Part 21
Chaffin was profoundly preoccupied, and very anxious as he followed the footman who was instructed to usher him into Landri's presence. He would have been even more so if he had glanced through the windows of the long glass gallery that surrounded the courtyard of the hôtel. His legs, trembling already, would have refused further service. He certainly would not have crossed the threshold of the room where his former pupil awaited him.
At the very moment when he was proceeding thus toward an interview of decisive importance to him, the small door on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, through which visitors on foot were admitted, opened in response to an impatient ring, and Pierre appeared. His arrival thus on his father's heels, in view of the circumstances under which the two men had parted, was a threat well calculated to check the flow of blood in the unfaithful steward's veins. He had hastened thither to implore a compassion which his son's presence would render unavailing. That implacable Fate, of which Landri had been the craftsman, unwitting at first, then terrified by its working out, continued its work. But what is this Fate if not the internal logic of life, so well summed up, in the words of the poet: "We are the masters of our first step. We are the slaves of the second." This force which thus compels all the consequences of crime is not distinguishable from it. We could not help committing a crime. Once committed it holds us fast. Our very precautions serve only to hasten our punishment. It overtakes us alike through our prudences and our imprudences, through those who love us and those who hate us and those even to whom we are indifferent, so inevitably do our sins unfold their results according to a mathematical ratio.
Landri's visit to Pierre Chaffin was a perfectly natural result of the peculations committed by the steward of the Claviers estate, and that visit had produced this other no less natural result: the doctor had questioned his father. When Chaffin returned to the house on Quai de Béthune on the preceding day, his son opened the door, anticipating his ring, a sign that he had been at the window watching for his return.
"I was waiting for you," he said. "Let us go into my study. I have something to say to you, at once."
"What's going on?" queried Chaffin. As he asked the question his glance expressed more terror than surprise. This singular fact did not escape Pierre. He was conscious of the false ring in the newcomer's laughter as he added, with an impertinent allusion to the very advanced opinions professed by the physician: "There's no question of an anarchist plot, is there? For I am as much of a radical as you please, but still, you know, a landed proprietor."
"Landri de Claviers has just gone from here," Pierre replied, paying no heed to the pleasantry. He had closed the door by way of precaution, and spoke in a low voice. He did not wish his mother and sister, who were looking over the week's laundry in an adjoining room, to suspect that his father and he were closeted together. "Yes," he repeated, "Landri de Claviers." And he gazed steadfastly at the discharged steward. He tried to detect upon that enigmatic face a confusion which did not appear. The thief recovered his self-control, and ventured to reply:--
"He is probably ashamed of the way his father behaved to his old tutor. I don't class them together, Monsieur de Claviers and him. Landri is weak. He doesn't dare to break a lance against the prejudices of a society which he estimates none the less at its real worth. You saw how absurdly he acted in that matter of the inventory. He is not a believer, he adores the army, and still he gets his job taken away from him! He has a poor head, but he's a very good fellow."
"Landri did not come to apologize either for himself or his father," said the doctor. "He came to accuse us."
"Us?" cried Chaffin. "Of what, I should like to know?"
Despite his self-control, that explicit statement made him jump. Among the many suppositions with which his terror-haunted fancy had tormented him, one had been especially persistent of late: he had written the anonymous note, it will be remembered, on his typewriter. Several people in the Claviers household knew that he had the machine. At the moment he had said to himself: "Pshaw! there are thousands of others in Paris!" and had gone ahead. Since then he had lived in deadly fear lest some suggestion should lead the marquis to see whether the characters in the letter did not correspond with those of his machine. It was an extravagant fear. By virtue of what authority could M. de Claviers have claimed such a power? But it is the peculiarity of the fixed idea, that it does not distinguish the possible from the impossible. And then, there was Pierre. To be assailed by an insinuation of that nature in the esteem and affection of his son was to the father a worse punishment than to be sent before the Assizes. Did Landri's accusation relate to that? Did he claim the right to demand a test? But, if so, what was the meaning of that "us?"
"I will tell you about it," rejoined the physician. He began to repeat word for word the conversation he had had with his father's former pupil, ending with the terrible question asked by himself: "Yes or no, did you hear any talk of dishonesty?" and with Landri's evasive reply: "I heard something said of confusion in Monsieur de Claviers' affairs."
As he told the story, which it was exceedingly painful to him to repeat thus, his eyes continued to examine the face of the agent so directly incriminated. Lively emotion was certain to be depicted thereon, even if he were innocent,--especially if he were innocent. The news of Landri's visit, under the existing conditions, could not be indifferent to a man of heart. There was matter therein at which to take offence, to be distressed, to be alarmed, to be indignant. Perhaps, if Chaffin had foreseen this explanation with his son, he would have been shrewd enough to feign agitation. But being attacked unexpectedly, he instinctively feigned absolute impassibility. It is the least hazardous of defences for a culprit taken by surprise. It offers no hold for an investigation, but for that very reason it suggests mastery of self, a premeditated reserve, the possibility of a secret.
