Chapter 4

Sabine waited nervously. The curtain had just fallen on the third act. The manager's box was empty. Guy would doubtless be obliged to rejoin Vaudrey, and neither the minister nor his friend would be seen again. Just then some one knocked at the door of the box. Monsieur Gerson, overcome by fatigue, and weary as only a man can be who is dragged against his will night after night to some place of amusement, was dozing in the rear of the box. At a word from his wife he got up and hastened to open the door. It proved to be an artist, an old friend of Philippe Marsy, who came to invite Sabine to his studio to "admire" _his Envoy_ that he had just finished for the Salon. Sabine received him graciously, and promised him somewhat stiffly that she would do so. She tapped impatiently with her fan upon her fingers as the orchestra began to play the prelude to the fourth act. It was quite certain that Lissac had failed in his mission.

Suddenly, in the luminous space made by the open door, Guy's elegant figure appeared for a moment, disappearing immediately to allow a man to pass who entered, smiling pleasantly, and at whom a group of people, standing in the lobby behind, were gazing. He bowed as Lissac said to Sabine:

"Allow me, madame, to present to you His Excellency the Minister of the Interior."

Sabine, suddenly beaming with joy, saw no one but Sulpice Vaudrey amongst the group of men in dress-clothes who gave way to allow the dignitary to pass. She had eyes only for him!

She arose, pushing back her chair instinctively, as the Minister entered, Monsieur and Madame Gerson standing at one side and Sabine on the other and bowing to him,--Sabine triumphant, Madame Gerson curious, Monsieur Gerson flattered though sleepy.

Sulpice seated himself at Madame Marsy's side, with the amiable condescension of a great man charmed to play the agreeable, and to visit, at the solicitation of a friend, a fair woman whom all the world delighted to honor. It seemed to him to put the finishing touch to that success and power which had been his only a few days.

He went quite artlessly and by instinct wherever he might have the chance to inhale admiring incense. It seemed to him as if he were swimming in refreshing waters. Everything delighted him. He wished to be obliging to every one. It seemed to him but natural that a woman of fashion like Sabine should wish to meet him and offer him her congratulations, as he himself, without knowing her, should desire to listen to her felicitations. To speak in complimentary terms was as natural to him as to listen to the compliments of others.

He delighted in the atmosphere of adulation which surrounded him, these two pretty women who smiled upon him with a gratitude so impressive, pleased him. Sabine appeared especially charming to him when, speaking with the captivating grace of a Parisian, she said:

"I hardly know how to thank my friend Monsieur de Lissac for inducing you to listen to the entreaties of one who solicits--"

"Solicits, madame?" said the minister with an eagerness which seemed already to answer her prayer affirmatively.

"I hope your Excellency will consent to honor with your presence a reunion of friends at my house--a reunion somewhat trivial, for this occasion, but clever enough."

"A reunion?" replied Vaudrey, still smiling.

"Monsieur de Lissac has not told you then, what my hopes are?"

"We are too old friends, Lissac and I, for him not to allow me the pleasure of hearing from your own lips, madame, in what way I may be of service to you, or to any of your friends."

Sabine smiled at this well-turned phrase uttered in the most gallant tone.

Who then, could have told her that Vaudrey was a provincial? An intimate enemy or an intimate friend. But he was not at all provincial. On the contrary, Vaudrey was quite charming.

"Monsieur de Rosas has had the kindness, your Excellency, to promise to come to my house next Saturday and give a chatty account of his travels. He will be, I am quite sure, most proud to know that in his audience--"

Sulpice neatly and half modestly turned aside the compliment that was approaching.

He knew Monsieur de Rosas. He had read and greatly admired some translations of the Persian poets by that lettered nobleman, which had been printed for circulation only amongst the author's most intimate friends. Vaudrey had first met Monsieur de Rosas at a meeting of a scientific society. Rosas was an eminent man as well as a poet, and one whom he would be greatly pleased to meet again. A hero of romance as erudite as a Benedictine. Charming, too, and clever! Something like a Cid who has become a boulevard lounger on returning from Central Asia.

