Chapter 13

At last! For an entire day he was released from the ordinary routine of his life; from the wrangling of the assembly, the hubbub of the corridors, the gossip of the lobbies, interruptions, interrupted conversations, from all that excitement that he delighted in, but which at times left him crushed and feverish at the close of the day. He became once more master of his thoughts, of his meditation. He belonged to himself. It was almost impossible to recover his self-mastery in the stormy arena into which he was thrust, happy to be there, and where his distended nostrils inhaled, as it were, the fumes of sulphur.

At times, amid the whirlwind of politics, he suffered from a yearning for rest, a sick longing for home quiet, a desire to be free, to go between the acts, as it were, to vegetate in some corner of the earth and to resume in very truth an altogether different life from the exasperating, irritating life that he led in Paris, always, so to speak, under the lash; or, still better, to change the form of his activity, to travel, to feed his eyes on new images, the fresh verdure, or the varied scenes of unknown cities.

But the years had rolled by amid the excitement and nervous strain of political life. He lived with Adrienne in an artificial and overheated atmosphere. Happy because he was loved, that his ambitions were realized, that he charmed an assembly of men by the same power that had obtained him the adoration of this woman, yes, he was happy, very happy: to bless life, to excite envy, to arouse jealousy, to appear simply ridiculous if he complained of destiny; and nevertheless, at the bottom of his soul, discontented without knowing why, consumed by intangible, feverish instincts, ill-defined desires for Parisian curiosities, having dreamed in his youth of results very inferior to those he had realized, yet finding when he analyzed the realities that he enjoyed, that the promises of his dreams were more intoxicating than the best realizations.

Vaudrey was an ambitious man, but he was ambitious to perform valiant feats. Life had formerly seemed to him to be made up of glory, triumphal entries into cities, accompanied by the fluttering of flags and the flourish of trumpets. He pictured conquests, victories, exaltations! Theatrical magnificence! But now, more ironical, he was contented with quasi-triumphs, if his restless, anxious nature could be satisfied with what he obtained.

Adrienne loved him. He loved her profoundly.

Why had the meeting with Marianne troubled him so profoundly, then? Manifestly, Mademoiselle Kayser realized the picture of his vanished dreams, and the desires of a particular love that the passion for Adrienne, although absolute, could not satisfy. This man had a nature of peculiar ardor--or rather, curious desires, a greedy desire to know, an itching need to approach and peep into abysses.

Sometimes it seemed to Vaudrey that he had not lived at all, and this was the fear and desire of his life: to live that Parisian life which flattered all his instincts and awoke and reanimated all his dreams. But yesterday it had appeared to him when he met this young woman who raised her eyes to him, half-veiled by her long eyelashes, that a stage-curtain had been raised, disclosing dazzling fairy scenery, and since then that scenery had been always before him. It banished, during his drive, all peace, and while the coupé threaded its way along the Faubourg Saint-Honoré toward the Arc-de-Triomphe, the minister who, but two hours before, had been plunged in state affairs, settled himself down in a corner of the carriage, his legs swaddled in a robe and his feet resting on a foot-warmer, looking at, but without observing the cold figures that walked rapidly past him, the houses lighted up by the sun's rays, and the dry pavements, and he thought of those strange eyes and those black butterflies, which seemed to him to flutter over that fair hair like swallows over a field of ripe wheat.

It pleased him to think of that woman. It was an entirely changed preoccupation, a relaxation. A curious, strangely agreeable sensation: his imagination thus playing truant, and wandering toward that vision, renewed his youth. He experienced therein the perplexities that troubled him at twenty. Love in the heart means fewer white hairs on the brow. And then, indeed, he would never, perhaps, see Mademoiselle Kayser again! He would, however, do everything to see her again at the coming soirée at the ministry, an invitation--Suddenly his thoughts abruptly turned to Ramel, whom he also wished to invite and meet again. He loved him so dearly. It was he who formerly, in the journalistic days, and at the time of the battles fought in the _Nation Française_, had called Denis "a conscience in a dress-coat."

