Jack (33 page)

Sometimes, in Jack’s absence, Ida, tired of her loneliness, went to a little reading-room kept by a certain Madame Lιvθque. The shop was filled with mouldy books, was literally obstructed by magazines and illustrated papers, which she let for a sou a day.

Here lived a dirty, pretentious old woman, who spent her time in making a certain kind of antiquated trimming of narrow, colored ribbons.

It seems that Madame Lιvθque had known better days, and that under the first empire her father was a man of considerable importance. “I am the godchild of the Duc de Dantzic,” she said to Ida, with emphasis. She was one of the relics of past days, such as one finds occasionally in the secluded corners of old Paris. Like the dusty contents of her shop, her gilt-edged books torn and incomplete, her conversation glittered with stories of past splendors. That enchanting reign, of which she had seen but the conclusion, had dazzled her eyes, and the mere tone in which she pronounced the titles of that time evoked the memory of epaulettes and gold lace. And her anecdotes of Josephine, and of the ladies of the court! One especial tale Madame Lιvθque was never tired of telling: it was of the fire at the Austrian embassy, the night of the famous ball given by the Princess of Schwartzenberg. All her subsequent years had been lighted by those flames, and by that light she saw a procession of gorgeous marshals, tall ladies in very low dresses, with heads dressed ΰ la Titus or ΰ la Grecque, and the emperor, in his green coat and white trousers, carrying in his arms across the garden the fainting Madame de Schwartzenberg.

Ida, with her passion for rank, delighted in the society of this half-crazed old creature, and while the two women sat in the dark shop, with the names of dukes and marquises gliding lightly from their tongues, a workman would come in to buy a paper for a sou, or some woman, impatient for the conclusion of some serial romance, would come in to ask if the magazine had not yet arrived, and cheerfully pay the two cents that would deprive her, if she were old, of her snuff, and, if she were young, of her radishes for breakfast.

Occasionally Madame Lιvθque passed a Sunday with friends, and then Ida had no other amusement than that which she derived from turning over a pile of books taken at hazard from Madame Lιvθque’s shelves. These books were soiled and tumbled, with spots of grease and crumbs of bread upon them, showing that they had been read while eating. She sat reading by the window,—reading until her head swam. She read to escape thinking. Singularly out of place in this house, the incessant toil that she saw going on about her depressed her, instead of, as with her son, exciting her to more strenuous exertions.

The pale, sad woman who sat at her machine day after day, the other with her sing-song repetition of the words, “How happy people ought to be who can go to the country in such weather!” exasperated her almost beyond endurance. The transparent blue of the sky, the soft summer air, made all these miseries seem blacker and less endurable; in the same way that the repose of Sunday, disturbed only by church-bells and the twitter of the sparrows on the roofs, weighed painfully on her spirits. She thought of her early life, of her drives and walks, of the gay parties in the country, and above all of the more recent years at Etiolles. She thought of D’Argenton reciting one of his poems on the porch in the moonlight. Where was he? What was he doing? Three months had passed since she left him, and he had not written one word. Then the book fell from her hands, and she sat buried in thought until the arrival of her son, whom she endeavored to welcome with a smile. But he read the whole story in the disorder of the room and in the careless toilet. Nothing was in readiness for dinner.

“I have done nothing,” she said, sadly. “The weather is so warm, and I am discouraged.”

“Why discouraged, dear mother? Are you not with me? You want some little amusement, I fancy. Let us dine out to-day,” he continued, with a tender, pitying smile. But Ida wished to make a toilet; to take out from her wardrobe some one of her pretty costumes of other days, too coquettish, too conspicuous for her present circumstances. To dress as modestly as possible, and walk through these poor streets, afforded her no amusement. In spite of her care to avoid anything noticeable in her costume, Jack always detected some eccentricity,—in the length of her skirts, which required a carriage, or in the cut of her corsage, or the trimming of her hat. Jack and his mother then went to dine at Bagnolet or Romainville, and dined drearily enough. They attempted some little conversation, but they found it almost impossible. Their lives had been so different that they really now had little in common. While Ida was disgusted with the coarse table-cloth spotted by wine, and polished, with a disgusted face, her plate and glass with her napkin, Jack hardly perceived this negligence of service, but was astonished at his mother’s ignorance and indifference upon many other points.

She had certain phrases caught from D’Argenton, a peremptory tone in discussion, a didactic “I think so; I believe; I know.” She generally began and finished her arguments with some disdainful gesture that signified, “I am very good to take the trouble to talk to you.” Thanks to that miracle of assimilation by which, at the end of some years, husband and wife resemble each other, Jack was terrified to see an occasional look of D’Argenton on his mother’s face. On her lips was often to be detected the sarcastic smile that had been the bugbear of his boy-hood, and which he always dreaded to see in D’Argenton. Never had a sculptor found in his clay more docile material than the pretentious poet had discovered in this poor woman.

After dinner, one of their favorite walks on these long summer evenings was the Square des Buttes-Chaumont, a melancholy-looking spot on the old heights of Montfauηon. The grottos and bridges, the precipices and pine groves, seemed to add to the general dreariness. But there was something artificial and romantic in the place that pleased Ida by its resemblance to a park. She allowed her dress to trail over the sand of the alleys, admired the exotics, and would have liked to write her name on the ruined wall, with the scores of others that were already there. When they were tired with walking, they took their seats at the summit of the hill, to enjoy the superb view that was spread out before them. Paris, softened and veiled by dust and smoke, lay at their feet. The heights around the faubourgs looked in the mist like an immense circle, connected by Pere la Chaise on one side, and Montmartre on the other, with Montfauηon; nearer them they could witness the enjoyment of the people. In the winding alleys and under the groups of trees young people were singing and dancing, while on the hillside, sitting amid the yellowed grass, and on the dried red earth, families were gathered together like flocks of sheep.

Ida saw all this with weary, contemptuous eyes, and her very attitude said, “How inexpressibly tiresome it is!” Jack felt helpless before this persistent melancholy. He thought he might make the acquaintance of some one of these honest, simple families, and perhaps in their society his mother might be cheered. Once he thought he had found what he wanted. It was one Sunday. Before them walked an old man, rustic in appearance, leading two little children, over whom he was bending with that wonderful patience which only grandfathers are possessed of.

“I certainly know that man,” said Jack to his mother; “it is—it must be M. Rondic.”

Rondic it was, but so aged and grown so thin, that it was a wonder that his former apprentice had recognized him. The girl with him was a miniature of Zιnaοde, while the boy looked like Maugin.

The good old man showed great pleasure in meeting Jack, but his smile was sad, and then Jack saw that he wore crape on his hat. The youth dared not ask a question until, as they turned a corner, Zιnaοde bore down upon them like a ship under full sail. She had changed her plaited skirt and ruffled cap for a Parisian dress and bonnet, and looked larger than ever. She had the arm of her husband, who was now attached to one of the customhouses, and who was in uniform. Zιnaοde adored M. Maugin and was absurdly proud of him, while he looked very happy in being so worshipped.

Jack presented his mother to all these good people; then, as they divided into two groups, he said in a low voice to Zenaοde, “What has happened? Is it possible that Madame Clarisse—”

“Yes, she is dead; she was drowned in the Loire accidentally.”

Then she added, “We say ‘accidentally’ on father’s account; but you, who knew her so well, may be quite sure that it was by no accident that she perished. She died because she could never see Chariot again. Ah, what wicked men there are in this world!”

Jack glanced at his mother, and was quite ready to agree with his companion.

“Poor father! we thought that he could not survive the shock,” resumed Zιnaοde; “but then he never suspected the truth. When M. Maugin got his position in Paris, we made him come with us, and we live all together in the Eue des Silas at Charonne. You will come and see him, won’t you, Jack? You know he always loved you; and now only the children amuse him. Perhaps you can make him talk. But let us join him; he is looking at us, and thinks we are speaking of him, and he does not like that.”

Ida, who was deep in conversation with M. Maugin, stopped short as Jack approached her. He suspected that she had been talking of D’Argenton, as indeed she had, praising his genius and recounting his successes, which, had she confined herself to the truth, would not have taken long. They separated, promising to meet again soon; and Jack, not long afterward, called upon them with his mother.