Pierre felt this so strongly that, at the end of this painful narration,--this cross-examination, rather, scarcely disguised,--he uttered a cry, a downright appeal to the sense of honor of that father of his, who listened to him with an impassive face which made it impossible to discover a single one of his thoughts:--
"And it doesn't make you jump from your chair that I, your son, have reached the point where I could put such a question to that man, and that he refused to answer? You seem to have no suspicion that I am passing through one of the most ghastly hours of my whole life! Don't tell me that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of Monsieur Jaubourg's papers. I know it. Don't tell me that this act of Landri's proves that he and his father are crazy. I know it. But I know something else, by an experience of many, many years! Monsieur de Claviers and Landri, with all their failings and their prejudices and their follies and their absurdities, are perfectly honorable men, incapable of wronging any one knowingly. If they suspected you of this, it was because they believed that they had the right to. It must be that you and the marquis broke off your relations for some reason of which I know nothing. I insist on knowing it. Yes, why did Monsieur de Claviers, who finds it so hard to discharge his employés,--you used to complain of it so often!--why did he part with you so abruptly, so brutally? Ah!" he concluded in a heart-rending tone, "if the reason was what you told us, Landri would never have come here, he would never have left me with that evasive reply, after he had seen how I was suffering, and what I thought--never!"
"I told your mother and sister and you the exact truth," said Chaffin, pretending to be angry at last.
He could not assume any other attitude, but the contrast was too great between this sudden outburst and the carefully guarded attention of a few moments before. They who simulate emotions always miss their imitation of reality in some detail. They exaggerate the symptoms or distort them. For instance, the impostors who feign an attack of vertigo, and who fall with their hands extended to protect themselves. The genuine epileptic, being hurled to the ground as it were, has no time to take that precaution. The error, in this case, was the sudden change from premeditated indifference to extreme rage, without transition. The protest, too emphatic in his too abrupt somersault, was not sincere.
"Yes," the dishonest steward persisted none the less, "I told you the truth, and it is incredible to me that you, my son, should be the one to take sides against me with these great nobles whom you know only by hearsay! I know them, I do, from having undergone innumerable humiliations at their hands which I have always concealed from you. In their eyes a man is of no account when he doesn't belong to their caste. They wouldn't do you a material injury. They are very careful in that respect, from pride. But as to other injuries, no. I expected better things from Landri. Evidently he's no better than his father. Papers are missing from Jaubourg's apartments, certificates of stock, I suppose? They think at once of _us_, of _us_, mind you, of you as well as myself! Do I conclude from that that they mean to accuse you of dishonesty? Not at all. But you conclude that they do mean to accuse me! It is incredible! But the dishonesty was in coming here to insult you and your father! And you listened to my gentleman? And when he proved to you, by the mere fact of coming here, his absolute lack of perspicacity, you questioned him about me?--How many times must I tell you that Monsieur de Claviers did not part with me, but I parted with him, and for the reason that Landri admitted: he talked about confusion in my accounts, when there was no confusion in anything but his expenditure, which was insane! What Landri did not tell you is that I warned him personally of the marquis's impending ruin, in order to save his fortune. Just ask him about that. We will see whether he will dare to deny that conversation at Grandchamp when I gave him the exact figures. I swear it, on your mother's head and your sister's. If he had listened to me he wouldn't have lost a sou. And this is how he rewards me! But he isn't my son, and you, Pierre, have been too unjust to me, too ungrateful. I have only lived and worked for you all, for you especially. I have tried to spare you all the miseries of the breadwinner which crushed me at your age. You were intelligent and hard-working. I kept you at home, so that you could give your time to science as you chose, and prepare for your examinations, while your comrades were wearing themselves out with patients; and you have forgotten all my sacrifices!--Ah! it's too horrible!"
"For the very reason that I am living on your benefactions," replied the physician with savage asperity, "I cannot endure certain ideas. And those ideas," he continued still more harshly, "let us admit that it is, as you say, horrible to entertain them. It is a fact that I do entertain them. Would you like me to tell you why? Landri de Claviers' conduct has nothing to do with it. The change in you that I have noticed these last weeks has given them to me, nothing else. Since you left Grandchamp you are not the same man. I see it with my eyes. I see that you are suffering. You are growing thin. You don't eat. You don't sleep. You have some persistent trouble that you cannot hide, and I too am beginning to have one, I feel it growing and taking possession of me--it is suspicion. I do not want it. We must not both play at madness. Let us have more pride. A father and son should not exchange such words as these twice. There is one way of putting an end to them. It is too late to-day," he added, looking at the clock; "but to-morrow, at eleven, after the Hôtel-Dieu, I'll call for you, and we will go together to Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. We will ask to speak with the marquis. You will tell him, or, if you prefer, I will, that there are rumors abroad. And it is true. Louvet has changed his manner to me since you left the Claviers. These rumors have reached our ears. We have come to ask him to cut them short by declaring publicly, and first of all before me, that he has nothing to reproach you with in your stewardship that affects your honor. I will demand that he put that declaration in writing for me, if necessary."