Therefore, since he had an afternoon to spare, he would call on Ramel. He was determined to show him that he would never preserve the dignity of a minister with him.

"Rue Boursault, Batignolles," he said to the coachman, lowering one of the windows; "after that, only to the Bois!"

The coachman drove the coupé toward the right, reaching the outer boulevards by way of Monceau Park.

Vaudrey was delighted. He was going to talk open-heartedly to an old friend. Ah, Ramel! he was bent on remaining in the background, on being nothing and loving his friends only when they were in defeat, as Jéliotte had said. Well, Vaudrey would take him as his adviser. This devil of a Ramel, this savage fellow should govern the state in spite of himself.

The minister did not know Ramel's present lodging which he had occupied only a short time. He expected to find dignified poverty and a cold apartment. As soon as Denis opened the door to him, he found himself in a workman's dwelling that had been transformed by artistic taste into the small museum of a virtuoso. After having passed through a narrow corridor, and climbed a small, winding staircase, Vaudrey rang at the third floor of a little house in Rue Boursault and entered a well-kept apartment full of sunlight.

Hanging on the walls were engravings and crayons in old-fashioned frames. A very plain mahogany bookcase contained some select volumes, which, though few, were frequently perused and were swollen with markers covered with notes. The apartment was small and humble: a narrow bedroom with an iron bedstead, a dressing room, a tiny dining-room furnished with cane-seated chairs, and the well-lighted study with his portraits and his frames of the old days. But with this simplicity, as neat as a newly-shaved old man, all was orderly, and arranged and cared for with scrupulous attention.

This modest establishment, the few books, the deep peace, the oblivion found in this Batignolles lodging, in this home of clerks, poor, petty tradesmen and workmen, sufficed for Ramel. He rarely went out and then only to take a walk from which he soon returned exhausted. He had formerly worked so assiduously and had given, in and out of season, all his energy, his nerves and his body, improvising and scattering to the winds his appeals, his protests, his heart, his life, through the columns of the press. What an accumulation of pages, now destroyed or buried beneath the dust of neglected collections! How much ink spilled! And how much life-blood had been mingled with that ink!

Ramel willingly passed long hours every day at his study window, looking out on the green trees or at the high walls of a School of Design opposite, or at the end of a tricolored flag that waved from the frontal of a Primary Normal School that he took delight in watching; then at the right, in the distance, throbbing like an incessant fever, he saw the bustling life of the Saint-Lazare Station, where with every shrill whistle of the engines, he saw white columns of smoke mount skyward and vanish like breaths.

"Smoke against smoke," thought Ramel, with his pipe between his teeth. "And it would be just as well for one to struggle--a lost unity--against folly, as for a single person to desire to create as much smoke as all these locomotives together!"

Ramel appeared to be delighted to see Vaudrey, whose name the housekeeper murdered by announcing him as _Monsieur Vaugrey_. He placed a chair for him, and asked him smilingly, what he wanted "with an antediluvian journalist."

"A mastodon of the press," he said.

What had Vaudrey come for?

His visit had no other object than to enjoy again a former faithful affection, the advice he used to obtain, and also to try to drag the headstrong Ramel into the ministry. Would not the directorship of the press tempt him?

"With it, the directing of the press!" said Denis. "It is much better to have an opposition press than one that you have under your thumb. Friendly sheets advise only foolishly."

"Why, Vaudrey, do you know," suddenly exclaimed the veteran journalist, "that you are the first among my friends who have come into power--I say the first--who has ever thought of me?"

"You cannot do me a greater pleasure than tell me so, my dear Ramel. I know nothing more contemptible than ingrates. In my opinion, to remember what one owes to people, is to be scrupulously exact; it is simply knowing orthography."

"Well! mercy! there are a devilish lot of people who don't know if the word gratitude is spelled with an _e_ or an _a_. No, people are not so well skilled as that in orthography. There are not a few good little creatures to be sent back to school. All the more reason to be thankful for having learned by heart--by heart, that is the way to put it, my dear Vaudrey--your participles."

