Since the first of May he had not experienced such a sense of well-being. With rolling gait, hat a little to the back of his head, in the position in which he had seen it worn by overworked politicians harassed by pressure of business, allowing all the laborious fever of their brain to evaporate in the coolness of the air, as a factory discharges its steam into the gutter at the end of a day’s work, he moved forward among other figures like his own, evidently coming too from that colonnaded temple which faces the Madeleine above the fountains of the Place. As they passed, people turned to look after them, saying, “Those are deputies.” And Jansoulet felt the delight of a child, a plebeian joy, compounded of ignorance and naive vanity.
“Ask for the Messenger, evening edition.”
The words came from a newspaper kiosk at the corner of the bridge, full at that hour of fresh printed sheets in heaps, which two women were quickly folding, and which smelt of the damp press—late news, the success of the day or its scandal.
Nearly all the deputies bought a copy as they passed, and glanced over it quickly in the hope of finding their name. Jansoulet, for his part, feared to see his in it and did not stop. Then suddenly he reflected: “Must not a public man be above these weaknesses? I am strong enough now to read everything.” He retraced his steps and took a newspaper like his colleagues. He opened it, very calmly, right at the place usually occupied by Moessard’s articles. As it happened, there was one. Still the same title: “Chinoiseries,” and an M. for signature.
“Ah! ah!” said the public man, firm and cold as marble, with a fine smile of disdain. Mora’s lesson still rung in his ears, and, had he forgotten it, the air from Norma which was being slowly played in little ironical notes not far off would have sufficed to recall it to him. Only, after all calculations have been made amid the fleeting happenings of our existence, there is always the unforeseen to be reckoned with; and that is how it came that the poor Nabob suddenly felt a wave of blood blind him, a cry of rage strangle itself in the sudden contraction of his throat. This time his mother, his old Frances, had been dragged into the infamous joke of the “Bateau de fleurs.” How well he aimed his blows, this Moessard, how well he knew the really sensitive spots in that heart, so frankly exposed!
“Be quiet, Jansoulet; be quiet.”
It was in vain that he repeated the words to himself again and again: anger, a wild anger, that intoxication of the blood that demands blood, took possession of him. His first impulse was to hail a cab, that he might escape from the irritating street, free his body from the preoccupation of walking and maintaining a physical composure—to hail a cab as for a wounded man. But the carriages which thronged the square at that hour of general home-going were victorias, landaus, private broughams, hundreds of them, passing down from the lurid splendour of the Arc de Triomphe towards the violet shadows of the Tuileries, rushing, it seemed, one over another, in the sloping perspective of the avenue, down to the great square where the motionless statues, with their circular crowns on their brows, watched them as they separated towards the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the Rue Royale and the Rue de Rivoli.
Jansoulet, his newspaper in his hand, traversed this tumult without giving it a thought, carried by force of habit towards the club where he went every day for his game of cards from six to seven. A public man, he was that still; but excited, speaking aloud, muttering oaths and threats in a voice that had suddenly grown tender again at the memory of the dear old woman. To have dragged her into that—her also! Oh, if she should read it, if she should understand! What punishment could he invent for such an infamy? He had reached the Rue Royale, up which were disappearing with the speed of horses that knew they were going home and with glancings of shining axles, visions of veiled women, heads of fair-haired children, equipages of all kinds returning from the Bois, depositing a little genuine earth upon the Paris pavement, and bringing odours of spring mingled with the scent of poudre de riz.
Opposite the Ministry of Marine, a very high phaeton on light wheels, rather like a great spider, its body represented by the little groom hanging on to the box and the two persons occupying the front seat, just missed a collision with the curb as it turned the corner.
The Nabob raised his head and stifled a cry.