The novels, romances, and memoirs of Alphonse Daudet (29 page)

After parting with Pierrette, Jacques went back to the printer. In spite of the Alsatian's protestations, he insisted upon returning him immediately the four hundred francs lent to Daniel. He left with him, besides, to quiet his anxiety, money to meet the three notes that were to fall due ; and, his heart being lighter after this, he said to himself: " Now let me look up my boy." But, unfortunately, the hour was already too advanced to admit of his setting out in pursuit on that day; moreover, the fatigue of the journey, the emotion, and the little dry, continuous cough that had long been undermining his strength, had so broken my poor Mother Jacques, that he was obliged to return to the Rue Bonaparte to take a little rest.

Ah! when he entered the little room, and in the setting light of the old October sun, again saw all those objects that reminded him of his boy, the rhyming-table before the window, his glass, inkstand, and his short pipe like the Abbe Germane's; when he heard the good bells of Saint Germain ring, a little hoarsely on account of the fog, when the evening angelus — that melancholy angeliis that Daniel loved so dearly — came beating its wings against the damp panes, only a mother could understand what my Mother Jacques suffered.

He walked several times round the room, looking everywhere, opening all the cupboards in the hope of finding something that might put him on the track of the fugitive. But, alas! the cupboards were empty; there was nothing left but some old linen in tatters. All the room spoke of

disaster and desertion. His brother had not simply gone away, he had fled. In one corner, on the ground, was a candlestick, and in the fireplace, under a heap of burnt papers, a white box with gilt lines. He recognized this box; in it were kept the letters of the black eyes. Now, he found it in the ashes; what sacrilege!

Continuing his researches, he discovered, in the table-drawer, several sheets of paper covered with an irregular, uncertain handwriting, Daniel's handwriting when he was inspired. " It must be a poem," thought Jacques, going nearer the window to read it. It was indeed a poem, a lugubrious poem , that began thus :

" Jacques, I have lied to you. For two months, I have done nothing but lie to you." This letter had never been sent, but, as you see, it reached its destination, nevertheless. This time. Providence took the place of the post.

Jacques read it from beginning to end. When he reached the passage in the letter that mentioned the engagement at Mont-Parnasse, so persistently ofifered and so firmly refused, he jumped with joy:

*' I know where he is," he cried ; and, putting the letter in his pocket, went to bed easier in mind; but, although overcome with fatigue, he did not sleep. His wretched cough never stopped. At the first gleam of dawn, an autumnal dawn, slow and chill, he rose quickly. His plan was made.

He picked up the rags remaining in the corners of the cupboards, and packed them in his trunk,

not forgetting the little box with gold lines ; and after a last farewell to the old tower of Saint-Germain, he went away, leaving everything open, the door, the window, the cupboards, so that nothing of their happy life should be left in that dwelling, which was henceforth to be inhabited by others. Downstairs, he gave up possession of the room, paid the belated rent; then, without answering the porter's insidious questions, he hailed a passing cab, and had himself driven to the Hotel Pilois, Rue des Dames, at the Batignolles.

This hotel was kept by a brother of old Pilois, the Marquis's cook. People could take lodgings there only by the quarter, and upon recommendation, so the house had a particularly good reputation in the district. To live at the Hotel Pilois was a certificate of respectability and good behavior. Jacques, who had gained the confidence of the Vatel of the d'Hacqueville establishment, brought a basket of Marsala wine from him to his brother.

This was a sufficient recommendation, and when he asked timidly if he might become a lodger there, he was given, without hesitation, a fine room on the ground-floor, with windows opening on the garden of the hotel — I was going to say of the convent. The garden was not large: three or four acacias, a square of shabby grass, — the grass of the Batignolles, — a fig-tree without figs, a sickly vine and a few chrysanthemum roots made up the sum of it ; but at all events it served to add cheer to the room, that was naturally rather damp and gloomy.

