There was not a defender, nor a friend, in this voracious crowd; the French colony itself appeared satisfied with the fall of a courtier who had so long monopolized the roads to favour. To attempt to snatch this prey from the Bey, excepting by a striking triumph at the Assembly, was not to be thought of. All that de Gery could hope for was to save some shreds of his fortune, and this only if he hurried, for he was expecting day by day to learn of his friend's complete ruin.

He set himself to work, therefore, hurried on his business with an activity which nothing could discourage, neither Oriental discursiveness—that refined fair-spoken politeness, under which is hidden ferocity—nor coolly indifferent smiles, nor averted looks, invoking divine fatalism when human lies fail. The self-possession of this southerner, in whom was condensed, as it were, all the exuberance of his compatriots, served him as well as his perfect knowledge of French law, of which the Code of Tunis is only a disfigured copy.

By his diplomacy and discretion, in spite of the intrigues of Hemerlingue's son—who was very influential at the Bardo—he succeeded in withdrawing from confiscation the money lent by the Nabob some months before, and to snatch ten millions out of fifteen from Mohammed's rapacity. The very morning of the day on which the money was to be paid over, he received from Paris the news of the unseating of Jansoulet. He hurried at once to the Palace to arrive there before the news, and on his return with the ten millions in bills on Marseilles secure in his pocket-book, he passed young Hemerlingue's carriage, with his three mules at full gallop. The thin owl's face was radiant. De Gery understood that if he remained many hours at Tunis his bills ran the risk of being confiscated, so took his place at once on an Italian packet which was sailing next morning for Genoa, passed the night on board, and was only easy in his mind when he saw far behind him white Tunis with her gulf and the rocks of Cape Carthage spread out before her. On entering Genoa, the steamer while making for the quay passed near a great yacht with the Tunisian flag flying. De Gery felt greatly excited, and for a moment believed that she had come in pursuit of him, and that on landing he might be seized by the Italian police like a common thief. But the yacht was swinging peacefully at anchor, her sailors cleaning the deck or repainting the red siren of her figurehead, as if they were expecting someone of importance. Paul had not the curiosity to ask who this personage was. He crossed the marble city, and returned by the coast railway from Genoa to Marseilles—that marvellous route where one passes suddenly from the blackness of the tunnels to the dazzling light of the blue sea.

At Savona the train stopped, and the passengers were told that they could go no farther, as one of the little bridges over the torrents which rush from the mountains to the sea had been broken during the night. They must wait for the engineer and the break-down gang, already summoned by telegraph; wait perhaps a half day. It was early morning. The Italian town was waking in one of those veiled dawns which forecast great heat for the day. While the dispersed travellers took refuge in the hotels, installed themselves in the cafes, and others visited the town, de Gery, chafing at the delay, tried to think of some means of saving these few hours. He thought of poor Jansoulet, to whom the money he was bringing might save honour and life, of his dear Aline, her whose remembrance had not quitted him a single day of his journey, no more than the portrait which she had given him. Then he was inspired to hire one of those four-horse calesinos which run from Genoa to Nice, along the Italian Corniche—an adorable trip which foreigners, lovers, and winners at Monaco often enjoy. The driver guaranteed that he would be at Nice early; and even if he arrived no earlier than the train, his impatient spirit felt the comfort of movement, of feeling at each turn of the wheel the distance from his desire decrease.

On a fine morning in June, when one is young and in love, it is a delicious intoxication to tear behind four horses over the white Corniche road. To the left, a hundred feet below, the sea sparkling with foam, from the rounded rocks of the shore to those vapoury distances where the blue of the waves and of the heavens mingle; red or white sails are scattered over it like wings, steamers leaving behind them their trail of smoke; and on the sands, fishermen no larger than birds, in their anchored boats like nests. Then the road descends, follows a rapid declivity along the rocks and sharp promontories. The fresh wind from the waves shakes the little harness bells; while on the right, on the side of the mountain, the rows of pine-trees, the green oaks with roots capriciously leaving the arid soil, and olive-trees growing on their terraces, up to a wide and white pebbly ravine, bordered with grass, marking the passage of the waters. This is really a dried-up water-course, which the loaded mules ascend with firm foot among the shingle, and a washer-woman stoops near a microscopic pond—the few drops that remained of the great inundation of winter. From time to time one crosses the street of some village, or little town rather, grown rusty through too much sun, of historic age, the houses closely packed and joined by dark arcades—a network of vaulted courts which clamber the hillside with glimpses of the upper daylight, here and there letting one see crowds of children with aureoles of hair, baskets of brilliant fruit, a woman coming down the road, her water-pot on her head and her distaff on her arm. Then at a corner of the street, the blue sparkle of the waves and the immensity of nature.

But as the day advanced, the sun rising in the heavens spread over the sea—now escaped from its mists, still with the transparence of quartz—thousands of rays striking the water like arrow-heads, a dazzling sight made doubly so by the whiteness of the rocks and of the soil, by a veritable African sirocco which raised the dust in a whirlwind on the road. They were coming to the hottest and most sheltered places of the Corniche—a true exotic temperature, scattering dates, cactus, and aloes. Seeing these thin trunks, this fantastic vegetation in the white hot air, feeling the blinding dust crackle under the wheels like snow, de Gery, his eyes half closed, dreaming in this leaden noon, thought he was once more on that fatiguing road from Tunis to the Bardo, in a singular medley of Levantine carriages with brilliant liveries, of long-necked camels, of caparisoned mules, of young donkeys, of Arabs in rags, of half-naked negroes, of officials in full-dress with their guard of honour. Should he find there, where the road ran through the gardens of palm-trees, the strange and colossal architecture of the Bey's palace, its barred windows with closed lattices, its marble gates, its balconies in carved wood painted in bright colours?—It was not the Bardo, but the lovely country of Bordighera, divided, like all those on the coast, into two parts—the sea town lying on the shore; and the upper town, joined to it by a forest of motionless palm-trees, with upright stem and falling crown—like green rockets, springing into the blue with their thousand feathers.

