Chapter 11

Meanwhile the Count de Tremorel, who was resolved more than ever on suicide, ascending the boulevards came to his inamorata's house, which was near the Madeleine. He had introduced her some six months before into the demi-monde as Jenny Fancy. Her real name was Pelagie Taponnet, and although the count did not know it, she was his valet's sister. She was pretty and lively, with delicate hands and a tiny foot, superb chestnut hair, white teeth, and great impertinent black eyes, which were languishing, caressing, or provoking, at will. She had passed suddenly from the most abject poverty to a state of extravagant luxury. This brilliant change did not astonish her as much as you might think. Forty-eight hours after her removal to her new apartments, she had established order among the servants; she made them obey a glance or a gesture; and she made her dress-makers and milliners submit with good grace to her orders. Jenny soon began to languish, in her fine rooms, for new excitement; her gorgeous toilets no longer amused her. A woman's happiness is not complete unless seasoned by the jealousy of rivals. Jenny's rivals lived in the Faubourg du Temple, near the barrier; they could not envy her splendor, for they did not know her, and she was strictly forbidden to associate with and so dazzle them. As for Tremorel, Jenny submitted to him from necessity. He seemed to her the most tiresome of men. She thought his friends the dreariest of beings. Perhaps she perceived beneath their ironically polite manner, a contempt for her, and understood of how little consequence she was to these rich people, these high livers, gamblers, men of the world. Her pleasures comprised an evening with someone of her own class, card-playing, at which she won, and a midnight supper. The rest of the time she suffered ennui. She was wearied to death: A hundred times she was on the point of discarding Tremorel, abandoning all this luxury, money, servants, and resuming her old life. Many a time she packed up; her vanity always checked her at the last moment.

Hector de Tremorel rang at her door at eleven on the morning in question. She did not expect him so early, and she was evidently surprised when he told her he had come to breakfast, and asked her to hasten the cook, as he was in a great hurry.

She had never, she thought, seen him so amiable, so gay. All through breakfast he sparkled, as he promised himself he would, with spirit and fun. At last, while they were sipping their coffee, Hector spoke:

"All this, my dear, is only a preface, intended to prepare you for a piece of news which will surprise you. I am a ruined man."

She looked at him with amazement, not seeming to comprehend him.

"I said--ruined," said he, laughing bitterly, "as ruined as man can be."

"Oh, you are making fun of me, joking--"

"I never spoke so seriously in my life. It seems strange to you, doesn't it? Yet it's sober truth."

Jenny's large eyes continued to interrogate him.

"Why," he continued, with lofty carelessness, "life, you know, is like a bunch of grapes, which one either eats gradually, piece by piece, or squeezes into a glass to be tossed off at a gulp. I've chosen the latter way. My grape was four million francs; they are drunk up to the dregs. I don't regret them, I've had a jolly life for my money. But now I can flatter myself that I am as much of a beggar as any beggar in France. Everything at my house is in the bailiff's hands--I am without a domicile, without a penny."

He spoke with increasing animation as the multitude of diverse thoughts passed each other tumultuously in his brain. And he was not playing a part. He was speaking in all good faith.

"But--then--" stammered Jenny.

"What? Are you free? Just so--"

She hardly knew whether to rejoice or mourn.

"Yes," he continued, "I give you back your liberty."

Jenny made a gesture which Hector misunderstood.

"Oh! be quiet," he added quickly, "I sha'n't leave you thus; I would not desert you in a state of need. This furniture is yours, and I have provided for you besides. Here in my pocket are five hundred napoleons; it is my all; I have brought it to give to you."

He passed the money over to her on a plate, laughingly, imitating the restaurant waiters. She pushed it back with a shudder.

"Oh, well," said he, "that's a good sign, my dear; very good, very good. I've always thought and said that you were a good girl--in fact, too good; you needed correcting."

