‘Monsieur, allow me…’ interrupted the young man, his resentment growing.
But the Baron made a terrible gesture.
‘What? What do you want me to allow you to say?… You have no place to be speaking here. I will say what I have to say to you, and you will have to hear, since you come to me as the guilty party… You have insulted me. You see this house, our family has lived here for more than three centuries without a blemish; can you not feel an age-old sense of honour, a tradition of dignity and respect? Well, sir, you have given all that a real slap in the face. I have almost died from the shock, and today my hands are trembling, as if I had suddenly aged ten years… Be quiet and hear me out.’
Nantas had become very pale. The role he had taken on was proving a difficult one. However, he attempted to present the blindness of his passion as an excuse.
‘I lost my head,’ he murmured, trying to make up a novelistic story. ‘I could not see Mademoiselle Flavie…’
At his daughter’s name, the Baron rose and cried out in a voice of thunder:
‘Be quiet! I told you I just don’t want to know. Whether my daughter went running after you, or you came running after her, is no business of mine. I have asked her nothing, and I ask nothing from you. You can both keep your confessions to yourselves, that is a cesspool I have no intention of venturing into.’
He sat down, trembling, exhausted. Nantas bowed, profoundly shaken, despite his self-control. After a silence, the old man resumed, in the dry tones of a man doing business: ‘I beg your pardon, monsieur. I had sworn I would keep calm. I have no power over you, but you have power over me, since I am at your mercy. You are here to offer me a deal that has become unavoidable. Let us strike that deal, monsieur.’
And he now affected to speak like a solicitor settling out of court some opprobrious lawsuit, which he is handling only with disgust. He said with composure, ‘Mademoiselle Flavie Danvilliers inherited, on the death of her mother, a sum of two hundred thousand francs, which was not meant to come into her hands until her wedding day. This sum has already yielded interest. And here, furthermore, are my trusteeship accounts, which I wish you to be apprised of.’
He had opened a dossier, he read out some figures. Nantas tried in vain to stop him. He was now seized with compunction at the sight of this old man, so upright and simple, who seemed to him quite grand, now that he had calmed down.
‘Finally,’ the latter concluded, ‘I agree to give you, in accordance with the contract my lawyer drew up this morning, a marriage portion capital of two hundred thousand francs. I know you have nothing. You will pick up the two hundred thousand francs at my banker’s, the day after the wedding.’
‘But monsieur,’ said Nantas, ‘I’m not asking you for your money, I want only your daughter…’
The Baron stopped him in mid-flow.
‘You do not have the right to refuse, and my daughter could not possibly marry a man less wealthy than she is… I am giving you the dowry I was intending for her, that is all. Perhaps you had been expecting more, but people think I am richer than I actually am, monsieur.’
And, as the young man remained speechless at this last cruel remark, the Baron brought the interview to a close by ringing for his servant.
‘Joseph, tell mademoiselle that I am expecting her straight away in my study.’
He had risen to his feet and uttered not a word more, walking slowly up and down. Nantas continued to stand there motionless. He was deceiving this old man, he felt himself to be small and without strength in comparison. At last, Flavie entered.
‘My daughter,’ said the Baron, ‘here is that man. The marriage will take place within the time allotted by law.’
And he went off, leaving them alone, as if, for him, the marriage was all arranged. Once the door had closed behind him, silence reigned. Nantas and Flavie looked at each other. They had not yet seen each other. She struck him as very beautiful, with her pale, haughty face, whose big grey eyes did not flinch. Perhaps she had been crying for the three days she had not left her room; but the coldness of her cheeks must have frozen her tears. She was the first to speak.
‘So, monsieur, this business is settled?’
‘Yes, madame,’ Nantas replied simply.
Involuntarily, she pulled a face, looking him slowly up and down, as if to detect some sign of his infamy.
‘So much the better, then,’ she continued. ‘I was afraid I might not find anyone prepared for such a deal.’
Nantas sensed in her voice all the contempt in which she held him. But he looked up again. If he had trembled before the father, knowing that he was deceiving him, he intended to be firm and forthright with the daughter, who was his accomplice.
‘Excuse me, madame,’ he said quietly, with great politeness, ‘I believe you misapprehend the situation that involves us both in what you have just called, quite correctly, a deal. I intend that, as from today, we should treat each other as equals…’
‘Oh really!’ interrupted Flavie with a disdainful smile.
‘Yes, as complete equals… You need a name so as to conceal a wrongdoing that I will not presume to judge, and I am giving you mine. On my side, I need an initial capital, a certain social position, to realise the great plans I have, and you are providing me with that capital. From today we are two partners whose business contributions balance out; all that remains is for us to thank each other for the service we are mutually rendering one another.’
