Werewolf of Paris (26 page)

The September revolution and the fall of the Empire had not disturbed his position. With a graceful flourish he turned Republican. A matter of no greater difficulty than stepping from one cow pasture into another. He was still Baron de Blumenberg. He still had his money and his power.

Even the Commune did not disturb him seriously. Knowing the bad finances of the revolutionary party, he, like Baron Rothschild, quickly donated a million in cash, and in exchange did much as he pleased. The Commune rarely had the courage of its opinion. In fact the opinions of the Commune were still in dispute the day it perished.

On the day of Courbet's visit, the baron was putting himself into safety. There was great commotion in the house. A hundred bronzes were being packed into boxes, a hundred rugs and tapestries rolled up, a thousand pieces of linen and lace folded into trunks. An endless stream of muffled vases, paintings, chairs, etc., issued from the portals below and found a place in huge vans. The driver's whip cracked and the objets d'art rushed off for their vacation.

Mme de Blumenberg raced from room to room, gathered up her precious bibelots, superintended the shipping of her furs, her fans, her ostrich plumes. She carried under her arm a precious handbag bulging with jewels. She was a tiny, birdlike woman, trim and quick, with brilliant birdlike eyes, and sudden birdlike motions. She skipped around, hopped upstairs and down, and from garret to cellar there was not a crumb that escaped her. No servant in her employ had ever managed to subtract so much as a minute's worth of time or a centime's worth of property. She often used to say that if she were ruler of France the government would have been run on half its budget. There can be little doubt of that. Only it did not occur to her that as head of French finances her policy of strict economy would have reduced her husband to beggary.

“I hate to leave this behind,” he was saying later in the day, when Courbet and his assistant had gone off with certain valuable gifts to the Louvre and the house was almost emptied of its contents, “but I guess we can't take everything.” He contemplated sadly the enormous Érard piano of rosewood and ivory inlay.

“Edmond, mon cher,” his wife exclaimed in tones of exasperation, “can'tyou find something more useful to do? Of course we can't take that. No one else can either, though.-Here, you two,” she turned to a couple of aproned men, “this goes and that. Quick now! We haven't all day.”

“Remember when I gave you this?” The baron sighed. He lifted the lid, the inner surface of which showed a ship foundering in a violent storm, done in ivory and various natural woods, and surrounded by a scroll of leaves in which amorous mermaids were disporting. He sighed and tapped a key. In the empty room it emitted a plaintive note that hung trembling in the air.

“Edmond!” she admonished. He caught her arm and pulled her over to the piano.

“Remember?” he asked.

“Of course, of course,” she said, irritated.

“That marvelous, terrible shipwreck.” He sighed again.

“How romantic you are,” she sneered and attempted to free her arm.

“Don't,” he pleaded. “Don't go. After all, it was the only time in my life that you gave yourself to me.” His voice broke a little with emotion.

“You'll remind me of it some other time.” But he had passed his arm around her waist and restrained her.

“I'll always remember it.”

“How can you, among all the others?” she teased.

“You know they mean nothing to me. Just the distraction of a busy man. You have been my only love. I have often wondered what it might have been like, if you could have returned all my affection.”

“Haven't I managed your house? And as for women to sleep with, you can have all you want for a couple of francs. Experienced girls, too—in their line.”

“The only time,” he mused, half to himself, and passed his free hand over the scene of the shipwreck. “We all thought we were doomed. That awful storm, the rigging swept away, the hulk leaking in every joint, the captain and the crew in despair. And we two, certain that we were to die on that trip which was to have been our honeymoon. During the first days of the trip, I had thought it was only maidenly modesty that had made you refuse to receive me; I was to learn better later. But with death in sight, you were kind enough to give yourself to me, because it was my last wish. Ah! All these years of your coldness will not erase that one embrace.”

“As forme,” she said, drily, “I regret it to this day. Come, are you through reminiscing?”