The Escape. Z^7

Jacques went to work to settle himself without losing a moment; he drove in nails, put away his linen, set up a rack for Daniel's pipes, hung Mme. Eyssette's picture at the head of the bed, in fact, tried his best to do away with the air of common-placeness that infects furnished lodgings; then, when he had thoroughly established himself, he took a mouthful of lunch, and went out immediately afterwards. On his way, he stopped to tell M. Pilois that on that evening, as a great exception, he might come back rather late, and asked to have a nice supper prepared in his room, with places for two, and some old wine. Instead of appearing pleased with this extra, the good M. Pilois blushed up to the tips of his ears, like a newly-ordained curate.

" I don't know," said he, with embarrassment. " The rules of the hotel are opposed to it; we have some ecclesiastics who — "

Jacques smiled : " Oh, very well! I understand. It is the two places that alarm you. Don't be frightened, my dear Monsieur Pilois, it is not a woman." And then, to himself, on his way to Mont-parnasse, he said : " And yet it is a woman, a weak woman, a foolish child, who must never be left alone again."

Tell me why it was my Mother Jacques was so sure of finding me at Montparnasse. It was quite possible for me, since the time I had written the terrible letter that was never sent, to have left the theatre, or I might never have entered it. And yet it could not have been so^ for maternal instinct

guided him. He felt convinced he should find me there, and bring me home that same evening; only, he thought, and rightly: "To take him away, he must be alone, and that woman must suspect nothing." This is what prevented his going directly to the theatre for information. The greenroom is a great place for gossip, and a word might have given the alarm. He preferred to rely only upon the advertisements, and went in haste to consult them.

The play-bills of suburban theatres are placed at the doors of wine shops in the same district, behind a grating, just like the publications of marriage in the villages of Alsace. As Jacques read them, he uttered a cry of joy.

The theatre of Montparnasse was to give, on that evening, Maj'ie-Jean7ie, a drama in five acts, performed by Mmes. Irma Borel, Desiree Levrault, Guigne, etc.

Preceded by: —

Love and Primes, a farce in one act, by MM. Daniel, Antonin and Mdlle. Leontine.

" All is well," thought he. " They are not to play in the same piece. I am sure of success."

And he went into a caf6 of the Luxembourg to await the hour for carrying out his plan.

When evening came, he went to the theatre. The play had already begun. He walked for about an hour under the arcade in front of the door, with the municipal guards.

Now and then the applause inside reached him like a sound of distant hail, and it hurt him to

think that perhaps it was his boy's buffoonery they were clapping thus. Toward nine o'clock a crowd of people rushed out noisily into the street. The farce was over, and some of the people were still laughing. They were whistling and shouting to one another: "Oho! Pilouitt! Lala-itou! " and all the vociferations of the Parisian menagerie. It was certainly not like the end of the Italian opera! He waited a moment longer, lost in the throng, then, when it was nearly time for the next play, and everybody was returning, he slipped into a black and slimy alley at the side of the theatre — the entrance for the actors, — and asked to speak with Mme. Irma Borel.

" Impossible," was the answer. " She is on the stage."

My Mother Jacques was a very savage in artifice. He said in his calmest manner, " Since I cannot see Mme. Irma Borel, be so kind as to call M. Daniel; he will take my message to her."

A minute later my Mother Jacques had recovered his child and was bearing him swiftly away to the other end of Paris.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE DREAM.

"Look about you, Daniel," said my Mother Jacques, as we entered the room at the Hotel Pilois: " it is like the night of your arrival in Paris."

In fact, as on that night, a good supper was waiting for us on a very white cloth; the pasty smelt delicious, the wine looked very old, and the reflections of the clear candle-light were dancing in the bottom of the glasses. And yet, and yet, it was not the same thing. There are some joys that we may not live over again. The supper was the same, but we missed the flower of our old boon-companions, the fresh ardors of arrival, the projects for work, the dreams of glory, and the blessed confidence that brings laughter, and gives an appetite. Not one, alas ! not one of those revellers of the past would come to M. Pilois! They had all stayed in the tower of Saint-Germain; at the last moment. Mirth, who had promised to be at the feast, sent word that she could not come.