She did, indeed, have a good heart; for instead of taking Hector's bank-notes and turning him out of doors, she tried to comfort and console him. Since he had confessed to her that he was penniless, she ceased to hate him, and even commenced to love him. Hector, homeless, was no longer the dreaded man who paid to be master, the millionnaire who, by a caprice, had raised her from the gutter. He was no longer the execrated tyrant. Ruined, he descended from his pedestal, he became a man like others, to be preferred to others, as a handsome and gallant youth. Then Jenny mistook the last artifice of a discarded vanity for a generous impulse of the heart, and was deeply touched by this splendid last gift.

"You are not as poor as you say," she said, "for you still have so large a sum."

"But, dear child, I have several times given as much for diamonds which you envied."

She reflected a moment, then as if an idea had struck her, exclaimed:

"That's true enough; but I can spend, oh, a great deal less, and yet be just as happy. Once, before I knew you, when I was young (she was now nineteen), ten thousand francs seemed to me to be one of those fabulous sums which were talked about, but which few men ever saw in one pile, and fewer still held in their hands."

She tried to slip the money into the count's pocket; but he prevented it.

"Come, take it back, keep it--"

"What shall I do with it?"

"I don't know, but wouldn't this money bring in more? Couldn't you speculate on the Bourse, bet at the races, play at Baden, or something? I've heard of people that are now rich as kings, who commenced with nothing, and hadn't your talents either. Why don't you do as they did?"

She spoke excitedly, as a woman does who is anxious to persuade. He looked at her, astonished to find her so sensitive, so disinterested.

"You will, won't you?" she insisted, "now, won't you?"

"You are a good girl," said he, charmed with her, "but you must take this money. I give it to you, don't be worried about anything."

"But you--have you still any money? What have you?"

"I have yet--"

He stopped, searched his pockets, and counted the money in his purse.

"Faith, here's three hundred and forty francs--more than I need. I must give some napoleons to your servants before I go."

"And what for Heaven's sake will become of you?"

He sat back in his chair, negligently stroked his handsome beard, and said:

"I am going to blow my brains out."

"Oh!"

Hector thought that she doubted what he said. He took his pistols out of his pockets, showed them to her, and went on:

"You see these toys? Well, when I leave you, I shall go somewhere--no matter where--put the muzzle to my temple, thus, press the trigger--and all will be over!"

She gazed at him, her eyes dilated with terror, pale, breathing hard and fast. But at the same time, she admired him. She marvelled at so much courage, at this calm, this careless railing tone. What superb disdain of life! To exhaust his fortune and then kill himself, without a cry, a tear, or a regret, seemed to her an act of heroism unheard of, unexampled. It seemed to her that a new, unknown, beautiful, radiant man stood before her. She loved him as she had never loved before!

"No!" she cried, "no! It shall not be!"

And rising suddenly, she rushed to him and seized him by the arm.

"You will not kill yourself, will you? Promise me, swear it to me. It isn't possible, you would not! I love you--I couldn't bear you before. Oh, I did not know you, but now--come, we will be happy. You, who have lived with millions don't know how much ten thousand francs are--but I know. We can live a long time on that, and very well, too. Then, if we are obliged to sell the useless things--the horses, carriages, my diamonds, my green cashmere, we can have three or four times that sum. Thirty thousand francs--it's a fortune! Think how many happy days--"

The Count de Tremorel shook his head, smilingly. He was ravished; his vanity was flattered by the heat of the passion which beamed from the poor girl's eyes. How he was beloved! How he would be regretted! What a hero the world was about to lose!

"For we will not stay here," Jenny went on, "we will go and conceal ourselves far from Paris, in a little cottage. Why, on the other side of Belleville you can get a place surrounded by gardens for a thousand francs a year. How well off we should be there! You would never leave me, for I should be jealous--oh, so jealous! We wouldn't have any servants, and you should see that I know how to keep house."

Hector said nothing.

"While the money lasts," continued Jenny, "we'll laugh away the days. When it's all gone, if you are still decided, you will kill yourself--that is, we will kill ourselves together. But not with a pistol--No! We'll light a pan of charcoal, sleep in one another's arms, and that will be the end. They say one doesn't suffer that way at all."

