CHAPTER III.

THE REVENGE OF M. DE NANI.

That night Célestin, it would seem, grew worse. Toto, who had made his bed on the couch in the atelier, slept so soundly that he did not hear her delirious and rambling conversation.

Gaillard’s fairy people visited her, and Bastiche and Fantoff commanded her terrified attention as they did battle once more on the greensward in front of the Castle of Flowers, whilst Fantoum watched them across the holly hedge. Then the battle scene vanished, and Mizar the cat came and took his seat upon her chest. His eyes were pale blue, and flickered like spirit lamps in a draught; she implored of him to give her water to drink, and for answer he changed into Gaillard.

Through all these fancies ran the form of an old man. It was De Nani, whom she had seen once for a moment as he talked to Toto at the Gare du Nord: his lascivious and painted face peeped at her here and there from behind hedges and trees in this phantom land, whilst over all flew Algebar, the paradisiacal bird, rending the attenuated air with the constant mournful cry, “Beware! beware! A carrot is trying to enter the Castle of Flowers.”

With daylight all these strange fancies vanished, and at seven o’clock, when Toto entered her room to inquire how she felt, she answered that she was quite well, but had been dreaming terrible things. She implored him in her husky whisper to bring in Dodor, and having placed the cage close to the bed and removed the green cover, he made some coffee and brought her some with half a buttered roll.

She drank the coffee, and when he was gone she hid the buttered roll so that he might think she had eaten it. At all hazards she must keep up the appearance of not being “very bad,” for if Toto were alarmed he would, without doubt, send for a doctor, and that meant spending money. Fully five hundred times had Mme. Liard recounted to her the frightful expense M. Liard had put her to in his last illness; she always spoke of the doctor’s bill with hands outstretched a yard wide.

“Pills—a little box not bigger than a thimble, three francs—three francs, as I am an honest woman! and plasters a yard wide that did nothing, as far as I could see, but put the good man in pain; and not only plasters, but bottles of stuff, sometimes twice a day, red and brown and yellow, and always changing till one grew giddy; and then when he had killed him wanted to cut him open to see what he died of. May I never reach heaven if I tell a lie! That is what doctors are!”

No wonder Célestin dreaded the craft, and much preferred Choiseul’s lozenges and Garnier’s sugar candy to the ruinous bottles and the pills at three francs a thimbleful, and the chance of being cut open “to see what she died of.”

Cough lozenges and sugar candy are not perhaps the most effective remedies for acute pneumonia, especially when the patient has only one lung; but perhaps, taking that fact into consideration, they were as serviceable as any others.

At nine o’clock the concierge, a stolid woman, deaf as a stone, came up to settle the bedroom and see to the patient. She brought up with her a newspaper that had just been left in by a little boy. The wrapper was addressed in a crabbed hand to “M. Cammora, No. 10, Rue de Perpignan,” and Toto wondered whose the handwriting could be, for he had never seen the scrawl of M. le Marquis de Nani.

It was a copy of that morning’s _Pantin_. The first page was occupied with foreign news and a heavy leading article by Pelisson on the prospects of beet sugar turning foreign sugars out of the market, and ending with a regret that the Minister of Agriculture had let several chances slip for the betterment of the prospects of France.

Toto turned to the second page and came upon a long article marked with pencil. He thought at the first glance that it was the review of a novel, for it was headed “Painter and Prince.” Then after six lines he discovered it was an interview, after twelve lines that it was an interview with himself.

The interviewer, it seems, had discovered that a certain illustrious young Prince whom the whole world had imagined to be in Corsica stalking the nimble moufflon, was in fact in Paris, stalking art—working, in fact, like any child of the people in an attic, Rue de Perpignan, No. 10. And as Toto saw his address thus publicly proclaimed the hair of his head stood on end.

The interview was written in Wolf’s chatty manner. Wolf had three manners: the worshipful manner, which he applied to geniuses, great statesmen, and successful tradesmen, when those gentry fell into his hands; the cut-and-dried, for strike leaders, members of the chamber, people whose houses had caught fire suspiciously; and the chatty, for actresses, successful clowns, prominent divorcees, etc. The chatty interview generally began on the stairs, with a short description of first impressions.