“How can you regret it,” he asked, “seeing that Sophie came of it? I shall never cease to wonder that life, and such joy in life as Sophie shows, could have come out of the embrace of two who thought they were about to die.”

“All you think of is Sophie,” she said. “And of how much you hurt me, that you conveniently forget. And all those dreadful months of seeing one's body bloated and knowing that the day is coming nearer and nearer when one must split oneself open.
That
is what
you
should have had as your share, for yours was all the pleasure. All I had was the pain.”

“To think,” the baron continued, “that from such a terrible experience, snatched from the very grave as it were, should have sprung our light-hearted Sophie, gay and insouciante as a linnet, with never a dark moment, never a thought of death.”

“While we're on the subject of Sophie,” the baroness said, “you might go have a talk with her.”

“What's the trouble now?” he complained, and regretfully turned down the lid and the scene of the sinking ship, which commemorated the most poignant moment of his life, when death had turned itself miraculously into life.

“Another one of her follies. She wants to stay in Paris!”

“Wants to stay in Paris? How ridiculous! Where would she stay?”

“With Aunt Louise.”

“What nonsense!”

“Well, see what you can do with her. I've exhausted my art.”

The baron traversed the great empty halls to his daughter's room. She was sitting on abare bench at the window. When she heard her father enter, she looked up with a smile.

Radiant, warm creature, he said to himself. Lucky the man who will have her for his wife. How she will love him! Lucky Barral. The baron was moved by a strange emotion that was not jealousy, for it was not painful, but it was related to jealousy.

“You have been having another quarrel with your mother,” he said.

“Why, no. What about?”

“She just told me that you refused to come along with us. Well, I'm glad that's settled.” He was indeed glad. He was so genuinely fond of his wife and daughter that the slightest misunderstanding between them was enough to spoil the day for him.

“Of course it's settled,” she said carelessly. “I'm not going. I'm staying with Aunt Louise.”

“But, child,” he expostulated, “why didn't you say so before? We would all have stayed together. Why, we've moved every stick of furniture. Besides, I'll never be able to persuade your mother to change her plans. You know your mother. Now, why can't you two ever agree?”

“But, papa darling, you needn't change your plans. I'll be well taken care of at Aunt Louise's.”

“Ah, I see,” he smiled suddenly. “Of course, why didn't I think of that. He's staying too. Isn't he?”

She blushed and bit her lower lip. “Yes,” she answered. “He's staying too.”

Lucky Barral, the baron had to think again. Yes, stay, he blessed them mentally. Stay and a benediction on both of you. Give yourself, give your whole self to the man of your choice and make him happy, as I was happy only once in my life. The train of thought nearly brought tears to his eyes, and he felt impelled to sit down beside his daughter and put his arms around her. “You don't remember when I used to take you from your nurse's arms and carry you around the room. Ah, you were the sweetest baby in the world. You wouldn't go to bed, you wouldn't eat, and ah! you wouldn't do your little business, unless I first gave you a ride around the nursery. Ach! how I wish I could do it now.”

She hid her annoyance and suffered his caresses for a moment.

“Then you will take care of Mamma, and make itgood with her?” she said, and took the occasion to free herself from his arms.

He rose with a sigh. “I'll see what I can do.” The unpleasant prospect caused him to mop his brow.

She jumped up and gave him a hug and a kiss. “My good papa!” she exclaimed. He left the room treading on a cloud.

Just outside he met Barral and impulsively wrung his hand.

“There's a surprise for you,” he said. “A big surprise! Go, Sophie is waiting to tell you.”

Barral, who had seemed worried, looked up with relief. “What kind of a surprise, sir?”

“Sophie will tell you,” the baron insisted. It would not do, he thought, to deprive her of the joy of telling Barral herself, that she was going to stay in the city.

Though Barral had come to say good-bye, that had not been the chief cause of his worry. On the contrary, within the last two days he had come to feel rather pleased that Sophie was leaving, for in the face of the growing conviction that there was some truth (not much truth, of course), to what all the men were repeating about Sophie, he could have imagined no better solution than her departure from Paris. That would put a stop to her friendship with this young guardsman.