This idea drew Hector from his torpor, and awoke in him a recollection which ruffled all his vanity.

Three or four days before, he had read in a paper the account of the suicide of a cook, who, in a fit of love and despair, had bravely suffocated himself in his garret. Before dying he had written a most touching letter to his faithless love. The idea of killing himself like a cook made him shudder. He saw the possibility of the horrible comparison. How ridiculous! And the Count de Tremorel had a wholesome fear of ridicule. To suffocate himself, at Belleville, with a grisette, how dreadful! He almost rudely pushed Jenny's arms away, and repulsed her.

"Enough of that sort of thing," said he, in his careless tone. "What you say, child, is all very pretty, but utterly absurd. A man of my name dies, and doesn't choke." And taking the bank-notes from his pocket, where Jenny had slipped them, he threw them on the table.

"Now, good-by."

He would have gone, but Jenny, red and with glistening eyes, barred the door with her body.

"You shall not go!" she cried, "I won't have you; you are mine--for I love you; if you take one step, I will scream."

The count shrugged his shoulders.

"But we must end all this!"

"You sha'n't go!"

"Well, then, I'll blow my brains out here." And taking out one of his pistols, he held it to his forehead, adding, "If you call out and don't let me pass, I shall fire." He meant the threat for earnest.

But Jenny did not call out; she could not; she uttered a deep groan and fainted.

"At last!" muttered Hector, replacing the pistol in his pocket.

He went out, not taking time to lift her from the floor where she had fallen, and shut the door. Then he called the servants into the vestibule, gave them ten napoleons to divide among them, and hastened away.

XIII

The Count de Tremorel, having reached the street, ascended the boulevard. All of a sudden he bethought him of his friends. The story of the execution must have already spread.

"No; not that way," he muttered.

This was because, on the boulevard, he would certainly meet some of his very dear cronies, and he desired to escape their condolence and offers of service. He pictured to himself their sorry visages, concealing a hidden and delicious satisfaction. He had wounded so many vanities that he must look for terrible revenges. The friends of an insolently prosperous man are rejoiced in his downfall.

Hector crossed the street, went along the Rue Duphot, and reached the quays. Where was he going? He did not know, and did not even ask himself. He walked at random, enjoying the physical content which follows a good meal, happy to find himself still in the land of the living, in the soft April sunlight.

The weather was superb, and all Paris was out of doors. There was a holiday air about the town. The flower-women at the corners of the bridges had their baskets full of odorous violets. The count bought a bouquet near the Pont Neuf and stuck it in his button-hole, and without waiting for his change, passed on. He reached the large square at the end of the Bourdon boulevard, which is always full of jugglers and curiosity shows; here the noise, the music, drew him from his torpor, and brought his thoughts back to his present situation.

"I must leave Paris," thought he.

He crossed toward the Orleans station at a quicker pace. He entered the waiting-room, and asked what time the train left for Etampes. Why did he choose Etampes? A train had just gone, and there would not be another one for two hours. He was much annoyed at this, and as he could not wait there two hours, he wended his way, to kill time, toward the Jardin des Plantes. He had not been there for ten or twelve years--not since, when at school, his teachers had brought him there to look at the animals. Nothing had changed. There were the groves and parterres, the lawns and lanes, the beasts and birds, as before. The principal avenue was nearly deserted. He took a seat opposite the mineralogical museum. He reflected on his position. He glanced back through the departed years, and did not find one day among those many days which had left him one of those gracious memories which delight and console. Millions had slipped through his prodigal hands, and he could not recall a single useful expenditure, a really generous one, amounting to twenty francs. He, who had had so many friends, searched his memory in vain for the name of a single friend whom he regretted to part from. The past seemed to him like a faithful mirror; he was surprised, startled at the folly of the pleasures, the inane delights, which had been the end and aim of his existence. For what had he lived? For others.

"Ah, what a fool I was!" he muttered, "what a fool!"