Sulpice was well acquainted with Ramel's singular wit, a little sly, but tinged with humor, like pure water into which a drop of gin has been poured, more perfumed than bitter. He knew no man more indulgent and keen-sighted than him.

"For what should I bear a grudge against people?" said the veteran. "For their stupidity? I pity them, I haven't time to dislike them; one can't do everything."

Besides, the minister felt altogether happy to be with this man no longer in vogue, but who might be likened to coins that have ceased to be current and have acquired a higher value as commemorative medals. He could unbosom himself to him: treachery was impossible. He longed to have such a stay beside him, and still urged him, but Ramel was inflexible.

"But as I have already said--if I have need of you?"

"Of me? I am too old."

"Of your advice?"

"Well! it is not necessary for me to give you my address, since you find yourself here now, or to tell you that you can depend on me, seeing you know me."

Vaudrey felt that it was useless to pursue the matter further. He was not talking with a misanthrope or a scorner, but with a learned man. He would find at hand whenever he needed it, the old, ever faithful devotedness of this white-haired man, who, with skull-cap on his head, was smoking his pipe near the window when the minister entered.

"Then, you are happy, Ramel?" said Sulpice, a little astonished, perhaps.

"Perfectly so."

"You have no ambition for anything whatever?"

"Nothing, I await philosophically the hour for the monument."

He smiled when he saw that his own familiar remark was puzzling Vaudrey.

"The monument, there, on one side: Villa Montmartre!--Oh! I am not anxious to have done with life. It is amusing enough at times. But, after all, it is necessary to admit that the comedy ends when it is finished. One fine day, I shall be found sleeping somewhere, here in my armchair, or in my bed, suddenly, or perhaps after a long illness--this would weary me, as a lingering illness is repugnant to me--and you will read in one or two journals a short paragraph announcing that the obsequies of Monsieur Denis Ramel, one-time editor of a host of democratic newspapers, a celebrated man in his day, but little known recently, will take place on such a day at such an hour. Few will attend, but I ask you to be present--that is, if there is no important sitting at the Chamber."

Old Ramel twirled his moustache with his long, lean fingers as he spoke these last words into which he infused a dash of irony. He nullified it, however, as he extended his frankly opened hand and said to Sulpice Vaudrey:

"What I have said to you is very cheerful! A thousand pardons. The more so that I do not think of doubting you for a single moment--You have always been credulous. That is your defect, and it is a capital one. In the world of business men and politicians, who are for the most part egotists, of mediocrities, or to speak plainly--I know no more picturesque term--of _dodgers_,--you move about with all the illusions and tastes of an artist. You are like the brave fellows of our army, poets of war, as it were, who hurled themselves to their destruction against regiments of engineers. Certainly, my dear minister, I shall always be delighted to give you my counsel, you whom I used to call my dear child, and if the observations of a living waif can serve you in anything, count on me. Dispose of me, and if by chance I can be useful to you, I shall feel myself amply repaid."

"Ah!" cried Sulpice, "if you only knew how much good it does me to hear the sincere thoughts of a man one can rely on! How different is their ring from that of others!"

He then allowed himself to pass by an easy transition to the confessions of his first deceptions or annoyances.

The selection that very morning, of Warcolier as Under Secretary of State in a Republican administration, a man who had played charades at Compiègne, had thrown him into a state of angry excitement.

Ramel, however, burst into laughter.

"Ah, nonsense! You will see many other such! Why, governments always do favors to their enemies when their opponents pretend to lower their colors! What good is it to serve friends? They love you."

"This does not vex you, then, old Republican?"

"I, an old soldier grown white in harness," said Ramel, whose moustache still played under his smile, "that doesn't disturb my peace in the least. I comfort myself with the thought that my dream, my _ideal_, to use a trite expression, is not touched by such absurdities, and I am persuaded that progress does not lag and that the cause of liberty gains ground, in spite of so much injustice and folly. I confess, however, that I sometimes feel the strange emotion that a man might experience on seeing, after the lapse of years, the lovely woman whom he loved to distraction at twenty, in the arms of a person whom he did not particularly respect."