He found the old ornaments on the chimney that he had learned to know so well at Indret, the sponges and corals; he recognized the big wardrobe as an old friend. The rooms were exquisitely clean, and presented a perfect picture of a Breton interior transplanted to Paris. But he soon saw that his mother was bored by Zιnaοde, who was too energetic and positive to suit her, and that there, as everywhere else, she was haunted by the same melancholy and the same disgust which she expressed in the brief phrase, “It smells of the workshop.”

The house, the room she lived in, the bread she ate, all seemed impregnated with one smell, one especial flavor. If she opened the window, she perceived it even more strongly; if she went out, each breath of wind brought it to her. The people she saw—even her own Jack, when he returned at night with his blouse spotted with oil—exhaled the same baleful odor, which she fancied clung even to herself—the odor of toil—and filled her with immense sadness.

One evening, Jack found his mother in a state of extraordinary excitement; her eyes were bright and complexion animated. “D’Argenton has written to me!” she cried, as he entered the room; “yes, my dear, he has actually dared to write to me. For four months he did not vouchsafe a syllable. He writes me now that he is about to return to Paris, and that, if I need him, he is at my disposal.”

“You do not need him, I think,” said Jack, quietly, though he was in reality as much moved as his mother herself.

“Of course I do not,” she answered, hurriedly.

“And what shall you say?”

“Say! To a wretch who has dared to lift his hand to me? You do not yet know me. I have, thank Heaven, more pride than that. I have just finished his letter, and have torn it into a thousand bits. I am curious to see his house, though, now that I am not there to keep all in order. He is evidently out of spirits, and perhaps he is not well, as he has been for two months at—what is the name of the place?” and she calmly drew from her pocket the letter which she said she had destroyed. “Ah, yes, it is at the springs of Royat that he has been. What nonsense! Those mineral springs have always been bad for him.”

Jack colored at her falsehood, but said not one word. All the evening she was busy, and seemed to have regained the courage and animation of her first days with her son. While at work she talked to herself. Suddenly she crossed the room to Jack.

“You are full of courage, my boy,” she said, kissing him.

He was occupied in watching all that was going on within his mother’s mind. “It is not I whom she kisses,” he said, shrewdly; and his suspicions were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the past had taken possession of the poor woman’s mind. She never ceased humming the words of a little song of D’Argenton’s, which the poet was in the habit of singing himself at the piano in the twilight. Over and over again she sang the refrain, and the words revived in Jack’s mind only sad and shameful memories. Ah, if he had dared, what words he would have said to the woman before him! But she was his mother; he loved her, and wished by his own respect to teach her to respect herself. He therefore kept strict guard over his lips. This first warning of coming danger, however, awoke in him all the jealous foreboding of a man who was about to be betrayed. He studied her way of saying good-bye to him when he left in the morning, and he analyzed her smile of greeting on his return. He could not watch her himself, nor could he confide to any other person the distrust with which she inspired him. He knew how often a woman surrounds the man whom she deceives in an atmosphere of tender attentions,—the manifestations of hidden remorse. Once, on his way home, he thought he saw Hirsch and Labassandre turning a distant corner.

“Has any one been here?” he said to the concierge; and by the way he was answered he saw that some plot was already organized against him. The Sunday after on his return from Etiolles he found his mother so completely absorbed in her book that she did not even hear him come in. He would not have noticed this, knowing her mania for romances, had not Ida made an attempt to conceal the book.

“You startled me,” she said, half pouting.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

“Nothing,—some nonsense. And how are our friends?” But as she spoke, a blush covered her face and glowed under her fine transparent skin. It was one of the peculiarities of this childish nature that she was at once prompt and unskilful in falsehood. Annoyed by his earnest gaze, she rose from her chair. “You wish to know what I am reading! Look, then.” He saw once more the glossy cover of the Review that he had read for the first time in the engine-room of the Cydnus; only it was thinner and smaller. Jack would not have opened it if the following title on the outer page had not met his eyes:—