"I will not do it!" cried Chaffin, his eyes bulging out with terror as, in imagination, they saw M. de Claviers. "I will not do it! You talk about pride, and yet you don't see that you are proposing to me a nameless humiliation, worse than all the rest!"
"What, pray?" his son quickly retorted. "What humiliation is there in going to a man as to whom you have nothing to reproach yourself with, and claiming from him reparation for involuntary injustice? Tell me, when Louvet and I--and how many others that I don't know!--may have received an unfavorable impression of your quarrel with Monsieur de Claviers, is not that an injustice, if the quarrel was a mere caprice on his part? And is he not responsible for it by the exaggerated indignation which you claim that he has shown?"
"People may think what they choose," interposed Chaffin. "I won't go up that man's stairs. I won't go to his house. I won't go."
"Very good," said Pierre, "then I shall go alone."
"You won't put that affront on me?" the father implored. "You shall not go! I forbid you. To humiliate yourself is to humiliate me. We are one as to that. You must obey me."
"Because of that very identity of interest, I shall not obey you," rejoined the son. "Your honor is my honor. I propose to know whether the money I am living on is pure. At eleven o'clock to-morrow I shall be there. I hope you will be there too. But if you are not, I shall go in alone. Nothing on earth, you understand, nothing shall prevent my having an explanation with Monsieur de Claviers, unless--"
"Unless what?" queried Chaffin breathlessly. "Go on."
"Unless you tell me that your leaving his service was for a different reason, and what it was."
"I can't invent one," the father replied.
"Then I can't understand your objections to a step which, I tell you once more, I must take in order to put an end to an intolerable state of mind."
"Well!" said Chaffin, after a pause, "do it, since you no longer believe in your father; but remember this, that I will never forgive you."
An awkward and ill-timed attempt at paternal dignity, which lacked the accent, the expression, the gesture, in a word the inimitable and irresistible reality, which Pierre craved as he craved bread and water, air and light! Chaffin resorted to it, however, as a desperate effort to prevent that visit, the threat of which had sent a stream of fire running through his veins. What an evening and night he passed under the apprehension of that hour, which every minute brought nearer, when his shamefully wronged employer and his idolized son should be face to face!
The young man did not dine at home, in order to avoid meeting his father. The latter heard him come in about midnight. A mad temptation assailed him, as he heard that well-known step, to rise and go to him and confess everything. But no. Pierre's terrible words were still ringing in his ears: "I propose to know whether the money I am living on is pure." How could he bear to tell that boy, whose probity was so absolute, that that money was not pure, that the little fortune, by virtue of which he was pursuing his studies, almost without practising, was, in part, stolen! For that was really one of the motives that had led Chaffin into rascality: his passionate desire to assure his son Pierre immunity from his own laborious life was his revenge for his semi-menial position. He had imagined him physician to the hospitals, professor in the Faculty, member of the Académie de Medicine, perhaps of the Institute.
This excitation of his paternal love was due to the same malevolence, born of his abortive destiny, that filled him with implacable hatred of his noble and magnificent employer. That most excellent sentiments can exist in the same heart with evil sentiments, and criminal resolutions inspired by the latter justify themselves by the former, is a fact of every-day observation, as disconcerting as it is indisputable. It explains why the great legislators, who were also great psychologists, always strove to punish acts in themselves, without seeking the intent with which they were committed. The decadence of civic justice began with this search for the intent, which, in healthy societies, is left to religion to deal with. The Church can still find reasons for pardoning a Chaffin for his crimes, when human tribunals, taking cognizance of his case, owe him naught save the galleys.
"If he ever finds that out," said the guilty father to himself, in that vigil of anguish, "he will leave me. He will go away from the house. His mother and sister will insist on knowing, too. They will guess the truth. At any price, Pierre must remain in ignorance. But how?"
Then it was that in that mind, already exhausted by the stings of conscience, an idea began to take root. It occurred to him to go himself, about nine o'clock, while his son was at the Hôtel-Dieu, and throw himself at the marquis's feet. He would implore him not to dishonor him in Pierre's eyes. M. de Claviers was generous. He would take pity on him. He would promise not to speak. He would not speak. But to appear before Madame de Claviers' husband after he had, like a dastard, dealt him that despicable blow of the anonymous letter, was beyond the Judas's courage. He could not even endure the thought. There had been, in the attitude maintained by that proud man since he had received the letter of his wife, testifying to her liaison with Jaubourg and the illegitimacy of the child, a mystery which terrified Chaffin. He divined therein a bottomless abyss of suffering over which it would be too horrible for him to lean.