What might the surprise be? Barral wondered. “Perhaps she has decided to accept me when I ask her.” The thought was almost too much for him. With his heart beating audibly, he knocked at her door.

“Sophie,” he breathed as he entered, and could not say any more.

They conversed in staccato sentences. Neither was at ease. Barral was debating, should he drop to his knee? Should he speak out boldly? At last he determined to speak: “Now that you are about to leave Paris, my dear Sophie, and I shall be remaining here, away from you, and occupied in dangerous work—there is something I should like to ask you.”

“But I shan't be going, Barral,” she objected.

His stream of language which had been flowing so limpidly ceased at once. Thrown over the tracks thus, suddenly, he was for a moment completely at a loss.

“You don't seem pleased,” she commented.

He turned his head away and muttered: “If I could be sure it was for me that you were staying…” She had not heard him.

“What did you say, Barral?”

“I said—I said,” he summoned his courage: “The men around the canteen are saying such ugly things about you.”

“Really?” she answered. “What, for example?”

His courage petered out: “Just…well just ugly things,” he concluded lamely. “Of course,” he added in great haste, “I don't believe a word of it.”

“But what?”

“But I thought I'd tell you.”

“I see,” she said.

There was a moment of silence. He squirmed, unsatisfied.

“Of course it's just gossip,” he said, and awaited her confirmation.

“What's just gossip?”

“What they say.”

“But you haven't told me what they say,” was her calm and altogether too sensible riposte.

Nervously he pleaded: “Tell me only that it isn't true!” But she insisted relentlessly: “That what isn't true?” Spurred on by some malicious spirit, she wanted him to bring the words to his lips. She craved the strange joy of hearing her love for Bertrand issue from his mouth. She would have that pleasure, at least, granting the impossibility of flaunting more intimate proof of her love before him. She had experienced agreat many new sensations in these last weeks and still she wanted more. Now that she had broken into a new world she was insatiable for ever new joys.

A great wave of pain passed through him. “So it's true,” he murmured. “But how can it be true?” He was a man who has run to the harbor and found the ship he was to take already far out to sea, and who now stands on the shore saying over and over again, as if a lie well rubbed in could act as a balm to the hurt of truth: “It can't be true. No, it can't possibly be true.”

And then anger rose in him. “I know what I'll do,”‘ he declared. “I'll kill him. I'll find out where he lives and kill him.”

Inspired by her cruelty, she encouraged. “Find us some time when we're both together and you can pierce us both with one thrust.”

“Not you!” he stuttered, all undone. “But I'll kill him.”

“That comes to the same thing,” she said. “For we two are only one and if he dies, so do I.”

“Very well,” he said. “Then you can die too, for I'll get him.”

“So that's how much you love me?” she sneered. “That's how much your letters were worth? After all the times you swore undying love for me. And to think that I was taken in by those cheap promises.” She turned her head away as if in disgust.

He was thunderstruck. The boldness of her argument quite took his breath away. Her defection was pushed into the background. The question now was: Had he lied in his letters, or had he told the truth? Which?

Thoroughly whipped, he whined: “Then what am I to do?”

“If your love was ever real, you will continue to love me,” she answered. “My love for him will never waver, I can tell you that.”

This was even more crazy than her first argument. But he accepted it. “I'll always love you,” he declared in a low voice.

“You are good, Barral,” she praised. “And I shall continue to give you what I have always given you: my companionship. I never gave you more, never promised you more. And for my sake and the sake of your love, you will be kind to Bertrand and never say anything of this to Father or Mother, or Aunt Louise, or anybody.”

He gulped and promised.

In a daze he found his way home. When he had taken off his uniform, he threw himself on his bed. But he felt very uncomfortable. And he did not want to sleep. What was it he wanted? Something was missing in the room. He looked around, his thoughts in strange confusion.