Read Ebook: Two banks of the Seine (Les Deux Rives) by Vand Rem Fernand Raffalovich George Translator

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Ebook has 2339 lines and 97916 words, and 47 pages

Then one morning an embarrassed letter had come from Alb?rt. Family matters compelled him to put off the wedding and to leave at once for St. Gaudens, his native town. The young gentleman apologized, whined, protesting his sorrow. Three weeks later, M. Raindal had taken his daughter to the Luxembourg, as one would lead a convalescent to take a little rest in the spring air of the gardens; there Th?r?se saw her fianc?, the spruce and lively Dastarac, with a young girl on his arm, a short, thin, sickly creature, the third daughter of M. Gaussine, professor of the Sumarian language at the Sorbonne, who was walking behind them.

"Come along, child," murmured M. Raindal, trying to lead his daughter away. "Yes, they are to be married. I only heard of it yesterday!... Ma?tre Gaussine has a reputation for getting good positions for his sons-in-law.... This is what must have attracted our rascal.... Come on, I'll explain to you...."

But she had stood still, unable to move, although she could hardly keep from screaming aloud in her pain. She had been on the verge of fainting. What an outrageous memory! Then came the ghastly days in her room, still impregnated with the rogue's perfume,--the long hours of day dreams, when she had taken her vows of renunciation, swearing henceforth to devote herself to a life of study as others are driven by despair into religion!

In spite of her work, however, and of the long years that had passed since then, she had been unable to dismiss from her mind, no matter how much learning she had crowded it with, the tenacious image of the charming Alb?rt, who, notwithstanding the offices of his father-in-law, was said to be buried miles away from Paris, in an obscure Lyc?e of Provence.

"So you don't want him, child?" M. Raindal would ask pitifully, only to be met with a refusal so sharp and angry, and like a blow that it left him dazed, reduced him to silence, and effectively prevented any further argument.

"Well, dear, are we ready?... I was delayed by a newspaper man, a reporter who interviewed me on Cleopatra, the English in Egypt ... and I don't know what.... Tell me, you did not feel too impatient?"

Th?r?se started on hearing the jovial voice of her father.

"No, no, I was thinking; I was working, walking up and down."

"Good! I am glad of it...." And as one does to a friend or a colleague, he took her arm and rapidly led her towards the Boulevard St. Michel.

People turned to look as they passed, puzzled by the strange couple: this officer of the L?gion d'Honneur, an old gentleman with a white beard, and a girl who looked like a school teacher, walking arm in arm tenderly. Some attempted a guess; some instinctively smiled, moved by vague sympathetic ideas. Sometimes students who knew the master by sight purposely stared at him to win a glance for themselves, or even, moved by respect, saluted him.

M. Raindal perceived this homage only confusedly. He was now concentrating all his attention on questioning Th?r?se to ascertain her exact opinion of his opening lecture. Was she satisfied? Had it gone well? It was not too long? And the peroration, what had she thought that? Had he done right in dismissing those loungers and snobs who had dared to invade his lecture hall, his own quiet little chapel?

"Oh, yes!" Th?r?se replied. "Although I might say you were a little too severe and scornful."

"Never enough so!... It may be good for the Sorbonne to have all those fine ladies and their tame cats.... But as for us, we want none but workers, true apprentices...."

Then he digressed into a diffuse commentary on the duties, the dignity, and the aim of the Coll?ge de France. Science! Le Coll?ge de France! There lay his faith, his church, and he had no other! Th?r?se knew by heart the order and the verses of these fiery litanies, and let him proceed without interruption.

"Yes, yes, ours. I maintain the word...."

Following the natural bent which leads one to talk of oneself, he recalled the phases of his disconcerting triumph: fame that had come in a night, the whole press, the reviews, and the salons working together to make him famous; five thousand copies sold in three weeks; articles every night, every morning ... everywhere--those papers which fell into line later proving more ardent than the first ones, thus seeking in the fervor of their adhesion an excuse for the shame of their delay; letters, interviews, requests for articles, portraits and autographs. Success, in one word,--that imperial investiture, with its long, endless offerings, delirious praetorians, and even the intolerant enthusiasm that forces the jealous to wait, which Paris sometimes gives to its elect.

"But, I say, where are you leading me now!" he exclaimed, abandoning the tone of friendly custody which he had assumed in reciting his eulogy of her.

Th?r?se smiled tenderly.

"Ah, yes, the dance!" M. Raindal sighed, as if he had already received the customary blow of a refusal. Then he went on: "Well, no! I must leave you.... I am going to climb up to your Uncle Cyprien's; I want to inquire how his rheumatism is to-day and whether he is coming to dine with us to-night...."

Before the Church of St. Germain-des-Pr?s, they stopped in the midst of the melancholy crowd standing about the street-car office and shook hands firmly, like two comrades.

"Au revoir, dear, I'll see you a little later."

"Au revoir, father."

Th?r?se crossed the street, while M. Raindal gathered up his leather case, which was slipping from his elbow, and slowly and with deliberation, as if weighed down by his thoughts, ventured into the rue Bonaparte.

Born at the unfortunate period of their father's life, when M. Raindal had been put out of the University for being an accomplice of Barb?s and was reduced to coaching at two francs a lesson, it seemed as if the son had inherited a taste for political opposition. He had detested in turn each government which his functions compelled him to serve, the second empire, M. Thiers, the Seize-Mai, and the subsequent rule of "opportunism." Finally, in 1889, when the trunks of General Boulanger were seized, a card bearing Cyprien's name was found therein upon which he had written the cordial exhortation, "Bravo, general! Forward! The whole country stands with you!"

Thus, gradually and by himself, he had built up a social creed which allowed him elbow room, as would a suit of clothes made to order. Firmly persuaded that he was the victim of injustice, he longed to see justice enthroned. The punishment of evildoers, the death or exile of the thieves, a general return to honest life and the crushing of iniquity--these he wished to see in the first place. Later? Well, one would see about the rest. Let the people obtain that much purification, and they would settle the remainder in the best way possible. M. Raindal, junior, was not one of those swaggering dreamers who promise to destroy and rebuild society as if it were the hut of a road-mender. He knew how powerful was tradition, how necessary the family, and he appreciated the indispensable charm of freedom. Before doing away with that, let Frenchmen think about clearing the country from the vermin that infested it. If the chance offered itself, Uncle Cyprien would not refuse his help. He declared himself ready to go with them any day that the "comrades" would proceed en masse to seize in their own mansions the prevaricators, the Jews, and the pillars of the church whose coalition kept down France as with a three-pronged fork. It was his own comparison, and he repeated it readily with much bragging about getting his head broken and breaking the heads of many others.

When he heard the bell of his apartment he jumped from the little green rep-covered couch where he was dozing and, slightly limping and holding his back with one hand, he opened the door. A smile lit his face the moment he recognized M. Raindal.

"I am very glad to see you!" exclaimed Cyprien, after the two brothers had kissed as usual. "Come this way.... I had so many things to read to you...."

"And how are you?" asked M. Raindal, as he followed him. "How do you feel now? Are you coming to dine to-night?"

"Why, yes, indeed; I shall certainly come." And, entering the room in which he used to receive, Cyprien affectionately laid his hand on his brother's shoulder and said, "Now, sit down and listen to this."

Hastily he began a search among the newspapers which littered his couch. They were unfolded, crumpled or piled up so that only odd letters from their large titles could be seen. All those scattered newspapers were a sick man's debauch, a fond indulgence--a luxury, a treat he offered himself when he was kept at home by rheumatism. Otherwise he only read the papers at the caf? or at the brasserie, and in small doses--perhaps two or three aggressive sheets, which gave a delightful sensation of warmth to his brain after lunch, as the small glass of cognac he usually took burned his throat. When at last he had sorted them and found the three which he sought he flourished them with a rattling noise.