This portrait of Rosas was a clever one indeed, and Sabine nodded acquiescence again and again as each point was hit off by Vaudrey. He, in his turn, basked comfortably in the light of her smiles, and listened with pleasure to the sound of his own voice. He could catch glimpses through the box curtains from between these two charming profiles--one a brunette, the other a blonde--of the vast auditorium all crimson and gold, blazing with lights and crowded with faces. From this well-dressed crowd, from these boxes where one caught sight of white gleaming shoulders, half-gloved arms, flower-decked heads, sparkling necklaces, flashing glances, it seemed to Vaudrey as if a strange, subtle perfume arose--the perfume of women, an intoxicating odor, in the midst of this radiancy that rivaled the brilliant sun at its rising.

Upon the stage, amid the dazzling splendor of the ballet, in the milky ray of the electric light, the swelling skirts whirled, the pink slippers that he had seen but a moment before near by, and the gleaming, silver helmets, the tinfoil and the spangles shone in the dance. A fairy light enveloped all these stage splendors; and this luxurious ensemble, as seen from the depths of the box, seemed to him to be the glory of an unending apotheosis, a sort of fête given to celebrate his entrance on his public career.

Then, in the unconcealed effusion of his delight, without any effort at effect, speaking frankly to this woman, to Guy, and to Gerson, as if he were communing with himself to the mocking accompaniment of this Hindoo music, he revealed his joys, his prospects, and his dreams. He replied to Sabine's congratulations by avowing his intention to devote himself entirely to his country.

"In short, your Excellency," she said, "you are really going to do great things?"

He gazed dreamily around the theatre, smiling as if he beheld some lucky vision, and answered:

"Really, madame, I accepted office only because I felt it was my duty and as a means of doing good. I intend to be just--to be honest. I should like to discover some unappreciated genius and raise him from the obscurity in which an unjust fate has shrouded him, to the height where he belongs. If we are to do no better than those we have succeeded, it was useless to turn them out!"

"Ah! _pardieu_," said Lissac, while Madame Marsy smiled and nodded approval of Vaudrey's words, "you and your colleagues are just now in the honeymoon of your power."

"We will endeavor to make this honeymoon of as long duration as possible," laughingly replied Sulpice. "I believe in the case of power, as in marriage, that the coming of the April moon is the fault of the parties connected with it."

"It takes a shrewd person indeed to know why April moons rise at all!" said Guy. Vaudrey's thoughts turned involuntarily toward Adrienne, his own pretty wife, who was waiting for him in the great lonely apartments at the Ministry which they had just taken possession of as they might occupy rooms at a hotel.

He felt a sudden desire to return to her, to tell her of the incidents of this evening. Yes, to tell her everything, even to his visit behind the scenes--but he remained where he was, not knowing how to take leave of Madame Marsy just yet, and she, in her turn, divined from the slackened conversation that he was anxious to be off.

"I was waiting for that strain," said Madame Marsy to Guy, "now that it is over, I will go."

Vaudrey did not reply, awaiting Sabine's departure, so as to conduct her to her carriage.

People hurried out into the lobbies to see him pass by. Upon the staircases, attendants and strangers saluted him. It seemed to Vaudrey that he moved among those who were in sympathy with him. Lissac followed him with Madame Gerson on his arm; her jaded husband sighed for a few hours' sleep.

In the sharp, frosty air of a night in January, Sulpice, enveloped in otter fur, stood with Madame Marsy on his arm, waiting for the appearance of that lady's carriage, which was emerging from the luminous depths of the Place, accompanied by another carriage without a monogram or crest; it was that of the minister.

Sulpice gazed before him down the Avenue de l'Opéra, brilliant with light, and the bluish tints of the Jablockoff electric apparatus flooded him with its bright rays; it seemed to him as if all this brilliancy blazed for him, like the flattering apotheosis which had just before fallen upon him as he crossed the stage of the Opéra. It seemed like an aureole lighted up especially to encircle him!

Sabine asked Vaudrey as he escorted her to her carriage:

"Madame Vaudrey will, I trust, do me the honor to accompany your Excellency to my house? I will take the liberty to-morrow of calling on her to invite her."