After living for others, he was going to kill himself for others. His heart became softened. Who would think of him, eight days hence? Not one living being. Yes--Jenny, perhaps. Yet, no. She would be consoled with a new lover in less than a week.

The bell for closing the garden rang. Night had come, and a thick and damp mist had covered the city. The count, chilled to the bones, left his seat.

"To the station again," muttered he.

It was a horrible idea to him now--this of shooting himself in the silence and obscurity of the forest. He pictured to himself his disfigured body, bleeding, lying on the edge of some ditch. Beggars or robbers would despoil him. And then? The police would come and take up this unknown body, and doubtless would carry it, to be identified, to the Morgue. "Never!" cried he, at this thought, "no, never!"

How die, then? He reflected, and it struck him that he would kill himself in some second-class hotel on the left bank of the Seine.

"Yes, that's it," said he to himself.

Leaving the garden with the last of the visitors, he wended his way toward the Latin Quarter. The carelessness which he had assumed in the morning gave way to a sad resignation. He was suffering; his head was heavy, and he was cold.

"If I shouldn't die to-night," he thought, "I shall have a terrible cold in the morning."

This mental sally did not make him smile, but it gave him the consciousness of being firm and determined. He went into the Rue Dauphine and looked about for a hotel. Then it occurred to him that it was not yet seven o'clock, and it might arouse suspicions if he asked for a room at that early hour. He reflected that he still had over one hundred francs, and resolved to dine. It should be his last meal. He went into a restaurant and ordered it. But he in vain tried to throw off the anxious sadness which filled him. He drank, and consumed three bottles of wine without changing the current of his thoughts.

The waiters were surprised to see him scarcely touch the dishes set before him, and growing more gloomy after each potation. His dinner cost ninety francs; he threw his last hundred-franc note on the table, and went out. As it was not yet late, he went into another restaurant where some students were drinking, and sat down at a table in the farther corner of the room. He ordered coffee and rapidly drank three or four cups. He wished to excite himself, to screw up his courage to do what he had resolved upon; but he could not; the drink seemed only to make him more and more irresolute.

A waiter, seeing him alone at the table, offered him a newspaper. He took it mechanically, opened it, and read:

"Just as we are going to press, we learn that a well-known person has disappeared, after announcing his intention to commit suicide. The statements made to us are so strange, that we defer details till to-morrow, not having time to send for fuller information now."

These lines startled Hector. They were his death sentence, not to be recalled, signed by the tyrant whose obsequious courtier he had always been--public opinion.

"They will never cease talking about me," he muttered angrily. Then he added, firmly, "Come, I must make an end of this."

He soon reached the Hotel Luxembourg. He rapped at the door, and was speedily conducted to the best room in the house. He ordered a fire to be lighted. He also asked for sugar and water, and writing materials. At this moment he was as firm as in the morning.

"I must not hesitate," he muttered, "nor recoil from my fate."

He sat down at the table near the fireplace, and wrote in a firm hand a declaration which he destined for the police.

"No one must be accused of my death," he commenced; and he went on by asking that the hotel-keeper should be indemnified.

The hour by the clock was five minutes before eleven; he placed his pistols on the mantel.

"I will shoot myself at midnight," thought he. "I have yet an hour to live."

The count threw himself in an arm-chair and buried his face in his hands. Why did he not kill himself at once? Why impose on himself this hour of waiting, of anguish and torture? He could not have told. He began again to think over the events of his life, reflecting on the headlong rapidity of the occurrences which had brought him to that wretched room. How time had passed! It seemed but yesterday that he first began to borrow. It does little good, however, to a man who has fallen to the bottom of the abyss, to know the causes why he fell.

The large hand of the clock had passed the half hour after eleven.

He thought of the newspaper item which he had just read. Who furnished the information? Doubtless it was Jenny. She had come to her senses, tearfully hastened after him. When she failed to find him on the boulevard, she had probably gone to his house, then to his club, then to some of his friends. So that to-night, at this very moment, the world was discussing him.

"Have you heard the news?"