Oh, no ! it was not the same thing. I understood it so well that Jacques' remark, instead of cheering me, brought a flood of tears to my eyes. I am sure that, at the bottom of his heart, he, too, wanted

to cry ; but he had the strength of mind to restrain himself, and said to me with a httle affectation of gayety: "Come, Daniel, you have cried enough; you have been doing nothing else for an hour." (In the carriage, while he was talking to me, I had never ceased sobbing upon his shoulder.) " This is an odd reception to give me. Positively, you remind me of the darkest days in my history, the time of the glue-pots and * Jacques, you are an ass !' Come, dry your tears, young penitent, and look at yourself in the glass, for it will make you laugh."

I looked in the glass, but it did not make me laugh. I was ashamed of myself. My yellow wig was pasted down flat on my forehead, and my cheeks were daubed with white and red; tears and perspiration were running over them; it was hideous ! In a movement of disgust, I tore off my wig, but just as I was going to fling it away, I reflected, and hung it up in the very middle of the wall.

Jacques looked at me in great surprise. "Why do you put it there, Daniel? " said he. " It is very ugly, like the trophy of an Apache warrior. We shall look as if we had scalped Punchinello."

I answered very gravely: "No, Jacques, it is not a trophy. It is my remorse, the palpable and visible sign of my remorse that I mean to keep always before me."

There was the shadow of a bitter smile on Jacques' lips, but he recovered his cheerful expression directly, " Let us leave all that alone; now that

you have taken off all that stuff, and I can see your dear phiz again, let's sit down, old fellow, I am dying with hunger."

It was not true; he was not hungry, nor was I. Good God ! no. It was in vain that I put a bold front on the supper; all that I ate stuck in my throat, and in spite of my efforts to be calm, I watered my plate with silent tears. Jacques was watching me out of the corner of his eye, and said presently: " Why are you crying? Are you sorry to be here? Are you angry with me for having carried you off? "

I answered sadly: "That is unkind, Jacques, but I have given you the right to say anything."

We kept on eating for some time, or, rather, pretending to eat. In the end, impatient of the comedy we were playing, one for the sake of the other, Jacques pushed back his plate and rose: "Our supper is n't a success," said he; " we had better go to bed."

We have a proverb that says: " Torture and sleep are poor bedfellows," and I found it out that night. It was torture to me to think of all the good my Mother Jacques had done me and all the evil I had returned him ; to compare my life to his, my selfishness to his devotion, my cowardly, childish soul with his heroic heart that had taken as a motto: " There is but one happiness on earth, the happiness of others." It was also torture to say to myself: " Now, my life is ruined. I have lost Jacques' confidence, the love of the black eyes, and my own self-respect. What will become of me?"

The Dream. Z'^Z

This terrible anguish kept me awake till morning. Jacques did not sleep either. I heard him turning and turning on his pillow and coughing a little hard cough that attracted my attention. Once I asked very softly: "You are coughing, Jacques; are you ill?" He answered: "It's nothing; go to sleep," and I understood by his manner that he was more angry with me than he liked to show. This idea redoubled my grief, and I set to crying again, all by myself under the sheet, for such a long, long time that I ended by going to sleep. If torture of mind prevents one from sleeping, tears are a narcotic.

When I woke, it was bright daylight. Jacques was no longer at my side. I thought he had gone out; but, on pushing aside the curtains, I saw him at the other end of the room, stretched out on the sofa, and so pale, oh, so pale! I know not what terrible thought flashed through my brain. "Jacques! " I cried, rushing toward him. He was asleep, my cry did not wake him. Strange to say, his face wore in sleep an expression of great suffering which I had never seen on it, but which, nevertheless, was not new to me. His wasted features and lengthened face, the pallor of his cheeks and the abnormal transparence of his hands, all gave me pain to see, but a pain that I had felt before.

And yet Jacques had never been ill: he had never had before that bluish half-circle under his eyes, or that emaciated face. In what earlier world, then, could I have had a vision of these things? All at once, the remembrance of my

dream came back to me. Yes, that is it, this is the Jacques of my dream, pale, horribly pale, stretched out on a sofa; he has just died. Jacques has died, Daniel Eyssette, and it is you who have killed him. At this moment a dim ray of sunlight comes in timidly at the window, and runs, like a lizard over the pale inanimate face. Oh, joy! The dead is awakened; he rubs his eyes, and seeing me stand before him, says with a bright smile:

"Good morning, Daniel; have you slept well? I coughed so much that I lay on the sofa in order to avoid disturbing you."