The insupportable heat, the overtired horses, forced the traveller to stop for a couple of hours at one of those great hotels which line the road, and bring every November into this little town, so marvellously sheltered, the luxurious life and cosmopolitan animation of an aristocratic wintering place. But at this time of year there was no one in the sea town of Bordighera but fishermen, invisible at this hour. The villas and hotels seemed dead, their blinds and shutters closed. They took Paul through long, cool, and silent passages to a great drawing-room facing north, which seemed to be part of the suites let for the season, whose doors communicated with the other rooms. White curtains, a carpet, the comfort demanded by the English even when travelling, and outside the windows, which the hotel-keeper opened wide to tempt the traveller to a longer stay, a splendid view of the mountain. An astonishing quiet reigned in this great deserted inn, with neither manager, nor cook, nor waiters—the whole staff coming only in the winter—and given up for domestic needs to a local spoil-sauce, expert at a stoffato, a risotto; also to two stablemen, who clothed themselves at meal-time with the dress-coat and white tie of office. Happily, de Gery was only going to remain there for an hour or two, to rest his eyes from the overpowering light, his head from the dolorous grip of the sun.

From the divan where he lay, the admirable landscape, diversified with light and trembling leaves, seemed to descend to his window by stages of different greens, where scattered villas shone white, and among them that of Maurice Trott, the banker, recognisable by its capricious architecture and the height of its palms.

The Levantine house, whose gardens came up to the windows of the hotel, had sheltered for some months an artistic celebrity, the sculptor Brehat, who was dying of consumption, and owed the prolonging of his existence to this princely hospitality. The neighbourhood of this dying celebrity—of which the hotel-keeper was proud, and which he would have liked to charge in the bill—the name of Brehat, which de Gery had so often heard pronounced with admiration in Felicia Ruys's studio, brought back his thoughts to the beautiful face, with its pure lines, which he had last seen in the Bois de Boulogue, leaning on Mora's shoulder. What had become of this unfortunate girl when this prop had failed her? Would this lesson be of use to her in the future? And, by a strange coincidence, while he was thinking thus of Felicia, a great white greyhound was bounding up an alley of green trees on the slopes of the neighbouring garden. It was like Kadour—the same short hair, the same mouth, red, fierce, and delicate. Paul, before his open window, was assailed in a moment by all sorts of visions, sad or charming. Perhaps the beauty of the scene before his eyes made his thoughts wander. Under the orange-trees and lemon-trees in rows, laden with their golden fruit, stretched immense fields of violets in regular and packed beds, separated by little irrigation canals, whose white stone cut up the exuberant verdure.

An exquisite ordour of violets dried in the sun was rising—a hot boudoir scent, enervating, enfeebling, which called up for de Gery feminine visions—Aline, Felicia—permeating the fairy-like landscape, in this blue-charged atmosphere, this heavenly day, which one might have called the perfume become visible of so many open flowers. The creaking of a door made him open his eyes. Some one had just gone into the next room. He heard the rustle of a dress against the thin partition, a leaf turned in a book which could not be very interesting, for a long sigh turning into a yawn made him start. Was he still sleeping, dreaming? Had he not heard the cry of the "jackal in the desert," so much in keeping with the burning temperature out of doors? No—nothing more. He fell asleep again, and this time all the confused images which pursued him fixed themselves in a dream—a very pleasant dream.

He was on his honeymoon with Aline. She was a delicious wife, her clear eyes full of love and faith, which only knew, only looked at him. In this very room, on the other side of the partition, she was sitting in white morning dress, which smelt of violets and of the fine lace of her trousseau. They were having breakfast—one of those solitary breakfasts of a honeymoon, served in their bedroom, opposite the blue sea, and the clear sky, which tinge with azure the glass in which one drinks, the eyes where one sees one's self, the future—life—the distant horizon. Oh! how good it was; what a divine youth-giving light; how happy they were!

And all at once, in the delight of their kisses, Aline became sad. Her eyes filled with tears. She said to him: "Felicia is there. You will love me no longer." And he laughed, "Felicia here? What an idea!" "Yes, yes; she is there." Trembling she pointed to the next room, from which came angry barks, and the voice of Felicia: "Here, Kadour! Here, Kadour!" the low, concentrated, furious voice of some one who is hiding and suddenly discovered.

Wide awake, the lover, disenchanted, found himself in his empty room, before an empty table, his dream, fled through the window to the great hillside. But he heard very distinctly in the next room the bark of a dog, and hurried knocks on the door.

"Open the door! It is I—it is Jenkins."

Paul sat up on his divan, stupefied. Jenkins here? How was that? To whom was he speaking? What voice was going to answer him? No one answered. A light step went to the door, and the lock creaked nervously.

"Here you are at last," said the Irishman, entering.