"Ah, yes, poor Tremorel! What a romance! A good fellow, only--"

He thought he heard this "only" greeted with laughter and innuendoes. Time passed on. The ringing vibration of the clock was at hand; the hour had come.

The count got up, seized his pistols, and placed himself near the bed, so as not to fall on the floor.

The first stroke of twelve; he did not fire.

Hector was a man of courage; his reputation for bravery was high. He had fought at least ten duels; and his cool bearing on the ground had always been admiringly remarked. One day he had killed a man, and that night he slept very soundly.

But he did not fire.

There are two kinds of courage. One, false courage, is that meant for the public eye, which needs the excitement of the struggle, the stimulus of rage, and the applause of lookers-on. The other, true courage, despises public opinion, obeys conscience, not passion; success does not sway it, it does its work noiselessly.

Two minutes after twelve--Hector still held the pistol against his forehead.

"Am I going to be afraid?" he asked himself.

He was afraid, but would not confess it to himself. He put his pistols back on the table and returned to his seat near the fire. All his limbs were trembling.

"It's nervousness," he muttered. "It'll pass off."

He gave himself till one o'clock. He tried to convince himself of the necessity of committing suicide. If he did not, what would become of him? How would he live? Must he make up his mind to work? Besides, could he appear in the world, when all Paris knew of his intention? This thought goaded him to fury; he had a sudden courage, and grasped his pistols. But the sensation which the touch of the cold steel gave him, caused him to drop his arm and draw away shuddering.

"I cannot," repeated he, in his anguish. "I cannot!"

The idea of the physical pain of shooting himself filled him with horror. Why had he not a gentler death? Poison, or perhaps charcoal--like the little cook? He did not fear the ludicrousness of this now; all that he feared was, that the courage to kill himself would fail him.

He went on extending his time of grace from half-hour to half-hour. It was a horrible night, full of the agony of the last night of the criminal condemned to the scaffold. He wept with grief and rage and wrung his hands and prayed. Toward daylight he fell exhausted into an uneasy slumber, in his arm-chair. He was awakened by three or four heavy raps on the door, which he hastily opened. It was the waiter, who had come to take his order for breakfast, and who started back with amazement on seeing Hector, so disordered was his clothing and so livid the pallor of his features.

"I want nothing," said the count. "I'm going down."

He had just enough money left to pay his bill, and six sous for the waiter. He quitted the hotel where he had suffered so much, without end or aim in view. He was more resolved than ever to die, only he yearned for several days of respite to nerve himself for the deed. But how could he live during these days? He had not so much as a centime left. An idea struck him--the pawnbrokers!

He knew that at the Monte-de-Piete* a certain amount would be advanced to him on his jewelry. But where find a branch office? He dared not ask, but hunted for one at hazard. He now held his head up, walked with a firmer step; he was seeking something, and had a purpose to accomplish. He at last saw the sign of the Monte-de-Piete on a house in the Rue Conde, and entered. The hall was small, damp, filthy, and full of people. But if the place was gloomy, the borrowers seemed to take their misfortunes good-humoredly. They were mostly students and women, talking gayly as they waited for their turns. The Count de Tremorel advanced with his watch, chain, and a brilliant diamond that he had taken from his finger. He was seized with the timidity of misery, and did not know how to open his business. A young woman pitied his embarrassment.

[* The public pawnbroker establishment of Paris, which has branch bureaus through the city.]

"See," said she, "put your articles on this counter, before that window with green curtains."

A moment after he heard a voice which seemed to proceed from the next room:

"Twelve hundred francs for the watch and ring."

This large amount produced such a sensation as to arrest all the conversation. All eyes were turned toward the millionnaire who was going to pocket such a fortune. The millionnaire made no response.

The same woman who had spoken before nudged his arm.

"That's for you," said she. "Answer whether you will take it or not."

"I'll take it," cried Hector.

He was filled with a joy which made him forget the night's torture. Twelve hundred francs! How many days it would last! Had he not heard there were clerks who hardly got that in a year?

Hector waited a long time, when one of the clerks, who was writing at a desk, called out: