The Nabob

by Alphonse Daudet

As M. Joyeuse had told the Juge d’Instruction, Paul de Gery returned from Tunis after three weeks’ absence. Three interminable weeks spent in struggling among intrigues, and traps secretly laid by the powerful hatred of the Hemerlingues—in wandering from hall to hall, from ministry to ministry through the immense palace of the Bardo, which gathered within one enclosure, bristling with culverins, all the departments of the State, as much under the master’s eye as his stables and harem. On his arrival, Paul had learned that the Chamber of Justice was preparing secretly Jansoulet’s trial—a derisive trial, lost beforehand; and the closed offices of the Nabob on the Marine Quay, the seals on his strong boxes, his ships moored to the Goulette, a guard round his palace, seemed to speak of a sort of civil death, of a disputed succession of which the spoils would not long remain to be shared.

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.