Ramel had lighted his pipe, and half-hidden by the bluish wreaths of smoke, chatted away, quite happy on his side to give himself up to the revelation of the secret of his heart without the least bitterness, and like an elder brother, advised this man, who was still young and whom he had compared formerly to one of those too fine pieces of porcelain that the least shock would crack.

"Ah!" he said abruptly, "above all, my dear Vaudrey, do not fear to appear in the tribune more uncouth and assertive than you really are. In times when the word _sympathetic_ becomes an insult, it is wiser to have the manners of a boor. Tact is a good thing."

"I shall never succeed in that," said Sulpice, smiling as usual.

"So much the worse! What has been wanting in my case is not to have been able to secure the title of _our antipathetic confrère_. The modest and refined people are dupes. By virtue of swelling their necks, turkeys succeed in resembling peacocks. Believe me, my dear friend, it is dangerous to have too refined a taste, even in office, even in the rank in which you are placed. One hesitates to proclaim the excessively stupid things that stir the crowd, and the blockhead who is bold enough to declare his folly creates a hellish noise with his nonsense, while a man of refinement, who is not always a squeamish man, remains in his corner unseen. Remember that more moths are caught at night with a greasy candle than with a diamond of the first water."

"You speak in paradox--" Sulpice began.

"And you think I am making paradoxes? Not in the least, I will give you--not at cost, for it has cost me dearly, but in block,--my stock of experience. Do with it what you please, and, above all, beware of _alle donne!_"

"Women?" asked the minister, with involuntary disquiet.

"Women, exactly. Encircling every minister there is a squadron of seductive women, who though perhaps more fully clothed than the flying squadron of the Medicis, is certainly not less dangerous. Women who complain that they are denied political rights, have in reality all, since they are able to rule administrations and knock ministers off, as the Du Barry did her oranges! When I speak of women, you will observe well that I do not speak of your admirable wife," said Ramel, with a respect that was most touching, coming from this honest veteran.

"While we are gossiping," he resumed, "I am going to tell you frankly what strikes me most clearly in the present conjuncture. You will gather from it what you choose. In these days, my dear Vaudrey, what is most remarkable is the facility men have for destroying their credit and wearing themselves out. Politics, especially, entails a formidable consumption. It seems that the modern being is not cut out to wear long. This, perhaps, is due to the fact that public business, whichever party wins, is always committed to men who are ill-prepared for their good fortune. I do not say this of you, who, intellectually speaking, are an exception. But men are no longer bathed in the Styx, or perhaps they show the heel too quickly. For some years, moreover, the strange phenomenon has presented itself of the provincial towns being the prey of Parisian manufacturers, who reconstruct them and demolish their picturesque antiquity, in order to garnish their boulevards and fine mansions, while Paris, on the contrary, is directed and governed by provincials, who provincialize it just as the Parisian companies parisianize the provinces. Our provincials, astonished to find themselves at the head of Parisian movement, lose their heads somewhat and rush with immoderate appetites at the delicate feast. They have the gluttony of famished children, and on the most perilous question they are simply gourmands. It is _woman_ again to whom I refer. The country squires and gentlemen riders, who have grown old in their province with the love of farm-wenches, or small tradesmen professing medicine or law within their sub-prefectures, after having made verses for the female tax-gatherer, all, you understand, all are hungry to know that unknown creature: _woman_. And speedily enough the woman has drained their Excellencies. Oh! yes, even to the marrow! She robs the Opposition of its energy; the faithful to liberty, of the virility of their faith. Energetic ministers or ministers with ideas are not long before woman destroys both their strength and their ideas. Eh! _parbleu!_ it is just because they do not rule Paris as one pleads a civil suit in a provincial court."

The minister listened with a somewhat anxious, sober air to these truisms, clear-cut as with a knife, expressed by the old journalist without passion, without exasperation, without anger. He was, in fact, pleased that Ramel should speak to him so candidly.