And truly if he had not taken care to announce himself, Paul would never have taken this brutal, violent, hoarse voice heard through the partition for the doctor's with his sugary manners.

"At last I have found you after a week of searching, of mad rushing from Genoa to Nice, from Nice to Genoa. I knew that you had not gone, because the yacht was in the harbour, and I was going to inspect all the inns on the coast, when I remembered Brehat. I have just come from him. It was he who told me you were here."

But to whom was he speaking? Who was so singularly obstinate? At last a beautiful, sad voice, which Paul well knew, made the hot afternoon air vibrate.

"Well, yes, Jenkins, here I am. What is the matter?"

Through the wall Paul could see the disdainful mouth, turned down with disgust.

"I have come to prevent you from going—from doing this foolish thing."

"What foolish thing? I have some work at Tunis. I must go there."

"But you don't think, my dear child, that—"

"Oh, enough of your fatherly airs, Jenkins. We know what lies underneath it. Speak to me as you did just now. I prefer the bull-dog to the spaniel. I fear it less."

"Well, I tell you that you must be mad to go over there alone, young and beautiful as you are."

"And am I not always alone? Would you like me to take Constance, at her age?"

"Or me?"

"You!" She pronounced the word with an ironical laugh. "And what about Paris? And your patients—deprive society of its Cagliostro? Never, on any account."

"I have, however, made up my mind to follow you wherever you go," said Jenkins resolutely.

There was an instant of silence. Paul asked himself if it was worthy of him to listen to this conversation which was full of terrible revelations. But in spite of his fatigue an invincible curiosity nailed him to the spot. It seemed to him that the enigma which had so long been perplexing and troubling him was going to be solved at last, to show the woman sad or perverse, concealed by the fashionable artist. He remained there, still holding his breath, needlessly, however; for the two, believing themselves to be alone in the hotel, let their passions and their voices rise without constraint.

"Well, what do you want of me?"

"I want you."

"Jenkins!"

"Yes, yes, I know; you have forbidden me to say such words before you, but other men than I have said them, and nearer still."

"And if it were so, wretch! If I have not been able to protect myself from disgust and boredom, if I have lost my pride, is it for you to say a word? As if you were not the cause of it; as if you had not forever saddened and darkened my life for me!"

And these burning and rapid words revealed to the terrified Paul de Gery the horrible meaning of this apparently affectionate guardianship, against which the mind, the thought, the dreams of the young girl had had to struggle so long, and which had left her the incurable sadness of precocious regret, the heart-break of a life hardly begun.

"I loved you! I love you still! Passion excuses everything," answered Jenkins in a hollow voice.

"Love me, then, if that amuses you. As for me, I hate you not only for the wrong you have done me, all the beliefs and energy you have killed in me, but because you represent what is most execrable, most hideous under the sun—hypocrisy and lies. This society masquerade, this heap of falsity, of grimaces, of cowardly and unclean conventions have sickened me to such an extent, that I am running away exiling myself so as to see them no longer; rather than them I would have the prison, the sewer, the streets. And yet it is your deceit, O sublime Jenkins, which horrifies me most. You have mingled our French hypocrisy, all smiles and politeness, with your large English shakes of the hand, with your cordial and demonstrative loyalty. They have all been caught by it. They said, 'The good Jenkins; the worthy, honest Jenkins.' But I—I knew you, and in spite of your fine motto on the envelopes of your letters, on your seal, your sleeve-links, your hat-bands, the doors of your carriage, I always saw the rascal you are."

Her voice hissed through her teeth, clinched by an incredible ferocity of expression, and Paul expected some furious revolt of Jenkins under so many insults. But this hate and contempt of the woman he loved must have given him more sorrow than anger, for he answered softly, in a tone of wounded gentleness:

"Oh! you are cruel. If you knew the pain you are giving me! Hypocrite! yes, it is true; but I was not born like that. One is forced into it by the difficulties of life. When one has the wind against one, and wishes to advance, one tacks. I have tacked. Lay the blame on my miserable beginnings, my false entry into existence, and agree at least that one thing in me has never lied—my passion! Nothing has been able to kill it—neither your disdain, nor your abuse, nor all that I have read in your eyes, which for so many years have not once smiled at me. It is still my passion which gives me the strength, even after what I have just heard, to tell you why I am here. Listen! You told me once that you wanted a husband—some one who would watch over you during your work, who would take over some of the duties of the poor Crenmitz. Those were your own words, which wounded me then because I was not free. Now all that is changed. Will you marry me, Felicia?"

"And your wife?" cried the young girl, while Paul was asking himself the same question.

"My wife is dead."

"Dead? Mme. Jenkins? Is it true?"

"You never knew her of whom I speak. The other was not my wife. When I met her I was already married in Ireland—years before. A horrible forced marriage. My dear, when I was twenty-five I was confronted with this alternative: a debtor's prison or Miss Strang, an ugly and gouty old maid, sister of the usurer who had lent me five hundred pounds to pay for my medical studies. I preferred the prison; but after weeks and months I came to the end of my courage, and I married Miss Strang, who brought me for dowry—my note of hand. You can guess what my life was between these two monsters who adored each other. A jealous, impotent wife. The brother spied on me, following me everywhere. I should have gone away, but one thing kept me there. The usurer was said to be very rich. I wished to have some return for my cowardice. You see, I tell you all. Come now, I have been punished. Old Strang died insolvent; he used to gamble, had ruined himself without saying a word. Then I put my wife and her rheumatism in a hospital, and came to France. I had to begin existence again, more struggles and misery. But I had experience on my side, hatred and contempt for men, and my newly conquered liberty, for I did not dream that the horrible weight of this cursed union was going to hinder my getting on, at that distance. Happily, it is over—I am free."

"Yes, Jenkins, free. But why do you not make your wife the poor creature who has shared your life so long, so humble and devoted as she is?"

"Oh!" said he, with an outburst of sincerity, "between my two prisons I would prefer the other, where I could be frankly indifferent. But the atrocious comedy of conjugal love, of unwearying happiness, when for so long I had loved you and thought of you alone! There is not such a torture on earth. If I can guess, the poor woman must have uttered a cry of relief and happiness at the separation. It is the only adieu I hoped for from her."

"But who forced you to such a thing?"

"Paris, society, the world. Married by its opinion, we were held by it."

"And now you are held no longer?"

"Now something comes before all—it is the idea of losing you, of seeing you no longer. Oh! when I learned of your flight, when I saw the bill over your door TO LET, I felt sure that it was all up with poses and grimaces, that I had nothing else to do but to set out, to run quickly after my happiness, which you were taking away. You were leaving Paris—I have left it. Everything of yours was being sold; everything of mine will be sold."

"And she?" said Felicia trembling. "She, the irreproachable companion, the honest woman whom no one has ever suspected, where will she go? What will she do? And it is her place you have just offered me. A stolen place, think what a hell! Well, and your motto, good Jenkins, virtuous Jenkins, what shall we do with it? 'Le bien sans esperance,' eh!"

At this sneer, cutting his face like a whip, the wretch answered panting:

"That will do! Do not sneer at me so. It is too horrible now. Does it not touch you, then, to be loved as I love you in sacrificing everything to you—fortune, honour, respect? See, look at me. I have snatched my mask off for you, I have snatched if off before all. And now, see, here is the hypocrite."

He heard the muffled noise of two knees falling on the floor. And stammering, distracted with love, weak before her, he begged her to consent to this marriage, to give him the right to follow her everywhere, to defend her. Then the words failed him, stifled in a passionate sob, so deep, so lacerating that it should have touched any heart, above all among this splendid impassible scenery in this perfumed heat. But Felicia was not touched. "Let us have done, Jenkins," said she brusquely. "What you ask is impossible. We have nothing to hide from each other, and after your confidences just now, I wish to make one to you, which humbles my pride, but your degradation makes you worthy. I was Mora's mistress."

Paul knew this. And yet it was so sad to hear this beautiful, pure voice laden with such a confession, in the midst of the intoxicating air, that he felt his heart contract.

"I knew it," answered Jenkins in a low voice, "I have the letters you wrote to him."

"My letters?"

"Oh, I will give them to you—here. I know them by heart. I have read and reread them. It is that which hurts one, when one loves. But I have suffered other tortures. When I think that it was I—" He stopped himself. He choked. "I who had to furnish fuel for your flames, warm this frozen lover, send him to you ardent and young—Ah! he has devoured my pearls—I might refuse over and over again, he was always taking them. At last I was mad. You wish to burn, wretched woman. Well, burn, then!"

Paul rose to his feet in terror. Was he going to hear the confession of a crime? But the shame of hearing more was not inflicted on him. A violent knocking, this time on his own door, warned him that his calesino was ready.

"Is the French gentleman ready?"

In the next room there was silence, then a whisper.—There had been some one near who had heard them.—Paul de Gery hurried downstairs. He must get out of this room to escape the weight of so much infamy.

As the post-chaise swayed, he saw among the common white curtains, which float at all the windows in the south, a pale figure with the hair of a goddess, and great burning eyes fixed on him. But a glance at Aline's portrait quickly dispelled this disturbing vision, and forever cured of his old love, he travelled until evening through the magic landscape with the lovely bride of the dejeuner, who carried in the folds of her modest robe and mantle all the violets of Bordighera.



THE FIRST NIGHT OF "REVOLT"

"Take your places for the first act!"

The cry of the stage-manager, standing with his hand raised to his mouth to form a trumpet, at the foot of the staircase behind the scenes, echoes under the roof, rises and rolls along, to be lost in the depths of corridors full of the noise of doors banging, of hasty steps, of desperate calls to the coiffeur and the dressers; while there appear one by one on the landings of the various floors, slow and majestic, without moving their heads for fear of disturbing the least detail of their make-up, all the personages of the first act of Revolt, in elegant modern ball costumes, with the creaking of new shoes, the silken rustle of the trains, the jingling of rich bracelets pushed up the arm while gloves are being buttoned. All these people seem excited, nervous, pale beneath their paint, and under the skilfully prepared satin-like surface of the shoulders, tremors flutter like shadows. Dry-mouthed, they speak little. The least nervous, while affecting to smile, have in their eyes and voice the hesitation that marks an absent mind—that apprehension of the battle behind the foot-lights which is ever one of the most powerful attractions of the comedian's art, its piquancy, its freshness.