While he is speaking to me so calmly, I feel my legs still trembling from the horrible vision I have just had, and I say in my secret heart:

" Eternal God, save my Mother Jacques to me!"

In spite of this sad awakening, our morning was cheerful enough. We succeeded even in finding an echo of our old happy laughter, when I discovered, in dressing, that for all clothing I possessed a pair of short fustian breeches, and a red waistcoat with wide flaps, part of an old theatrical costume that I happened to have on at the moment Jacques came to carry me off.

"The deuce, my dear boy!" said Jacques, "a fellow can't think of everything. It is only the insensible Don Juans who remember a fair lady's wardrobe when they are eloping with her. But don't mind; I ajji going to get you some new clothes, and it will be like your first arrival in Paris."

He said this to please me, for he felt Hke me that it was not the same thing any more.

" Come, Daniel," continued dear Jacques, seeing^ me turn moody again, " let us give up thinking of the past. Here is a new life opening before us; let us enter it without remorse, and without mistrust, and try only not to allow it to play us the same pranks as the old one. I do not ask you what you mean to do now, my dear brother, but it seems to me that if you wish to undertake a new poem, this will be a good place for you to work in. The room is quiet, and there are birds singing in the garden. You can put the rhyming-table in front of the window."

I interrupted him quickly: "No, Jacques, no more poems, no more rhymes. Those are fancies that cost too dear. What I want now is to do like you, to work and earn my living, and help you with all my power to rebuild the hearth."

He answered with a calm smile: " These are fine projects, little blue butterfly; but this is not what is required of you. It is not a question of earning your own living, and if you would but promise — But, there! We will talk of this later. Now let us go and buy your clothes."

To go out, I was forced to put on an overcoat that reached down to my heels and gave me the appearance of a Piedmontese musician; I needed nothing else but a harp to complete the resemblance. A few months before, if I had been obliged to walk out in such attire, I should have died with shame; but for the time being, I had

other shames to think about, and though the women might laugh at me as I passed, it was not as it used to be in the time of my india-rubbers. Oh, no, it was not the same thing!

" Now that you are a Christian," said my Mother Jacques, as we came out from the clothier's, " I shall take you back to the Hotel Pilois; and then I am going to see if the iron-merchant whose books I kept before I went away wants to give me any more work. Pierrotte's money won't last forever, and I must think about our bread and butter."

I felt a desire to say: "Well, Jacques, go back to your iron-merchant. I can find the way home alone." But I knew why he was doing this, it was to be sure that I should not return to Montpar-nasse. Ah, if he could have read my soul!

To put him at ease, I let him take me to the hotel; but he had hardly turned his back when I took flight into the street. I, too, had errands to do.

When I returned, it was late. A tall shadow was walking restlessly through the fog in the garden. It was my Mother Jacques. " It is well you have come," said he, shivering, " I was going to start for Montparnasse."

I felt angry for a moment: "You doubt me too much, Jacques ; it is not generous. Will it be always so? Shall you never trust me again? I swear, by all I hold dearest in the world, that I have not been where you think, that that woman is dead to me, that I shall never see her again,

that you have completely won me back, and that the terrible past from which your love has rescued me has left me only remorse, and not a single regret. What else must I say to convince you? Ah, you are cruel! I should like to open my breast to you, so that you could see I am not lying."

What he answered me I cannot recall; but I remember that in the dusk I saw him shake his head sadly, as if to say: "Alas! I wish I could believe you," and yet I was sincere in speaking as I did. No doubt that alone, I should never have had the courage to tear myself from that woman, but now the chain was broken I felt inexpressible relief. It was with me as with those people who try to kill themselves with charcoal, and repent at the last minute, when it is too late and they are already strangled and paralysed by asphyxia; suddenly, the neighbors arrive, the door flies into fragments, the reviving air circulates through the room, and the poor suicides drink it in with joy, happy to live still, and promising never to do such a thing again. So it was that I, after five months of moral asphyxia, breathed in through my nostrils the pure strong air of an honest life; I filled my lungs with it, and I swear to God that I had no desire to turn back again. But Jacques would not believe me, and all the oaths in the world would not have convinced him of my sincerity. Poor boy, I had done him so much unkindness!