The stairs of Toto’s house, it seems, gave one the impression of abject poverty.

“When we reached the first floor,” said this mouthpiece of De Nani, “we inquired of a charwoman for the young Prince ——. She declared her ignorance of such a person, no Prince to her knowledge having ever inhabited the house.

“The interviewer, thus left to his own resources, pursued his quest through this frightful house, which recalled nothing so much as the Maison Corbeau of Victor Hugo. On the fourth floor, a hissing sound rewarded his ear, and knocking at a door, a well-known voice desired him to enter. Here he found a picture that would have gladdened the heart of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

“By the window of a poverty-stricken room sat a girl trimming hats—a girl of the people, exquisitely pretty, and possessing that innate refinement common to all Parisiennes, no matter how humble their origin. By the little stove stood a handsome young man, preparing the modest meal they were evidently to share together.

“It was the Prince, who laughed joyously, and placed the little pan upon the floor, whilst he shook the interviewer warmly by the hand.”

The whole thing had a most horribly actual air. The teeming brain of Wolf had supplied little details impossible, one would say, to be false. The foolish lovers who had renounced, one her home, the other his world, for the sake of art and love in an attic, stood before one in the flesh. Wolf, inspired by champagne and the dictation of his editor, had worked with the fervor and insight of a poet; and one almost wept over the struggling pair, till one remembered that the Prince was worth half a million of money, and then one laughed till one’s sides ached.

“We are very happy,” said the Prince, at the conclusion of this weird interview. “Tell all my friends to come and see me, now that you have found me out. Tell them also that there is only one true happiness—to be young and poor, and mated to the woman one loves.”

“That last line,” had murmured De Nani to himself, “will, I have no doubt, vastly amuse Mme. la Princesse and Mlle. Powhair.”

Toto let _Pantin_ drop, and turned his white face to the window, as if he expected to see all Paris looking in and laughing. He knew, as indeed was the fact, that men were tumbling out of bed bursting with laughter, and running into their wives’ bedrooms _Pantin_ in hand; that starch-faced valets were shaking under their starch, as they handed _Pantin_ to their masters on silver salvers with cups of chocolate; that young De Harnac, who was more English than his own bulldog, was crying “My Gawd!” and kicking his legs about in bed with delight as he read _Pantin_; that Mme. la Princesse was prostrated, and Mlle. Powhair—he could not imagine what Helen Powers was saying or thinking. The thought of her was somehow the worst part of all this trouble.

His lips were dry, and they felt as if they never could become moist again. He was quite calm, but this calmness of Toto’s would have frightened his mother to behold. He neither shrieked nor tore his hair; but, indeed, the latter feat would have been impossible, for a fortnight ago he had had it cropped to the bone in imitation of Garnier.

The hilt of this dagger was the ingratitude of Pelisson, Gaillard & Co.—the men who had been his guests, to whom he had lent money, and who had now stabbed him in this cruel manner before all Paris. Little did he know of the raving Pelisson, who, having sought vainly for Froissart, had returned by the night mail, which stops at Amiens and arrives in Paris at seven in the morning, only to find this horrible snake curled in _Pantin_. Pelisson at this moment was dragging the terrified Gaillard out of bed, who was protesting that he knew nothing of the matter, just as Scribe ten minutes ago had protested that eighteen thousand francs were missing from the safe, he could not tell how; and as Saxe, the German foreman, had declared that the usual big edition of _Pantin_ was out, and could not be got back, not if God came out of Himmel, and that it was not Saxe’s fault that this _schweinhund_ article had crawled into print—whilst Struve, whose practical joke had long ago laid the seeds of all this mischief, was the only man unconcerned by it as he lay asleep after a hard night’s work, and dreaming of stained-glass windows and saints who had strayed into art.