Landri's visit to Pierre had intensified that puzzled sensation. His inquiries concerning papers said to have been stolen from Jaubourg implied that the young count was informed of the anonymous letter. Had M. de Claviers shown it to him? If so, why? Why, so that Landri might institute this inquiry, of course! And with what object, if not to unearth the holder of the "other documents"? Chaffin recalled those words in his letter, which was written in the paroxysm of nervous excitement caused by the gratification of long-cherished hate. He had added to it, in pure wantonness, a threat of blackmail which he had never intended to put in execution.
That recollection suggested a second plan: since his threat had produced such an effect on the two men, he had a certain means of obtaining from them a promise of silence with respect to his son. It was to Landri that the marquis had entrusted the mission of seeking those documents. It was to Landri that he must appeal. The anticipation of that interview was painful to the dishonored tutor. But it was not unendurable, like the other. But would Landri give way under that pressure? Would he not, on the other hand, reply: "You threaten us with a scandal? Very good. We propose to apply for a warrant against you."
No, he must not take that risk. Chaffin devised a safer method of procedure. He thought that he was well acquainted with his pupil of so many years. He believed him to be very weak, but he knew his absolute loyalty and the noble elements of his character. The better way was to go to him and say: "It was I who wrote that outrageous denunciation in a moment of insanity. I am sorry for it. I have the other papers. Here they are. I place them in your hands. I ask you, in return, to induce Monsieur de Claviers not to tell Pierre the real reason for my leaving him." The acceptance of that restitution would create the most sacred of obligations in the eyes of the noble-hearted young man.
Such are the disconcerting contradictions of human nature, that, upon representing to himself that scene of confession, although dictated entirely by self-interest, Chaffin had a sense of relief, almost as of rehabilitation. At all events he should have spoken, should have confessed his crime, which was suffocating him.
Once determined upon this course, he was in such feverish haste to carry it out that he left the house before nine o'clock, as soon as his son had started for the Hôtel-Dieu. He had not reckoned upon the working of Pierre's mind in a direction parallel to his own. The physician had said to himself, on leaving his father:--
"To-morrow he will have reflected. He will decide to go to Monsieur de Claviers with me if there's nothing wrong; and if there is anything, he will confess."
When he found, in the morning, that Chaffin did not mention the subject again, he reasoned thus:--
"My father has devised some expedient. What can it be? If he is guilty, there is only one: to go there first, in order to implore the marquis to spare him with regard to me. But is it possible?"
The physician had resolved to go to all lengths now, to put an end to the torture of suspicion, which, to his horror, was already changing from a recurrent to a fixed idea. He dreaded too keenly the form of monomania so well defined by one of his confrères of ancient times: _Animi angor in una cogitatione defixus et inhœrens_. He had acted at once therefore. Instead of going to the hospital, he had stationed himself at the corner of Rue des Deux-Ponts and Quai de Béthune. He had seen his father leave the house, look about him like one who fears that he is watched, and then bend his steps, with an air of feigned indifference, toward Pont Sully, where he took a cab. Pierre himself hailed the first cab that passed. He gave the driver a five-franc piece, telling him to drive as fast as possible to the corner of Rue d'Aguesseau and Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where he arrived in time to see Chaffin's cab stop in front of the hôtel de Claviers. He waited a few moments, then rang and asked the concierge:--
"Is my father with Monsieur le Marquis?"
"No, Monsieur le Docteur," the man replied, "Monsieur Chaffin came to see Monsieur le Comte."
"Very well! I beg you to send and ask Monsieur le Marquis if he can receive me," said Pierre, after a moment's hesitation.
He had fancied that he could read in the concierge's eyes the same constraint that he had noticed of late in Professor Louvet's. He was only partly mistaken. Naturally, the magnanimous M. de Claviers had confided to no one in his entourage his grievances against his secretary. But his servants were well aware of his unalloyed kindness of heart. They had imagined the reason of Chaffin's abrupt dismissal, the more readily because they were not ignorant of his daily peculation. But they were not officially informed. Pierre had sufficient proof of that, for Landri's door was not closed to his father, and he himself was admitted to the presence of M. de Claviers. The concierge called up the speaking-tube that connected his lodge with the house. An affirmative answer was returned. The bell rang, announcing the visitor, and the doctor was ushered into the presence of the marquis five minutes after Chaffin's humble and suppliant figure had passed through Landri's door.
"There may be nothing wrong after all," thought the doctor, "as they receive us both. If it were only true! What a weight would be taken from my heart! However, I shall soon know."