We passed this first evening at home, seated in

S^S Little What's-His-Name.

the chimney-corner as in winter, for the room was damp, and the fog came in from the garden and penetrated the marrow of our bones. Then, you know, if you are sad, it is cheering to have a little fire. Jacques worked at accounts. In his absence the iron-merchant had tried keeping his books himself, and the result was such a terrible muddle, such a confusion of debit and credit, that now a month's hard work was needed to put things back into order. As you may imagine, I should have liked nothing better than to help my Mother Jacques in this task, but blue butterflies know nothing about arithmetic, and after an hour spent over these big account books, ruled with red, and filled with strange hieroglyphics, I was obliged to fling away my pen.

Jacques succeeded marvellously in this arid task. He charged head first into the thickest of the figures, unabashed by the long columns. From time to time, he turned from his work to me, and said, rather troubled by my silent reverie:

"We are comfortable, aren't we? At least, you are not sorry to be here?"

I was not sorry to be there, but I was sad to see him work so hard, and thought very bitterly: " Why am I in the world? I can do nothing with my hands. I don't earn my place in the sun of life: I am good for nothing but tormenting others, and bringing tears to the eyes that love me." Saying this, I thought of the black eyes, and looked mournfully at the little box with gold

lines that Jacques had put, perhaps intentionally, on the square top of the clock. How much that box recalled ! How many eloquent discourses it addressed me from the height of its bronze pedestal. " The black eyes gave you their heart, and what have you done with it?" it said to me, "You have thrown it as food for beasts. The White-Cuckoo has devoured it."

As I still kept a gleam of hope in the depths of my heart, I endeavoured to call back to life, and warm with my breath all those earlier joys that I had slain with my own hand. I thought: " The White-Cuckoo has devoured it! The White-Cuckoo has devoured it."

This long melancholy evening spent in front of the fire, in labour and reverie, represents very well the new life we were henceforth to lead. All the days that followed were like this evening. It was not Jacques who did the dreaming, you may well believe. He stayed for ten hours, bent over his big books, immersed to his neck in figures. All this time I stirred the fire, and as I stirred, I said to the little box with gold lines: '* Speak to me of the black eyes, will you .''" Speaking to Jacques of them was not to be thought of. For one reason or another, we avoided carefully all conversation on this subject; not even a word of Pierrotte, nothing. So I took my revenge with the little box, and our talk never ended.

Toward the middle of the day, when I saw my Mother Jacques absorbed in his books, I stepped to the door as softly as a cat, and slipped

noiselessly out, saying: "Just for a little while, Jacques." He never asked where I was going, but I understood by his troubled expression and the anxious tone in which he said: " You are going out?" that he put no great trust in me. The idea of that woman always pursued him: he thought: " If he sees her again, we are lost."

And who can tell? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps if I had seen the enchantress again, I should again have submitted to the charm that she exercised over me, with her pale golden hair and the white scar at the corner of her lip. But, thank God, I never saw her again. Some M. Eight-till-Ten, no doubt, made her forget her Dani-Dan, and never, never again, did I hear of her nor of her negress, the White-Cuckoo.

One evening, on returning from one of my mysterious wanderings, I entered the room with a cry of joy. "Jacques! Jacques! Good news, I have found a place. I have been running about the streets, looking for this, for ten days without telling you. Now, it's settled ; I have a place. To-morrow I am to begin as general superintendent at the Ouly Institute at Montmartre, very near us. I shall be there from seven in the morning till seven at night. It is a long time to be away from you, but, at least, I shall earn my living, and shall relieve you a little."

Jacques looked up from his accounts, and answered rather coldly: "Really, it is time for you to come to my help. The expenses are too heavy for me to shoulder alone. I don't know what is