But Toto knew nothing of all this: he thought this cruel and spiteful trick the work of his friends. He had always liked Pelisson, and he had liked Gaillard. Gaillard had been, in fact, a kind of necessity to him—a sort of dry-nurse, who wiped his nose and said “There, there!” when he was fretful, and listened to his secrets, and told him tales, and put him up to resist his mother.

A man of the world would have seen at once that some trick had been played on _Pantin_. Pelisson, of all men in the world, was the last to let such an article appear in his paper; especially as it was leveled against a man who was virtually part proprietor. Gaillard, too, was entirely out of court. But Toto was not a man of the world, and the bitterest thing to him in this severe humiliation was the supposed authorship.

He took up _Pantin_, folded it, and hid it under one of the cushions of the couch. The act, performed on the impulse of a moment, revealed to him in a dramatic manner his position. Of what use was the hiding of one copy of _Pantin_ under a cushion when fifty thousand _Pantins_ were bellowing his shame all over Paris? So he snatched it out and flung it open on the table as if for everyone to read—a useless act, for everyone was reading it.

Then he smoked a cigarette. In an hour of semi-delirium he smoked ten. The thing was so immensely vile, so wanton, such bad form, that the very enormity of it calmed him. A man who learns that the bank has smashed, that his wife has eloped, and that his house is burnt to the ground all at the same moment, ten to one receives the news with calmness—the blow stuns him. He feels that Fate and Death and other heroic personages have condescended to turn their undivided attention for a moment to his affairs—he is almost a hero, in fact.

So Toto turned from blank horror to the heroic mood. The whole world was against him; well, he would stick to his guns. He almost felt glad that all this had happened, and lit another cigarette just as Garnier entered, bearing in his hand a huge bunch of black grapes for Célestin. They were muscatels, and must have cost him a little fortune, unless he stole them, or, what is more probable, obtained them on credit.

“Garnier,” said Toto, his cheeks flushing slightly, “see here,” and he pointed his cigarette with a wave at _Pantin_ lying open on the table.

“And she?” asked Garnier, as he made a sign towards the closed door of Célestin’s room, laying his grapes down on the table and taking up the paper all at the same time.

“She is better.”

“Ah, this which is marked with crosses?”

“Yes, read it.”

Garnier began to read, standing under the top-light and holding the paper at full length before him. In a moment he folded the sheet in a more comfortable manner and continued reading calmly and without any sign of astonishment. At one place he frowned slightly, where Célestin’s name appeared, then when he had finished he laid _Pantin_ back on the table beside the grapes.

“Well?” inquired Toto.

“I do not think that is in very good taste,” said Garnier dryly.

“What! is that all you have to say—not in very good taste?”

“My friend,” said Garnier, “it is no affair of mine; but it makes my fingers tingle none the less. Were it an affair of mine, I would make you eat that journal and all it contains—_vé_! I have spoken.”

“Ah, stupid!” cried Toto, uncrossing his legs and moving his arms about. “You think _I_ have written that!” and the corners of his mouth went up in a very mirthless rictus.

“But surely——”

“I? Why, cannot you see that it is a hoax? No one came here to see me—I was not frying things over the stove. Do you think for a moment I would expose myself like that, and give my address? It was done to make fun of me—everyone will be laughing at me. Can’t you see?”

“Oh, my friend,” said Garnier, “forgive me, forgive me! How could I have been so stupid and so blind? Ah, owl that you are!” and he gave his great chest a thump with his great fist, and then came to the couch and sat by Toto, and rested his hand on his knee, and poured out consolation in the language of Arles, punctuated with explosive oaths.

“Oh, it does not matter. Do you think that I care? I do in a way, for it shows me the villainy of the world.”

“Ah, you are right; this villain of a world—it is a beast! But _tenez_! my dear friend, I hear the little Célestin coughing. I will give her a grape.”

He ran into Célestin’s room with the bunch of grapes, and Toto heard his voice murmuring to her, mixed with Dodor’s voice trying over a few bars of a song in a despondent sort of manner; for Célestin’s illness seemed to have put him out of heart during the last couple of days. Then Garnier came back, closing the door softly behind him, and raising up his hands at Célestin’s weakness.