The Minister bowed a gracious acquiescence.

Sabine finally thanked him by a gracious smile: her small gloved hand raised the window of the coupé, and the carriage was driven off rapidly, amid the din of horses' hoofs.

"Good-bye," said Lissac to Vaudrey.

"Cannot I offer you a seat in my carriage?"

"Thank you, but I am not two steps away from the Rue d'Aumale."

Vaudrey turned towards Madame Gerson; she and her husband bowed low.

"May I not set you down at your house, madame?"

"Your Excellency is very kind, but we have our own carriage!"

"Au revoir," said Vaudrey to Lissac, "come and breakfast with me to-morrow."

"With pleasure!"

"To the ministry!" said Vaudrey to the coachman as he stepped into his carriage.

He sank back upon the cushions with a feeling of delight as if glad to be alone. All the scenes of that evening floated again before his eyes. He felt once more in his nostrils the subtle, penetrating perfume of the greenroom, he saw again the blue eyes of the little danseuse. The admiring looks, the respectful salutes, the smiles of the women, the soft, caressing tones of Sabine, and Madame Gerson's pearly teeth, he saw or heard all these again, and above all, this word clear as a clarion, triumphant as a trumpet's blast: _Success!_ All this came back again to him.

"You have succeeded!"

He heard Guy's voice again speaking this to him in joyous tones. Succeeded! It was certainly true.

Minister! Was it possible! He had at his beck and call a whole host of functionaries and servitors! He it was who had the power to make the whole machine of government move--he, the lawyer from Grenoble--who ten years ago would have thought it a great honor to have been appointed to a place in the department of Isère!

All those people whom he could see in the shadow of the lighted boulevards buying the newspapers at the kiosks, would read therein his name and least gesture and action.

_"Monsieur le Ministre has taken up his residence on the Place Beauvau. Monsieur Vaudrey this morning received the heads of the Bureaus and the personnel of the Department of the Ministry of the Interior. Monsieur Vaudrey, with the assistance of Monsieur Henri Jacquier of Oise, undersecretary of State, is actively engaged in examining the reports of prefects and under-prefects. Monsieur will doubtless make some needed reforms in the administration of the prefectures."_ Everywhere, in all the newspapers, Monsieur Vaudrey! The Minister of the Interior! He, his name, his words, his projects, his deeds!

Success! Yes, it was his, it had come!

Never in his wildest visions had he dreamed of the success that he had attained. Never had he expected to catch sight of such bright rays as those which now shone down upon him from that star, which with the superstition of an ambitious man, he had singled out. Success! Success!

And now all the world should see what he would do. Already in his own little town, in his speeches, during the war, at the elections of 1871, and especially at Versailles, during the years of struggle and political intrigue, in the tribune, or as a commissioner or sub-commissioner, he had given proofs of his qualifications as a statesman, but the touchstone of man is power. Emerging from his semi-obscurity into the sunshine of success, he would at last show the world what he was and what he could do. Power! To command! To create! To impress his ideas upon a whole nation! To have succeeded! succeeded! succeeded! Sulpice's dreams were realized at last.

And whilst the ministerial carriage was driving at a gallop towards the Place Beauvau, Sabine, muffled up in her furs, her fine skin caressed by the blue-fox border of her pelisse, said to herself, quite indifferent to the man himself, but delighted to have a minister's name to enroll upon her list of guests:

"He is a simpleton--Vaudrey--but a very charming simpleton, nevertheless."

The iron gates of the Place Beauvau were thrown back for his Excellency's carriage to enter. The gravel creaked under the wheels, as the coupé turning off to the left, stopped under the awning over the door.

Sulpice alighted. The great door opened to admit him. Two white-cravatted servants occupied a bench while awaiting the minister's return.

