“You will find the memorandum of which I speak,” said Paul de Gery, at the end of his letter, “in the top drawer of my desk along with sundry receipts. I have not put them in your room, because I mistrust Noel like the rest. When I go away to-night I will give you the key. For I am going away, my dear benefactor and friend, I am going away full of gratitude for the good you have done me, and heartbroken that your blind confidence has prevented me from repaying you even in part. As things are now, my conscience as an honest man will not let me stay any longer useless at my post. I am looking on at a disaster, at the sack of a palace, which I can do nothing to prevent. My heart burns at all I see. I give handshakes which shame me. I am your friend, and I seem their accomplice. And who knows that if I went on living in such an atmosphere I might not become one?”
This letter, which he read slowly and carefully, even between the lines and through the words, made so great an impression on the Nabob that, instead of going to bed, he went at once to find his young secretary. De Gery had a study at the end of the row of public rooms where he slept on a sofa. It had been a provisional arrangement, but he had preferred not to change it.
The house was still asleep. As he was crossing the lofty rooms, filled with the vague light of a Parisian dawn (those blinds were never lowered, as no evening receptions were held there), the Nabob stopped, struck by the look of sad defilement his luxury wore. In the heavy odour of tobacco and various liqueurs which hung over everything, the furniture, the ceilings, the woodwork could be seen, already faded and still new. Spots on the crumpled satins, ashes staining the beautiful marbles, dirty footmarks on the carpets. It reminded one of a huge first-class railway carriage incrusted with all the laziness, the impatience, the boredom of a long journey, and all the wasteful, spoiling disdain of the public for a luxury for which it has paid. In the middle of this set scene, still warm from the atrocious comedy played there every day, his own image, reflected in twenty cold and staring looking-glasses, stood out before him, forbidding yet comical, in absolute contrast to his elegant clothes, his eyes swollen, his face bloated and inflamed.
What an obvious and disenchanting to-morrow to the mad life he was leading!
He lost himself for a moment in dreary thought; then he gave his shoulders a vigorous shake, a movement frequent with him—it was like a peddler shifting his pack—as though to rid himself of too cruel cares, and again took up the burden every man carried with him, which bows his back, more or less, according to his courage or his strength, and went into de Gery’s room, who was already up, standing at his desk sorting papers.
“First of all, my friend,” said Jansoulet, softly shutting the door for their interview, “answer me frankly. Is it really for the motives given in your letter that you have resolved to leave me? Is there not, beneath it all, one of those scandals that I know are being circulated in Paris against me? I am sure you would be loyal enough to warn me and to give me the opportunity of—of clearing myself to you.”
Paul assured him that he had no other reasons for going, but that those were surely sufficient, since it was a matter of conscience.
“Then, my boy, listen to me, and I am sure of keeping you. Your letter, so eloquent of honesty and sincerity, has told me nothing that I have not been convinced of for three months. Yes, my dear Paul, you were right. Paris is more complicated than I thought. What I needed, when I arrived, was an honest and disinterested cicerone to put me on my guard against people and things. I met only swindlers. Every worthless rascal in the town has left the mud of his boots on my carpets. I was looking at them just now—my poor drawing-rooms. They need a fine sweeping out. And I swear to you they shall have it, by God, and with no light hand! But I must wait for that until I am a deputy. All these scoundrels are of use to me for the election, and this election is far too necessary now for me to risk losing the smallest chance. In a word, this is the situation: Not only does the Bey mean to keep the money I lent him three months ago, but he has replied to my summons by a counter action for eighty millions, the sum out of which he says I cheated his brother. It is a frightful theft, an audacious libel. My fortune is mine, my own. I made it by my trade as a merchant. I had Ahmed’s favour; he gave me the opportunity of becoming rich. It is possible I may have put on the screw a little tightly sometimes. But one must not judge these things from a European standpoint. Over there, the enormous profits the Levantines make is an accepted fact—a known thing. It is the ransom those savages pay for the western comfort we bring them. That wretch Hemerlingue, who is suggesting all this persecution against me, has done just as much. But what is the use of talking? I am in the lion’s jaws. While waiting for me to go to defend myself at his tribunals—and how I know it, justice of the Orient!—the Bey has begun by putting an embargo on all my goods, ships, and palaces, and what they contain. The affair was conducted quite regularly by a decree of the Supreme Court. Young Hemerlingue had a hand in that, you can see. If I am made a deputy, it is only a joke. The court takes back its decree and they give me back my treasure with every sort of excuse. If I am not elected I lose everything, sixty, eighty millions, even the possibility of making another fortune. It is ruin, disgrace, dishonour. Are you going to abandon me in such a crisis? Think—I have only you in the whole world. My wife—you have seen her, you know what help, what support she is to her husband. My children—I might as well not have any. I never see them; they would scarcely know me in the street. My horrible wealth has killed all affection around me and has enveloped me with shameless self-seeking. I have only my mother to love me, and she is far away, and you who came to me from my mother. No, you will not leave me alone amid all the scandals that are creeping around me. It is awful—if you only knew! At the club, at the play, wherever I go I seem to see the little viper’s head of the Baroness Hemerlingue, I hear the echo of her hiss, I feel the venom of her bite. Everywhere mocking looks, conversation stopped when I appear, lying smiles, or kindness mixed with a little pity. And then the deserters, and the people who keep out of the way as at the approach of a misfortune. Look at Felicia Ruys: just as she had finished my bust she pretends that some accident, I know not what, has happened to it, in order to avoid having to send it to the Salon. I said nothing, I affected to believe her. But I understood that there again was some new evil report. And it is such a disappointment to me. In a crisis as grave as this everything has its importance. My bust in the exhibition, signed by that famous name, would have helped me greatly in Paris. But no, everything falls away, every one fails me. You see now that I cannot do without you. You must not desert me.”