“Say, my dear friend,” said Garnier, “do you not think a doctor ought to see her? As for me, I do not believe in them, but still—but still——”

He stopped speaking, and followed the direction of Toto’s frozen stare.

At the door of the atelier, just pushed open, appeared the semi-hysterical figure of Gaillard, his hat tilted back, his long frock-coat hanging loose, and his necktie hastily put on. He had evidently dressed in a hurry, for he wore odd boots—one patent leather and the other plain kid.

“Do you see that man?” said Toto, clutching Garnier’s arm. “Do you see that man?”

“_Mais oui._”

“Then you see the biggest scoundrel in Paris,” said Toto, and he struck a match and lit a cigarette to show his coolness, averting his eyes at the same time from the apparition at the door.

Gaillard raised up his two hands like one of Struve’s stained-glass saints, and then dropped them with a flop. He did not cross the threshold, for he was perhaps afraid of being kicked out.

“Do not be afraid to come in,” said Toto; “I will not assault you. I am too utterly lost in admiration of your charming insolence—it is a masterpiece.”

“Afraid!” said Gaillard, coming in very slowly. “Afraid—afraid of what? I have no fear left; Toto, Désiré, my friend, we are all ruined. Pelisson is in despair; Wolf is committing suicide—I saw him myself being held down by four men. That villain—that villain—that villain of a De Nani, the cause of it all, has vanished. All the money is gone from the safe; Scribe is in a state of dementia. I escape from this inferno and rush to you for sympathy, and I am greeted as a scoundrel!”

“What do I care about De Nani?” inquired Toto. “Look at that.”

“Yes,” said Gaillard, “look at that; but I have no need to look at that—it is burnt into my brain. I could have slain Wolf with my two hands when he confessed an hour ago, but, _ma foi!_ he was too much slain already; besides, it was not his fault. Whose fault? Why, De Nani’s. Pelisson left him in charge; did I not tell you so yesterday?”

“De Nani?”

“Yes. Wolf has confessed he wrote the article under the inspiration of that scoundrel. The old man dictated it word for word; it was a parting shot at Pelisson. My back feels broken. Why, who is this?”

A sound of cackling laughter came from outside, and the foolish and foppish form of young De Harnac appeared at the door, followed by the figure of Valfray, his little black mustache twisted up at the ends and his eyeglass in his eye.

They saw Toto seated on the chintz-covered couch beside Gaillard, a momentary vision ere they found themselves being led like two naughty children across the dusty landing towards the stairs by a huge man with a Provençal accent.

“It is not good to laugh at one’s friends when they are in trouble,” said Garnier in his large way, and with a perfume of garlic. “You will go, please, immediately, and call another day. These are the stairs—yes, _if_ you please.”

“Oh, what have you done?” said Toto, when he came back. “Those two fools will run all over Paris telling lies about me now—no matter! Gaillard, my dear friend, come with me into the street; I must speak to you alone. Garnier, my friend, you will see to Célestin till I return, will you not?”

He ran into her room for a moment. She tried to hold up her arms to him, and he kissed her, but he did not see her face; her sunken eyes, the blueness of her lips, all those signs which spoke of that terrible pneumonia which kills like the dagger of an unskillful assassin—with great pain, but none the less surely. He saw only the smooth head of De Harnac, the black mustache and glittering monocle of Valfray, and the broad back of Garnier interposing.

“I am going out for a little; I will not be long, and Garnier will see that you want nothing till my return.”

“Oh, Désiré, do not leave me! I am very ill—not so very ill, but still—— Oh, what will become of you should I die—and Dodor? Is he in the cage? I have not heard him move.”

“I will be back soon,” said Toto, “and Dodor is all right.”

“But I have not heard him move.”

He lifted the parrot cage, and held it up to show that the bird was safe, and Dodor spread his wings like a little eagle, as if indignant that anyone should touch his house but Célestin. She glanced at him as if satisfied.

“Does it rain?”

“No.”

“I hear the sound of rain—do not get wet. You will return?”