Sulpice ran lightly up the great marble staircase leading to his private apartments. Handing his hat and coat to a servant in the antechamber, he gayly entered the little salon, where he found his wife sitting by a table reading _La Revue_ by the light of a shaded lamp. At the sight of her pretty, fresh young face extended to greet him, with her blue eyes and smiling air, at the sound of her clear, sweet, but rather timid voice asking a little anxiously: "Well?" Sulpice took the fair face in both his hands and his burning lips imprinted a long kiss on the white forehead, over which a few curls of golden hair strayed.

"Well, my dear Adrienne, I have been greatly interested. All the kindness with which I was received, the evident delight with which the new cabinet has been welcomed by the people, even the grimaces of Pichereau whom I met,--if you only knew where--all gave me pleasure, delighted me, and yet made me fear. Minister! Do you know what I have been thinking of since I was made a minister?"

"Of what have you been thinking?" asked the young wife, who, with her hands folded, gazed trustingly and sweetly into Sulpice's feverish eyes.

"I?--I have been telling myself that it is not enough to be a minister. One must be a great minister! You understand, Adrienne, a great minister!"

As he spoke he took Adrienne's hands in his, and the young wife glanced up admiringly at this young man burning with hope, who stood there before her, declaring: "I will be great!"

She had never dreamed of his reaching such heights as these on that day when she felt the fingers of her fiancé trembling in her hand, the day that Sulpice had whispered the words in her ear which made her heart leap with joy: "I love you, Adrienne, I shall always love you--Always!"

III

Sulpice Vaudrey had married Adrienne for love. She brought to him from the convent at Grenoble where she had been educated, the charming innocence of a young girl and the innate devotion of a woman. She was an orphan with a considerable fortune, but although Sulpice had only moderate resources, he had scarcely thought of her wealth, not even inquiring of her guardian, Doctor Reboux, on the occasion of his formal demand for her hand, about the dowry of Mademoiselle Gérard.

He had met her at more than one soirée at Grenoble, where she appeared timid, dazzled and retiring, and quietly interrogating everything by her sweet glance. Some few words exchanged carelessly, music which they had listened to side by side, the ordinary everyday intercourse in society, had made Sulpice acquainted with his wife; but the sight of the pretty blonde--so sweet and gentle--the childlike timidity of this young girl, something rather pensive in the confiding smile of this blooming creature of eighteen summers, had won him completely. He was free, and alone, for he had lost, but a short time before, the only creature he loved in the world, his mother, of whom he was the son in the double sense of flesh and spirit, by the nourishment of her breast and by the patient teaching that she had implanted in his mind.

He remembered only his father's dreamy and refined face in the portrait of a young, sad-looking man in a lawyer's black gown, before which he had stood when quite small, and spelled out as he might have lisped a prayer, the four letters: _papa_. Alone in this little town of Grenoble, for which he had left his native village of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, he had, just before meeting Adrienne, fallen a victim to a profound melancholy and realized the necessity of deciding upon his career.

He was then thirty-four. Except the years spent in the study of law at Paris amid the turmoil of the left bank of the Seine, he had always lived in the province--his own province of Dauphiné. He had grown up in the old house at Saint-Laurent, where every nook and corner kept for him its own sweet memory of his childhood and youth. The great white drawing-room with its wainscotings of the time of Louis XVI., which opened out upon a flight of steps leading down into a terraced garden; the portraits of obscure ancestors: lawyers in powdered wigs and wearing the robes of the members of the Third estate, fat and rosy with double chins resting upon their broad cravats, amiable old ladies with oddly arranged hair and flowered gowns, coquettish still as they smiled in their oval, wooden frames, and then the old books in their old-fashioned bindings slumbering in a great bookcase with glass doors, or piled up on shelves below the fowling-pieces, the game-bags and the powder-horns.

With this dwelling of which he thought so often now, his whole past was linked, about it still clung something of its past poetry, and it was sacred through the memories it preserved, and as the scene of the unforgotten joys of childhood. He could see again, the great stone-flagged kitchen, where they sat up at nights telling stories, the chamber above it, the bed with its heavy serge curtains, where he lay--sometimes shaking with terror--all alone, adjoining the room once occupied by his father, and the moonlight shining through the tall old trees in the courtyard outside, that entering by the half-open blinds cast shadows like trembling lace on the wall opposite to him. It seemed to Sulpice then that he could hear the sounds of the weird demon's chase as told by old Catherine, the cook, in bated tones during their vigils.