"Here is something!" he said. "Rich and delightful!... Enough to amuse me and to make you swell with pride.... First of all, of course, what amuses me...."

He read the first article in victorious tones. In discreet but pitiless terms the writer announced as imminent the arrest of a senator, an ex-minister and deputy, well-known for his intrigues, his accommodating complacency towards the banking interests and his clerical tendencies; and the government was congratulated for that forthcoming show of energy.

"You see," Uncle Cyprien said, when he had finished reading, "I don't know who it is.... I thought about it for hours.... I couldn't find the name ... and yet, I must admit the news caused me to pass a very pleasant day.... It is high time that all those scoundrels were swept out.... One more in jail! I score one!..." He smiled at his own merriment and added, with his two hands on his knees:

"Well, what do you think about it? It is getting serious! All these rotten gatherings are bursting open!"

M. Raindal hesitated. He wished to avoid controversy or, at least, to adjourn it and to thrash the matter out only after his brother had read the other articles. Trained by his profession and by personal inclination to consider things through the immensity of time, in the infinite span of past and future centuries, he was not so much indifferent to his own time as disdainful of it. Whenever his brother goaded him into discussing politics he felt more scared and ill at ease than if he had had to argue upon a matter of taboo with a savage chief of Polynesia in the latter's own language.

"Of course! To be sure!..." he declared. "We are living in a troubled period.... There are many abuses.... How can it be helped?... Concussion is the plague of democracies.... Polybius said so...."

"Ah, leave me alone with your Polybius!" Uncle Cyprien interrupted, shaking his head as if to disentangle himself from his brother's aphorisms. "Why not simply tell me that we are governed by rogues?... It will be truer and quicker...."

Then he felt somewhat ashamed of having thus chided his illustrious elder brother whom he worshiped in the depths of his tormented soul.

"Oh, well, don't get angry.... It's your fault, after all.... You get on my nerves with your vague, high-sounding sentences.... See, to earn my forgiveness ... the portrait of M. Eus?be Raindal, the man of the day, the family's standard, the glory of the French Egyptology, with the history of his life from the most remote times to our own days! Tara! Tara! Ta-ta-ta-ta!..." He gave his brother the second newspaper and marched round the room sounding through his rounded fingers a triumphal march, as in the days gone by, at the office, he had celebrated the success of some colleague.

M. Raindal's eyes stared at the paper which his long-sightedness compelled him to hold at arm's length.

Yes, that coarse-printed, ill-reproduced portrait, that was himself, his own strong nose, his white beard and benevolent face--a true senator's face, as uncle Cyprien assured him.

Below his biography were spread out dates and yet more dates, all the titles of his books, one after the other, giving no more inkling of his life, his ideas, the joys and sorrows of his manhood than the milestones on the road or the posts at the crossings give one any idea of the places one goes through. To him, however, these dry figures and words were as alive as his own human flesh. His lips trembled in a nervous smile. Vanity overflowed from his heart to his face. He blushed with shame as if he felt directed towards him the stares of the crowd which, this very day, was looking at his features. However, his innate sense of propriety caused him to collect himself, and he said calmly:

"Entirely correct! I am much obliged to you. I'll carry it home...."

He rose to take his leave. A gesture from Cyprien caused him to resume his seat.

Cyprien began to read in a voice that trembled with sarcasm but even more with anger:

ACADEMIC INDISCRETIONS

Cyprien kneaded the paper into a ball and threw it on the floor.

"Well," he concluded, "a pretty savage attack!... It has no importance whatsoever since, as I told you, only Jews read this letter.... However, if you were to authorize me, I should be very glad to go and pull the ears of the sneak who let his pen...."

M. Raindal's face had grown pale with suffering as his brother had proceeded with his reading. He lifted his hand with a philosophical gesture and murmured in a voice that he had not yet steadied:

"No use.... These are the little come-backs of fame.... And then, I know the source!"

"Who?"

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