longer believed in it, but cursed it.

Often in those hours of mental struggle the door of the draughting-room
would open gently and Claire Fromont would appear. The poor man's
loneliness throughout those long Sunday afternoons filled her with
compassion, and she would come with her little girl to keep him company,
knowing by experience how contagious is the sweet joyousness of children.
The little one, who could now walk alone, would slip from her mother's
arms to run to her friend. Risler would hear the little, hurrying steps.
He would feel the light breath behind him, and instantly he would be
conscious of a soothing, rejuvenating influence. She would throw her
plump little arms around his neck with affectionate warmth, with her
artless, causeless laugh, and a kiss from that little mouth which never
had lied. Claire Fromont, standing in the doorway, would smile as she
looked at them.

"Risler, my friend," she would say, "you must come down into the garden a
while,--you work too hard. You will be ill."

"No, no, Madame,--on the contrary, work is what saves me. It keeps me
from thinking."

Then, after a long pause, she would continue:

"Come, my dear Risler, you must try to forget."

Risler would shake his head.

"Forget? Is that possible? There are some things beyond one's strength. A
man may forgive, but he never forgets."

The child almost always succeeded in dragging him down to the garden. He
must play ball, or in the sand, with her; but her playfellow's
awkwardness and lack of enthusiasm soon impressed the little girl. Then
she would become very sedate, contenting herself with walking gravely
between the hedges of box, with her hand in her friend's. After a moment
Risler would entirely forget that she was there; but, although he did not
realize it, the warmth of that little hand in his had a magnetic,
softening effect upon his diseased mind.

A man may forgive, but he never forgets!

Poor Claire herself knew something about it; for she had never forgotten,
notwithstanding her great courage and the conception she had formed of
her duty. To her, as to Risler; her surroundings were a constant reminder
of her sufferings. The objects amid which she lived pitilessly reopened
the wound that was ready to close. The staircase, the garden, the
courtyard, all those dumb witnesses of her husband's sin, assumed on
certain days an implacable expression. Even the careful precaution her
husband took to spare her painful reminders, the way in which he called
attention to the fact that he no longer went out in the evening, and took
pains to tell her where he had been during the day, served only to remind
her the more forcibly of his wrong-doing. Sometimes she longed to ask him
to forbear,--to say to him: "Do not protest too much." Faith was
shattered within her, and the horrible agony of the priest who doubts,
and seeks at the same time to remain faithful to his vows, betrayed
itself in her bitter smile, her cold, uncomplaining gentleness.

Georges was wofully unhappy. He loved his wife now. The nobility of her
character had conquered him. There was admiration in his love, and--why
not say it?--Claire's sorrow filled the place of the coquetry which was
contrary to her nature, the lack of which had always been a defect in her
husband's eyes. He was one of that strange type of men who love to make
conquests. Sidonie, capricious and cold as she was, responded to that
whim of his heart. After parting from her with a tender farewell, he
found her indifferent and forgetful the next day, and that continual need
of wooing her back to him took the place of genuine passion. Serenity in
love bored him as a voyage without storms wearies a sailor. On this
occasion he had been very near shipwreck with his wife, and the danger
had not passed even yet. He knew that Claire was alienated from him and
devoted entirely to the child, the only link between them thenceforth.
Their separation made her seem lovelier, more desirable, and he exercised
all his powers of fascination to recapture her. He knew how hard a task
it would be, and that he had no ordinary, frivolous nature to deal with.
But he did not despair. Sometimes a vague gleam in the depths of the mild
and apparently impassive glance with which she watched his efforts, bade
him hope.

As for Sidonie, he no longer thought of her. Let no one be astonished at
that abrupt mental rupture. Those two superficial beings had nothing to
attach them securely to each other. Georges was incapable of receiving
lasting impressions unless they were continually renewed; Sidonie, for
her part, had no power to inspire any noble or durable sentiment. It was
one of those intrigues between a cocotte and a coxcomb, compounded of
vanity and of wounded self-love, which inspire neither devotion nor
constancy, but tragic adventures, duels, suicides which are rarely fatal,
and which end in a radical cure. Perhaps, had he seen her again, he might
have had a relapse of his disease; but the impetus of flight had carried
Sidonie away so swiftly and so far that her return was impossible. At all
events, it was a relief for him to be able to live without lying; and the
new life he was leading, a life of hard work and self-denial, with the
goal of success in the distance, was not distasteful to him. Luckily; for
the courage and determination of both partners were none too much to put
the house on its feet once more.

The poor house of Fromont had sprung leaks on all sides. So Pere Planus
still had wretched nights, haunted by the nightmare of notes maturing and
the ominous vision of the little blue man. But, by strict economy, they
always succeeded in paying.

Soon four Risler Presses were definitively set up and used in the work of
the factory. People began to take a deep interest in them and in the
wall-paper trade. Lyons, Caen, Rixbeim, the great centres of the
industry, were much disturbed concerning that marvellous "rotary and
dodecagonal" machine. One fine day the Prochassons appeared, and offered
three hundred thousand francs simply for an interest in the patent
rights.

"What shall we do?" Fromont Jeune asked Risler Aine.

The latter shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

"Decide for yourself. It doesn't concern me. I am only an employe."

The words, spoken coldly, without anger, fell heavily upon Fromont's
bewildered joy, and reminded him of the gravity of a situation which he
was always on the point of forgetting.

But when he was alone with his dear Madame "Chorche," Risler advised her
not to accept the Prochassons' offer.

"Wait,--don't be in a hurry. Later you will have a better offer."

He spoke only of them in that affair in which his own share was so
glorious. She felt that he was preparing to cut himself adrift from their
future.

Meanwhile orders came pouring in and accumulated on their hands. The
quality of the paper, the reduced price because of the improved methods
of manufacture, made competition impossible. There was no doubt that a
colossal fortune was in store for the house of Fromont. The factory had
resumed its former flourishing aspect and its loud, business-like hum.
Intensely alive were all the great buildings and the hundreds of workmen
who filled them. Pere Planus never raised his nose from his desk; one
could see him from the little garden, leaning over his great ledgers,
jotting down in magnificently molded figures the profits of the Risler
press.

Risler still worked as before, without change or rest. The return of
prosperity brought no alteration in his secluded habits, and from the
highest window on the topmost floor of the house he listened to the
ceaseless roar of his machines. He was no less gloomy, no less silent.
One day, however, it became known at the factory that the press, a
specimen of which had been sent to the great Exposition at Manchester,
had received the gold medal, whereby its success was definitely
established. Madame Georges called Risler into the garden at the luncheon
hour, wishing to be the first to tell him the good news.

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