The stage is encumbered by the passage to and fro of machinists and scene-builders hastening about, running into one another in the dim, pallid light falling from above, which will give place directly, as soon as the curtain rises, to the dazzling of the foot-lights. Cardailhac is there in his dress-coat and white tie, his opera hat on one side, giving a final glance to the arrangement of the scenery, hurrying the workmen, complimenting the ingenue who is waiting dressed and ready, beaming, humming an air, looking superb. To see him no one would ever guess the terrible worries which distract him. He is compromised by the fall of the Nabob—which entails the loss of his directorate—and is risking his all on the piece of this evening, obliged, if it be not a success, to leave the cost of this marvellous scenery, these stuffs at a hundred francs the yard, unpaid. It is a fourth bankruptcy that stares him in the face. But, bah! our manager is confident. Success, like all the monsters that feed on men, loves youth; and this unknown author, whose name is appearing for the first time on a theatre bill, flatters the gambler's superstitions.

Andre Maranne feels less confident. As the hour for the production of the piece approaches he loses faith in his work, terrified by the sight of the house, at which he looks through the hole in the curtain as through the narrow lens of a stereoscope.

A splendid house, crammed to the roof, notwithstanding the late period of the spring and the fashionable taste for early departure to the country; a house that Cardailhac, a declared enemy of nature and the country, endeavouring always to keep Parisians in Paris till the latest possible date, has succeeded in crowding and making as brilliant as in midwinter. Fifteen hundred heads are swarming beneath the great central chandelier, erect—bent forward—turning round—questioning amid a great play of shadows and reflections; some massed in the obscure corners of the floor, others in a bright light reflected through the open doors of the boxes from the white walls of the corridor; the first-night public which is always the same, that brigand-like tout Paris which goes everywhere, carrying those envied places by storm when a favour or a claim by right of some official position fails to secure them.

In the stalls are low-cut waistcoats, clubmen, shining bald heads, wide partings in scanty hair, light-coloured gloves, big opera-glasses raised and directed towards various points. In the galleries a mixture of different social sets and all kinds of dress, all the people well known as figuring at this kind of solemnity, and the embarrassing promiscuity which places the modest smile of the virtuous woman along-side of the black-ringed eyes, the vermilion-painted lips of her who belongs to another category. White hats, pink hats, diamonds and paint. Above, the boxes present the same confusion; actresses and women of the demi-monde, ministers, ambassadors, famous authors, critics—these last wearing a grave air and frowning brow, sitting crosswise in their fauteuils with the impassive haughtiness of judges whom nothing can corrupt. The boxes near the stage especially stand out in the general picture brilliantly lighted, occupied by celebrities of the financial world, the women decollete and with bare arms, glittering with jewels like the Queen of Sheba on her visit to the King of Judea. But on the left, one of these large boxes, entirely empty, attracts attention by reason of its curious decoration, lighted from the back by a Moorish lantern. Over the whole assembly is an impalpable and floating dust, the flickering of the gas, that odour that mingles with all the pleasures of Paris, its little sputterings, sharp and quick like the breaths drawn by a consumptive, accompanying the movement of opened fans. And then, too, ennui, a gloomy ennui, the ennui of seeing the same faces always in the same places, with their defects or their poses, that uniformity of fashionable gatherings which ends by establishing in Paris each winter a spiteful and gossiping provincialism more petty than that of the provinces themselves.

Maranne observed this ill-humour, this lassitude of the public, and thinking of all the changes which the success of his play might bring about in his simple life, he asked himself, full of a great anxiety, what he could do to bring his ideas home to those thousands of people, to pluck them away from their preoccupation, and to send through this crowd a single current which should draw to himself those absent glances, those minds of every different calibre, so difficult to move to unison. Instinctively his eyes sought friendly faces, a box facing the stage occupied by the Joyeuse family; Elise and the younger girls seated in the front, Aline and the father in the row behind—a charming family group, like a bouquet wet with dew amid a display of artificial flowers. And while all Paris was disdainfully asking, "Who are those people there?" the poet instrusted his fate to those little fairy hands, new gloved for the occasion, which very soon would boldly give the signal for applause.

The curtain is going up! Maranne has barely time to spring into the wings; and suddenly he hears as from far, very far away, the first words of his play, which rise, like a flight of timid birds, into the silence and immensity of the theatre. A terrible moment. Where should he go? What should he do? Remain there leaning against a wing, with straining ear and beating heart? Encourage the actors when he himself stood in so much need of encouragement? He prefers rather to look the peril in the face; and by the little door communicating with the corridor behind the boxes he slips out to a corner box, which he orders to be opened for him softly. "Sh! It is I." Some one is seated in the shadow—a woman, she whom all Paris knows and who is hiding herself from the public gaze. Andre sits down by her side, and so, close to one another, mother and son tremblingly watch the progress of the play.

It astonished the audience at first. This Theatre des Nouveautes, situated in the very heart of the boulevard, where its portico glitters all illuminated among the great restaurants of the smart clubs; this theatre, to which people were accustomed to come in parties after a luxurious dinner to listen until supper-time to an act or two of some suggestive piece, had become in the hands of its clever manager the most fashionable of all Parisian entertainments, without any very precise character of its own, and partaking something of all, from the fairy-operetta which exhibits undressed women, to the serious modern drama. Cardailhac was especially anxious to justify his title of "Manager of the Nouveautes," and, since the Nabob's millions had been at the back of the undertaking, had made a point of preparing for the boulevardiers the most dazzling surprises. That of this evening surpassed them all; the piece was in verse—and moral.

A moral play!

The old rogue had realized that the moment had arrived to try that effect, and he was trying it. After the astonishment of the first minutes, a few disappointed exclamations here and there in the boxes, "Why, it is in verse!" the house began to feel the charm of this invigorating and healthy piece, as if there had been sprinkled on it, in its rarefied atmosphere, some fresh and pungent essence, an elixir of life perfumed with thyme from the hillside.