She had stopped smiling. There was a furrow of angered pride on her brow. But she did not reply. After a silence, she continued: ‘Do you know my conditions?’
‘No, madame,’ said Nantas, remaining perfectly calm. ‘Please be so good as to dictate them to me, and I will comply in advance.’
Then she expressed her wishes clearly, without hesitation or blush.
‘You will never be my husband in more than name. Our lives will remain completely distinct and separate. You will abandon every right over me, and I will have no duty towards you.’
At every sentence, Nantas nodded his acceptance. That was exactly what he wanted. He added, ‘If I felt obliged to be gallant, I would tell you that such harsh conditions reduce me to despair. But we are above such insipid compliments. I am very happy to see you are brave enough to face up to our respective situations. We are starting out on life by a path that is not strewn with flowers… I ask only one thing of you, madame: not to make use of the freedom I am granting you in such a way as to make it necessary for me to intervene.’
‘Monsieur!’ said Flavie heatedly, with mutinous pride.
But he bowed respectfully, begging her not to take offence. Their position was delicate, they both had to tolerate certain allusions, without which any proper understanding would become impossible. He avoided insisting any further. Mlle Chuin, in a second interview, had told him the story of Flavie’s wrongdoing. Her seducer was a certain M. des Fondettes, the husband of one of her friends from convent school. While spending a month at their country home, she had found herself one evening in this man’s arms, without quite knowing how it had happened and to what extent she was a consenting party. Mlle Chuin almost went so far as to call it rape.
Suddenly, Nantas felt more friendly towards her. Like all those aware of their own strength, he liked to be good-natured.
‘Look here, madame,’ he exclaimed, ‘we don’t know each other; but it would be quite wrong of us to hate each other like this, at first sight. Perhaps we are made to get along with one another… I can see clearly that you despise me; that’s because you don’t know the story of my life.’
And he spoke feverishly, working himself up, recounting his life consumed by ambition, in Marseilles, telling her of the rage of his two months of useless exertions in Paris. Then, he showed his disdain for what he called the social conventions, in which ordinary mortals are bogged down. What did the judgement of the mob count for, when you could trample it underfoot! The important thing was to be superior. Supreme power excused everythi
ng. And he painted a vivid picture of the splendid life he would be able to make for himself. He no longer feared any obstacle, nothing could prevail against strength. He would be strong, he would be happy.
‘Don’t think I am motivated by vulgar self-interest,’ he added. ‘I’m not selling myself for your fortune. I am taking your money simply as a means of getting well ahead in life… Oh, if only you knew everything that’s brewing within me, if only you knew the fervid nights I’ve spent mulling over the same dream, which was swept away by the reality of each new morning, you would understand me, you would perhaps be proud to lean on my arm, telling yourself that you are finally providing me with the means of being someone!’
She stood listening to him bolt upright, not a muscle in her face stirred. And he kept asking himself a question he had been turning over in his mind for the past three days, without being able to find the answer: had she noticed him at his window, since she had accepted so readily Mlle Chuin’s plan, when the latter had named him? The strange idea occurred to him that she would perhaps have started to fall romantically in love with him if he had indignantly turned down the deal the governess had come to propose to him.
He fell silent, and Flavie remained icy. Then, as if he had not made his confession to her, she repeated drily, ‘So: my husband in name only, our lives completely distinct, absolute freedom.’
Nantas immediately reassumed his ceremonious attitude, the curt tones of a man discussing a treaty.
‘Signed and sealed, madame.’
And he withdrew, displeased with himself. How had he managed to succumb to the stupid desire to convince that woman? She was very beautiful, it was better that there should be nothing in common between them since she might prove a nuisance in his life.
3
Ten years had elapsed. One morning, Nantas found himself in the study where Baron Danvilliers had once given him such a rough reception, on their first meeting. Now this study was his; the Baron, after making peace with his daughter and his son-in-law, had handed the house over to them, just keeping for himself a lodge at the other end of the garden, on the rue de Beaune. In ten years, Nantas had ended up winning one of the highest financial and industrial positions. Involved in all the big railway concerns, launched on all the land speculations that were such a feature of the first years of the Second Empire, he had rapidly made a huge fortune. But his ambition did not end there, he wanted to play a role in public life, and he had managed to get himself appointed deputy, in a part of the country where he owned several farms. No sooner had he entered the Legislative Body than he had set himself up as a future finance minister. Through his extraordinary knowledge and his fluency in public speaking, he was daily assuming a greater and greater importance. Furthermore, he astutely showed an absolute devotion to the Empire, whilst holding in financial matters his own personal theories, which caused quite a stir and which he knew greatly preoccupied the Emperor.