It was there that he went every year to pass his holidays with his mother, who had had the courage to send him away,--just as during winter she had plunged him into cold water--to the Lyceum at Grenoble, whence he would return to Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, "so thin, poor child!" as his mother said.

And how fat she would send him back again to school,--to make the masters ashamed of their stinginess.

How pleasant were the reminiscences of those sunny days amongst the mountains, the excursions to Grande Chartreuse, where the murmuring brook trickled among the rocks, the halts at Guiers-Mort or under the trees in the stillness of a drowsy day in summer; how delightful to stretch one's self out at the foot of the cliffs or on a grassy slope with a book, pausing now and then to indulge in day-dreams or glance up at the fleecy clouds floating in the blue sky above his head and watch them gathering, then vanishing and melting away like smoke wreaths! Ah! how sweet were those long, idle days full of dreams, when the noise of the waterfall dashing over the rocks lulled the senses like some merry song, or a nurse's tender, crooning lullaby.

In those days Sulpice made no plans for his future, where he would go, what he would do, or what would become of him; but he felt within himself unbounded hope, a hope as limitless and bright as the azure sky above him, the inspiration of devotion, love and poetry. He asked himself whether he should be a missionary or a representative of the people. It seemed to him that his heart was large enough to contain a world, and as he grew up he began to ask himself the terrible question: "Will a woman ever love me?"

To be loved! What a dream! One day he put this question to one of his comrades at college, Guy de Lissac, the son of a country gentleman in the neighborhood, who answered:

"Booby! every one is loved some day or other, and there are some who are loved even too much!"

Sulpice had received a patriarchal and half-puritanical training, but softened materially by his mother's almost excessive care, it had left, as it were, a kind of poetic perfume that clung about him and never left him.

Even during the days of his struggle in crowded Paris, in the heat of political strife, his thoughts would fly back to the old home at Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, recalling to mind the old armchair where his father used to sit, the father whose kiss he had never known, hearing again his mother's voice from the great oak staircase with its heavy balusters, and he recalled at the same moment, the landscape with its living figures, the spotted, steel-colored guinea-fowl screaming from the branches of the elms, the vineyard hands returning from work, to trample with bare feet the great clusters of grapes piled up in the wine-vat in the cellar whose odor intoxicated! Even as a representative or minister, musing over his past that seemed but yesterday, Sulpice wandered again in thought to this quiet country spot, so loved by him, so sweet, so still, reposing in the silence of provincial calm--far away, removed from all the noise and bustle of Paris.

The farmers of Dauphiné generally think of making their sons tillers of the soil, sending them to school and to college, perhaps to begin later the study of law or medicine, but welcoming them joyfully back again to their native fields, to their farms, where the youths soon forget all they may have learned of the Code or the Codex and lead the healthy, hardy life of the country. Good, well-built fellows, their chests enlarged by their daily exercise, their thighs strengthened by mountain-climbing, gay young men, liking to hunt and drink on the banks of the Isère and caring more for good harvests than for the songs of the wind amongst the branches of the poplars upon the river-banks.

Sulpice had an old uncle on his father's side who proposed to his sister-in-law to give up his broad acres--a fortune in themselves--to Sulpice, if his nephew would consent to marry his daughter. Sulpice refused. He would not marry for money.

"Fiddle-faddle!" cried his uncle. "Sickly sentimentality! If he cultivates that _grain_, my brother's son will not make much headway."

"There is where you are mistaken, brother-in-law. What my poor Raymond had not time to become, his child will be: a lawyer at once eloquent and honest."

"Well, well," replied the uncle, "but he shall not have my girl."

Sulpice, after finishing his studies at Paris, returned to his mother at Grenoble, took her away from the old house at Saint-Laurent and installed her in the town with himself, where he began the practice of law and attracted everybody's attention from the first. He made pleading a sacred office and not a trade. Everyone was astonished that he had not remained in Paris.