"Ah! this is nice—it is restful."

Such was the general sense, a thrill of ease, a spasm of pleasure accompanying each line. That fat old Hemerlingue found it restful, puffing in his stage-box on the ground floor as in a trough of cerise satin. It was restful also to that tall Suzanne Bloch, her hair dressed in the antique way, ringlets flowing over a diadem of gold; and near her, Amy Ferat, all in white like a bride and with sprigs of orange-blossom in her fluffy hair, it was restful to her also, you may be sure.

A crowd of demi-mondaines were present, some very fat, with a dirty greasiness acquired in a hundred seraglios, three chins, and an air of stupidity; others absolutely green in spite of their paint, as if they had been dipped in a bath of that arsenate of copper which is called in the shops "Paris green." These were wrinkled, faded to such a degree that they hid in the back of their boxes, only allowing a portion of a white arm to be seen, a rounded shoulder protruding. Then there were young men about town, flabby and without backbone, those who at that time used to be called petits creves, creatures worn out by dissipation, with stooping necks and drooping lids, incapable of standing erect or of articulating a single word perfectly. And all these people exclaimed with one accord: "This is nice—it is restful." The handsome Moessard murmured it like a refrain beneath his little fair mustache, while his queen in the stage-box translated it into the barbarism of her foreign tongue. Positively they found it restful. They did not say after what—after what heart-breaking labour, after what forced, idle and useless task.

All these friendly murmurs, united and mingled, began to give to the house an eventful appearance. Success was felt in the air, faces became serene again, the women seemed the more beautiful for reflecting enthusiasm, for being moved to glances that were as exciting as applause. Andre, at his mother's side, thrilled with such an unknown pleasure, with that proud delight which a man feels when he stirs the multitude, be he only a singer in a suburban back-yard, with a patriotic refrain and two pathetic notes in his voice. Suddenly the whisperings redoubled, were transformed into a tumult. People were chuckling and fidgeting with excitement. What had happened? Some accident on the stage? Andre, leaning terrified towards the actors as astonished as himself, saw every opera-glass turned towards the big stage-box which had remained empty until then, and which some one had just entered, who sat down immediately with both his elbows on the velvet ledge, and with his opera-glass drawn from its case, taking his place in gloomy solitude.

In ten days the Nabob had aged twenty years. Violent southern natures like his, if they are rich in enthusiasms, become also more utterly prostrate than others. Since his unseating the unfortunate man had shut himself up in his bedroom, with drawn curtains, no longer wishing even to see the light of day nor to cross over the threshold beyond which life was waiting for him, with the engagements he had undertaken, the promises he had made, a mass of protested bills and writs. The Levantine, gone off to some spa accompanied by her masseur and her negress, was totally indifferent to the ruin of the establishment; Bompain—the man in the fez—in frightened bewilderment amid the demands for money, not knowing how to approach his ill-starred master, who persistently kept his bed and turned his face to the wall as soon as business matters were mentioned. His old mother alone remained behind to face the disaster, with the knowledge born of her narrow and straitened experience as a village woman, who knows what a stamped document—a signature—is, and thinks honour is the greatest and best thing in the world. Her peasant's cap made its appearance on every floor of the mansion, examining bills, reforming the domestic arrangements, and fearing neither outcries or humiliation. At all hours the good woman might be seen striding about the Place Vendome, gesticulating, talking to herself, and saying aloud: "Te, I will go and see the bailiff." And never did she consult her son about anything save when it was indispensable, and then only in a few discreet words, while avoiding even a glance at him. To rouse Jansoulet from his torpor it had required de Gery's telegram, dated from Marseilles, announcing that he was on his way back, bringing ten million francs. Ten millions!—that is to say, bankruptcy averted, the possibility of recovering his position—of starting life afresh. And behold our southerner rebounding from the depth of his fall, intoxicated with joy, and full of hope. He ordered the windows to be opened and newspapers to be brought to him. What a magnificent opportunity was this first night of Revolt to show himself to the Parisians, who were believing him to have gone under, to enter the great whirlpool once more through the swing door of his box at the Nouveautes! His mother, warned by some instinct, did indeed try to hold him back. Paris now terrified her. She would have liked to carry off her child to some unknown corner of the Midi, to nurse him along with his elder brother—stricken down both of them by the great city. But he was the master. Resistance was impossible to that will of a man spoiled by wealth. She helped him to dress for the occasion, "made him look nice," as she said laughing, and watched him not without a certain pride as he departed, dignified, full of new life, having almost got over the prostration of the preceding days.

After his arrival at the theatre, Jansoulet quickly perceived the commotion which his presence caused in the house. Accustomed to similar curious ovations, he acknowledged them ordinarily without the least embarrassment, with a frank display of his wide and good-natured smile; but this time the manifestation was hostile, almost indignant.

"What! It is he?"

"There he is."

"What impudence!"