Yes, indeed, what the old "veteran,"--as Denis sometimes called himself--said, were Vaudrey's own sentiments. These sufficiently saddening observations he had himself made more than once. It was precisely to put an end to such abuses, folly, and provincialism, this hobbling spirit inculcated in a great nation, that he had assumed power, and was about to increase his efforts.

He thanked Ramel profusely and sincerely. This visit would not be his last, he would often return to this Rue Boursault where he knew that a true friend would be waiting.

"And you will be right," said Denis. "Nowhere will you find a love more profound, or hear truths more frankly spoken. You see, Vaudrey, the walls of the ministerial apartments are too thick. There, neither the noise of carriages nor the sound of street-cries is heard. I have passed a few days in a palace--in '48,--at the Tuileries, as a national guard: at the end of two hours, I heard nothing. The carpets, the curtains, stifled everything, and, believe me, a cannon might have been fired without my hearing anything more than an echo, much less could I hear the truth! Besides, people do not like to pronounce truth too loudly. They are afraid."

"I swear to you that I will listen to everything," replied Sulpice, "and I will strive to understand everything. And since I have the power--"

Denis Ramel shook his head:

"Power? Ah! you will see if that is ever taken in any but homoeopathic doses! Why, you will have against you the _bureaux_, those sacrosanct _bureaux_ that have governed this country since bureaucracy has existed, and they will cram more than one Warcolier down your throat, I warn you."

"Yes, if I allow it," said Vaudrey haughtily.

"Eh! my poor friend, you have already allowed it," said the veteran.

He had risen, Vaudrey had taken his hat, and he said to the minister, leaning on his arm, with gentle familiarity, as he led him to the door:

"Power is like a kite, but there is always some rascal who holds the thread."

"Come, come," said Vaudrey, "you are a pessimist!"

"I confess that Schopenhauer is not unpleasant to me--sometimes."

Thereupon they separated, after a cordial grasp of the hand, and Denis Ramel resumed his pipe and his seat at the window corner, while the minister carried away from this interview, as if he had not already been in the habit of a frank interchange of opinions, an agreeable though perhaps anxious impression.

He felt the need of _mentally digesting_ this conversation: the idea of going back, on this beautiful February day, to his official apartments did not enter his mind. He was overcome by a springtime hunger.

"To the Bois! Around the Lake!" he said to the coachman, as he re-entered his carriage.

The air was as balmy as on an afternoon in May. Vaudrey lowered the carriage window to breathe freely. This exterior boulevard that he rolled along was full of merry pedestrians. One would have thought it was a Sunday afternoon. Old people, sitting on benches, were enjoying the early sun.

Sulpice looked at them, his brain busy with Ramel's warnings. He had just called him a pessimist, but inwardly he acknowledged that the old stager, who had remained a philosopher, spoke the truth. Woman! Why had Ramel spoken to him of woman?

This half-disquieting thought speedily left Sulpice, attracted as he was by the joyous movement, the delight of the eyes which presented itself to his view.

In thus journeying to the Bois, he felt a delightful emotion of solitude and forgetfulness. He gradually recovered his self-possession and became himself once more. He drew his breath more freely in that long avenue where, at this hour of the day, few persons passed. There was no petition to listen to, no salutation to acknowledge.

Ah! how easy it would be to be happy, to sweetly enjoy the Paris that fascinated him instead of burning away his life! Just now, at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, he had seen people dressed in blouses, sleeping like Andalusian beggars before the walls of the Alhambra. Little they cared for the fever of success! Perhaps they were wise.

An almost complete solitude reigned over the Bois. Vaudrey saw, as he glanced between the copsewood, now growing green, only a few isolated pedestrians, some English governesses in charge of scampering children, the dark green uniform of a guard or the blue blouse of a man who trimmed the trees.

The coachman drove slowly and Sulpice, enjoying the intoxication of this early sun, lowered the shade and breathed the keen air while he repeated to himself that peaceful joy was within the reach of everybody at Paris.

"But why is this wood so deserted? It is so pleasant here."