“Very soon.”

He did not know what he was saying; it was like a conversation in a dream. Then he left her and took his hat, and left the atelier leaning on Gaillard’s arm, whilst Garnier sat on the couch and mused.

“I must leave Paris at once—I must leave Paris at once!” burst out Toto when they were in the Rue de Perpignan. “I must leave it forever; nothing like this ever happened to anyone before. My God! I am going mad. It is like one of those dreams when we seem to be walking about the streets naked. Did you see that fool De Harnac’s face, and Valfray looking all round with his eyeglass?”

“It is all dreadful,” said Gaillard. “Let us, for Heaven’s sake, sit down somewhere and think—let us, in the name of Heaven, get some brandy somewhere. I was drunk last night,—I confess it without shame,—and my nerves are in pieces. Look at my hand—is that the hand of a person who ought to be troubled? Suppose a fit were to overtake me? Well, then—yes, let us leave Paris. Oh, my God, I have odd boots on! Did you see that woman?—she laughed at them. I must have been absolutely insane all this morning not to have noticed them before. I have been walking about all the morning like this.”

“Yes, I must leave Paris at once. Come in here and sit down. _Garçon_, brandy, a decanter, and some Apollinaris water.”

“It is the first warning—I knew it was coming; ataxia always begins like this. My dear Toto, you know nothing about it; I have read the whole subject up in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It begins with forgetfulness in little things; one finds one’s self walking down the street in slippers, or forgetting how to spell one’s name, and one dies like a raving maniac. Then, one has tremor of the hand—look at my hand.”

“Drink some brandy,” said Toto, rousing up a bit from his own misery. “You will be all right; I have often been like that myself.”

“No matter; if I die, Pelisson will have killed me. He burst into my room absolutely like a tiger; you can fancy the shock to one in my condition. I was absolutely dragged from my bed—threatened with violence if I did not divulge all that I knew about this infamous article.”

“Don’t _speak_ of it!” cried Toto, “don’t, don’t! I want to get to some quiet place where I know no one. Come, I am going to Struve’s rooms; I must see him and ask him to take some money to this girl. I will write you a check at his rooms and you can go and cash it; then I will go to some country place. You will come with me, will you not? You are the only friend I have.”

“To the ends of the earth,” answered Gaillard. “This brandy has saved my reason if not my life; I will finish what is in the little decanter if you will not.”

He finished the brandy, and then, rising, took Toto’s arm.

It was half-past eleven now, and the day promised to be very warm—a perfect summer’s day with scarcely a breeze or cloud. The narrow street was black in the shadow, gold in the sunshine, and a barrel-organ was playing “Santa Lucia.”

“Yes, I am better now; the world is not so distinctly horrible as it was a moment ago. But, Toto, if you are intent on going to Struve’s rooms, how are we to get there? We are sure to meet people we know.”

“We must take a carriage. Curse it! I wish it were winter; there are no closed carriages. You can get a brougham to take me to the station when we reach Struve’s, but how are we to get there? I can’t parade myself before Paris. I know,—it is the only thing we can do,—we will take an omnibus from the Boul’ Miche. We shall meet no one that we know in an omnibus.”

In the Boul’ Miche they were fortunate enough to find an omnibus just stopped and disgorging some passengers—one, moreover, that would drop them actually at Struve’s door; but they had to wait whilst three other passengers got in before them. There was a girl in a summer hat that would have brought tears to Célestin’s eyes, a priest, and a fat lady bearing a lobster tied to a string; then they found that there was only one inside place left.

“You must go outside,” said Toto.

“But, Désiré, think for a moment. I cannot possibly do this; everyone will see me. Let us wait and take the next.”

“Struve may be out if we delay,” said Toto, getting into the vehicle wearily, and, as it was starting, Gaillard was forced to mount on the outside, where he sat with his handkerchief to his face as if his nose were bleeding and his hat tilted over his eyes. Fortunately, no one saw him, though he imagined in his agony that all Paris was watching him from the sky, the housetops, the windows, and the street.