Such exclamations from the stalls confusedly rose among many others. The retirement in which he had taken refuge for some days past had left him in ignorance of the public exasperation, of the homilies, the statements broadcast in the newspapers, with the corrupting influence of his wealth as their text—articles written for effect, hypocritical phraseology by the aid of which opinion avenges itself from time to time on the innocent for all its own concessions to the guilty. It was a terribly embarrassing exhibition, which gave him at first more sorrow than anger. Deeply moved, he hid his emotion behind his opera-glass, fixing his attention on the least details of the stage arrangements, giving a three-quarters view of his back to the house, but unable to escape the scandalous observation of which he was the victim and which made his ears buzz, his temples beat, the dulled lenses of his opera-glass become full of those whirling multi-coloured circles which are the first symptom of brain disorder.

When the curtain fell at the end of the first act he remained motionless, in the same attitude of embarrassment; the whisperings, now more distinct when they were no longer held in check by the dialogue on the stage, the pertinacity of certain inquisitive people changing their places in order to get a better view of him, obliged him to leave his box and to beat a hurried retreat into the corridors, like a wild beast escaping across a circus from the arena. Beneath the low ceiling in the narrow circular passage of the theatre corridors, he found himself suddenly in the midst of a dense crowd of emasculate youths, journalists, tightly laced women wearing their hats, laughing as part of their trade, their backs against the wall. From box-doors opened for air, mixed and disjointed fragments of conversation were escaping:

"A delightful piece. It is fresh; it is good."

"That Nabob! What impudence!"

"Yes, indeed, it is restful. One feels better for it."

"How is it that he has not yet been arrested?"

"Quite a young man, it seems. It is his first play."

"Bois l'Hery at Mazas! It is impossible. Why, there is the marquise opposite, in the balcony, with a new hat."

"What does that prove? She is at her business as a stager of new fashions. It is very pretty, that hat. In Desgrange's racing colours."

"And Jenkins? What is Jenkins doing?"

"At Tunis, with Felicia. Old Brahim has seen them both. It seems that the Bey has begun to take the pearls."

"The deuce he has!"

Farther along, soft voices were murmuring:

"Yes, father, do, do go speak to him. See how lonely he looks, poor man!"

"But, children, I do not know him."

"Never mind. Just a bow. Something to show him that he is not utterly deserted."

Thereupon the little old gentleman, very red in the face and wearing a white tie, stepped quickly in front of the Nabob, and ceremoniously raised his hat to him with great respect. With what gratitude, what a smile of eager good-will was that solitary greeting returned, that greeting from a man whom Jansoulet did not know, whom he had never seen, and who had yet exerted a weighty influence upon his destiny; for, but for the pere Joyeuse, the chairman of the board of the Territorial would probably have shared the fate of the Marquis de Bois l'Hery. Thus it is that in the tangle of modern society, that great web of interests, ambitions, services accepted and rendered, all the various worlds are connected, united beneath the surface, from the highest existences to the most humble; this it is that explains the variegation, the complexity of this study of manners, the collection of the scattered threads of which the writer who is careful of truth is bound to make the background of his story.

In ten minutes the Nabob had been subjected to every manifestation of the terrible ostracism of that Paris world to which he had neither relationship nor serious ties, and whose contempt isolated him more surely than a visiting monarch is isolated by respect—the averted look, the apparently aimless step aside, the hat suddenly put on and pulled down over the eyes. Overcome by embarrassment and shame, he stumbled. Some one said quite loudly, "He is drunk," and all that the poor man could manage to do was to return and shut himself up in the salon at the back of his box. Ordinarily, this little retreat was crowded during the intervals between the acts by stock-brokers and journalists. They laughed and smoked and made a great noise; the manager would come to greet his sleeping partner. But on this evening there was nobody. And the absence of Cardailhac, with his keen nose for success, signified fully to Jansoulet the measure of his disgrace.

"What have I done? Why will Paris have no more of me?"

Thus he questioned himself amid a solitude that was accentuated by the noises around, the abrupt turning of keys in the doors of the boxes, the thousand exclamations of an amused crowd. Then suddenly, the freshness of his luxurious surroundings, the Moorish lantern casting strange shadows on the brilliant silks of the divan and walls, reminded him of the date of his arrival. Six months! Only six months since he came to Paris! Completely done for and ruined in six months! He sank into a kind of torpor, from which he was roused by the sound of applause and enthusiastic bravos. It was decidedly a great success—this play Revolt. There were some passages of strength and satire, and the violent tirades, a trifle over-emphatic but written with youth and sincerity, excited the audience after the idyllic calm of the opening. Jansoulet in his turn wished to hear and see. This theatre belonged to him after all. His place in that stage-box had cost him over a million francs; the very least he could do was to occupy it.

So he seated himself in the front of his box. In the theatre the heat was suffocating in spite of the fans which were vigorously at work, throwing reflections from their bright spangles through the impalpable atmosphere of silence. The house was listening religiously to an indignant and lofty denunciation of the scamps who occupied exalted positions, after having robbed their fellows in those depths from which they were sprung. Certainly, Maranne when he wrote these fine lines had been far from having the Nabob in his mind. But the public saw an allusion in them; and while a triple salvo of applause greeted the conclusion of the speech, all heads were turned towards the stage-box on the left with an indignant, openly offensive movement. The poor wretch, pilloried in his own theatre! A pillory which had cost him so dear! This time he made no attempt to escape the insult, but settled himself resolutely in his seat, with arms folded, and braved the crowd that was staring at him—those hundreds of faces raised in mockery, that virtuous tout Paris which had seized upon him as a scapegoat and was driving him into the wilderness, after having laden him with the burden of all its own crimes.

A pretty gang, truly, for a manifestation of that kind! Opposite, the box of a bankrupt banker, the wife and her lover sitting next each other in the front row, the husband behind in the shadow, voluntarily inconspicuous and solemn. Near them the frequent trio of a mother who has married her daughter in accordance with the personal inclination of her own heart, in order to make a son-in-law of her lover. Then irregular households, courtesans exhibiting the price of shame, diamonds like circlets of fire riveted around arms and neck. And those groups of emasculate youths, with their open collars and painted eyebrows, whose shirts of embroidered cambric and white satin corsets people used to admire in the guest-chambers at Compiegne; those mignons, of the time of Agrippa, calling each other among themselves: "My heart—My dear girl." An assemblage of all the scandals, all the turpitudes, consciences sold or for sale, the vice of an epoch devoid of greatness and without originality, intent on making trial of the caprices of every other age.

And these were the people who were insulting him and crying: "Away with thee, thou art unworthy!"

"Unworthy—I! But my worth is a hundred times greater than that of any among you, wretches that you are! You make my millions a reproach to me, but who has helped me to spend them? Thou, cowardly and treacherous comrade, who hidest thy sick pasha-like obesity in the corner of thy stage-box! I made thy fortune along with my own in the days when we shared all things in brotherly community. Thou, pale marquis—I paid a hundred thousand francs at the club in order to save thee from shameful expulsion!

"Thee I covered with jewels, hussy, letting thee pass for my mistress, because that kind of thing makes a good impression in our world—but without ever asking thee anything in return. And thou, brazen-faced journalist, who for brain hast all the dirty sediment of thy inkstand, and on thy conscience as many spots as thy queen has on her skin, thou thinkest that I have not paid thee thy price and that is why thy insults are heaped on me. Yes, yes; stare at me, you vermin! I am proud. My worth is above yours."

All that he was thus saying to himself mentally, in an ungovernable rage, visible in the quivering of his pale, thick lips. The unfortunate man, who was nearly mad, was about perhaps to shout it aloud in the silence, to denounce that insulting crowd—who knows?—to spring into the midst of it, kill one of them—ah! kill one of them—when he felt a light tap on his shoulder, and a fair head came before his eyes, serious and frank, two hands held out, which he grasped convulsively, like a drowning man.

"Ah! dear friend, dear—" the poor man stammered. But he had not the strength to say more. This emotion of joy coming suddenly in the midst of his fury melted him into a sobbing torrent of tears, and stifled words. His face became purple. He motioned "Take me away." And, stumbling in his walk, leaning on de Gery's arm, he only managed to cross the threshold of his box before he fell prostrate in the corridor.

"Bravo! Bravo!" cried the house in reply to the speech which the actor had just finished; and there was a noise like a hailstorm, and stamping of enthusiastic feet while the great lifeless body, raised with difficulty by the scene-shifters, was carried through the brightly lighted wings, crowded with people pressing in their curiosity round the stage, excited by the atmosphere of success and who hardly noticed the passage of the inert and vanquished man, borne on men's arms like some victim of a riot. They laid him on a couch in the room where the properties were stored, Paul de Gery at his side, with a doctor and two porters who eagerly lent all the assistance in their power. Cardailhac, extremely busy over his play, had sent word that he should come to hear the news "directly, after the fifth act."

Bleeding after bleeding, cuppings, mustard leaves—nothing brought even a quiver to the skin of the patient, insensible apparently to all the remedies usually employed in cases of apoplexy. The whole being seemed to be surrendering to death, to be preparing the way for the rigidity of the corpse; and this in the most sinister place in the world, this chaos, lighted by a lantern merely, amid which there lie about pell-mell in the dust all the remains of former plays—gilt furniture, curtains with gay fringes, coaches, boxes, card-tables, dismantled staircases and balusters, among ropes and pulleys, a confusion of out-of-date theatrical properties, thrown down, broken, and damaged. Bernard Jansoulet, as he lay among this wreckage, his shirt opened over his chest, pale and covered with blood, was indeed a man come to the shipwreck of his life, bruised and tossed aside along with the pitiful ruins of his artificial luxury dispersed and broken up, in the whirlpool of Paris. Paul, with aching heart, contemplated the scene sadly, that face with its short nose, preserving in its inertia the savage yet kindly expression of an inoffensive creature that tried to defend itself before it died and had not time to bite. He reproached himself bitterly with his inability to be of any service to him. Where was that fine project of leading Jansoulet across the bogs, of guarding him against ambushes? All that he had been able to do had been to save a few millions for him, and even these had come too late.

The windows had just been thrown open upon the curved balcony over the boulevard, now at the height of its noisy and brilliant stir. The theatre was surrounded by, as it were, a plinth of gas-jets, a zone of fire which brought the gloomiest recesses into light, pricked out with revolving lanterns, like stars journeying through a dark sky. The play was over. People were coming out. The black and dense crowd on the steps was dispersing over the white pavements, on its way to spread through the town the news of a great success and the name of an unknown author who to-morrow would be triumphant and famous. A splendid evening, so that the windows of the restaurants were lighted up in gaiety and files of carriages passed through the streets at a late hour. This tumult of festivity which the poor Nabob had loved so keenly, which seemed to go so well with the dizzy whirl of his existence, roused him to life for a moment. His lips moved, and into his dilated eyes, turned towards de Gery, there came before he died a pained expression, beseeching and protesting, as though to call upon him as witness of one of the greatest and most cruel acts of injustice that Paris has ever committed.

THE END