Struve was at breakfast. He had evidently been reading _Pantin_, for it was open before him, and he put a dish of kidneys over the damnable article in a pathetic attempt to hide it as the poet and the painter entered his room, with all the dejection of a couple of cats that have just been washed.

“We are going away,” said Gaillard.

“Sit down,” lisped Struve, jumping up. “Toto, I am very glad to see you—have a cigar, have a cigarette? Now what is all this nonsense I have heard? Gaillard, for goodness’ sake put your head straight; you are not a lily. Pelisson has been here—I know all this cursed nonsense; he has been let in by old De Nani. I always told him he would; everyone is cursing poor old Pelisson for a fool. Well, then, what matter? it will soon blow over.”

“We are going away,” said Toto, taking up Gaillard’s whine; “at least, I am—forever!”

“So,” said Struve, lighting a cigarette, “you are going away forever; and when are you coming back? Toto, for goodness’ sake, don’t think that I am joking. I know what Paris is, and for Heaven’s sake don’t go about with that long face! Laugh, laugh, and you are clad in triple brass; no one ever laughs at a man who is laughing—they always laugh with him. Laugh at Pelisson, laugh at De Nani, do as they do at the carnival ball; a jester strikes me with his bauble, I strike Jules, Jules Alphonse, and so it goes on. Don’t take this thing seriously.”

“I cannot laugh,” said Toto, looking at his boots with the air of a martyr.

“Well, then, smoke.”

“Thanks, yes, I will take a cigarette. I want to speak to you; but first I want Auguste to do something for me.”

He sat down at the writing table and made out a holograph check for ten thousand francs, and dispatched Gaillard with it to the bank.

“Go to Porcheron’s and get a brougham, and come back in it, my dear fellow.”

“But your luggage?”

“Oh, I will buy things wherever I go.”

Gaillard departed, and Toto resumed his seat.

“I want to tell you all,” he said. “There is a girl; she brought this mischief upon me, though it was not entirely her fault.”

“Oh, these girls!” murmured Struve.

“I know they are frightful, but, still, I must do something for this girl.”

“Pah! Give her five hundred francs—I know what girls are—and forget her.”

“Oh, for the matter of that, she is not—she loves me, I think, in her way—of course she does not know all the mischief she has done: how could she? No matter. I want you to call this afternoon and explain that I am gone away for a while.”

“I say, you know,” said Struve, who did not relish the idea of acting as ambassador between Toto and some hussy, who would probably pull his hair for his pains, “would it not be better for you to write? There is something much more final about a letter left in by a postman than a message taken by a friend.”

“I could not write to her, and I want you to give her some money. Gaillard is bringing ten thousand francs back; I will give her three. Of course I will provide for her afterwards. Do, my dear fellow, help me in this, and I will be forever grateful; besides, you will never see me again.”

“All right,” said Struve; “I will do as you ask.”

The three thousand francs decided him. There were few women of this kind who would pull the hair of a messenger armed with the consolation of a three-thousand-franc note; besides, he felt a sympathy for the unfortunate Toto, this sparrow who had built too high. They sat for half an hour smoking.

“Of course,” said Toto, “the affair does not end here between De Nani and me. When I have time to breathe I will find him out.”

“What for?”

“To make him fight.”

The idea of a duel between Toto and De Nani was almost too much for Struve’s gravity. However, he did not laugh.

“You will not find De Nani; he has vanished. Pelisson says the safe has been cleaned out. It was that fool Scribe, the cashier; he lent De Nani the keys for a moment the day before yesterday, and the old fellow must have taken an impression of them in wax. The worst of it is, Pelisson cannot prosecute—the old fellow knows too much about the inner workings of _Pantin_. And yet Pelisson always thought him a fool. No, you will not find De Nani; and if you did, he would not fight. It is my impression that he is a very deep card, this Marquis. You see, Pelisson thought him only a drunken old man who would be wax in his hands. Who is this?”

Gaillard appeared.

“I have a brougham at the door,” said Gaillard in a mournful voice, “and here is the money, dear Toto, partly in notes, partly in gold.”