That morning, Nantas was up to his neck in work. The huge offices he had set up on the ground floor of the house were filled with tremendous activity. It was a world of employees, some motionless behind their counters, others constantly coming and going, slamming the doors behind them; there was a continual clink of gold, open bags disgorging their contents across the tables, the ceaseless chiming of a cash register which seemed to threaten to drown the streets in the flood of its coins. Then, in the antechamber, there was a jostling throng of supplicants, businessmen, and politicians, all Paris on its knees before his power. Often, great personages would wait there patiently for an hour. And he, sitting at his desk, in touch with the provinces and foreign countries, able with his extended arms to embrace the whole world, was finally realising his old dream of strength, feeling himself to be the intelligent motor of a colossal machine able to move kingdoms and empires.
Nantas rang for the usher who acted as his doorkeeper. He seemed worried.
‘Germain,’ he asked, ‘do you know if madame has returned?’
And, as the usher replied that he didn’t know, he ordered him to ask madame’s maid to come down. But Germain stayed put.
‘Excuse me, monsieur,’ he murmured, ‘the President of the Legislative Body is here and he insists on seeing you.’
Then Nantas made a gesture of irritation, saying, ‘Very well, show him in, and do what I ordered.’
The day before, on a crucial question relating to the budget, a speech by Nantas had created such an impression that the article under debate had been committed for amendment in the way he had asked. After the session, the rumour had spread that the finance minister was on the verge of resignation, and different groups were already designating the young deputy as his successor. He just shrugged: nothing had been done, he had merely had a meeting with the Emperor on a few special points. However, the visit of the President of the Legislative Body could well be significant. He seemed to shake off the preoccupation that clouded his thoughts, stood up and went over to shake the president’s hand.
‘Ah, Monsieur le Duc,’ he said, ‘I must ask you to excuse me. I didn’t know you were here… I am really touched, believe me, by the honour you are doing me.’
For a few minutes they made casual conversation, in cordial tones. Then, the president, without saying anything definite, gave him to understand that he was sent by the Emperor to sound him out. Would he accept the finance portfolio, and what would his programme be? He, then, with superb calmness, laid down his conditions. But, behind his impassive expression, a shout of triumph was rising. At last he was climbing the topmost rung, he had reached the pinnacle. One step more and all eyes would be looking up to him. As the president was drawing to a close, saying that he was on his way that minute to see the Emperor to let him have the programme under discussion, a little door giving access to the living quarters opened, and madame’s maid appeared.
Nantas, suddenly turning ashen again, did not complete the sentence he was uttering. He went swiftly over to this woman, murmuring, ‘Excuse me, Monsieur le Duc…’
And, in a low voice, he cross-questioned her. So, had madame left early? Had she said where she was going? When would she back? The maid answered vaguely, like an intelligent girl unwilling to compromise herself. Having realised the naivety of his interrogations he ended up saying simply, ‘As soon as madame returns, tell her I wish to speak to her.’
The president, surprised, had moved over to a window and was looking down into the courtyard. Nantas came over to him, apologising again. But he had lost his calm: he stammered, astonishing the president by the clumsiness of his words.
‘Well, I’ve gone and spoilt my chances,’ he could not help saying once the president had gone. ‘That’s one portfolio I’m not going to get.’
And he remained in a state of disquiet, occasionally flaring up into anger. Several persons were shown in. An engineer had a report to present, announcing enormous profits in a mining concern. A diplomat discussed with him a loan that a neighbouring power wanted to arrange in Paris. Various lackeys filed past in succession, reporting on twenty substantial pieces of business. Finally, he received a large number of his colleagues from the Chamber of Deputies; they all heaped exaggerated praise on the speech he had made the day before. Leaning back in his armchair, he accepted this flattery, without a smile. The clinking of gold could still be heard from the offices next door, a vibration like that of a factory made the walls shake, as if all this jingling gold were being manufactured there. He merely had to pick up a pen to send dispatches whose arrival would have overjoyed or dismayed the markets of Europe; he could prevent or precipitate war, by supporting or opposing the loan he had been told about; he even held the budget of France in his grasp, he would soon know if he would be for or against the Empire. This was his moment of triumph, his hypertrophied personality was turning into the pivot around which a whole world rotated. And yet he could not enjoy this triumph in the way he had promised himself he would. He was overcome by weariness, his mind was elsewhere, jumping at the slightest noise. When
ever a flame – the feverish sign of satisfied ambition – rose to his cheeks, he would suddenly feel himself growing pale, as if, from behind, a cold hand had abruptly touched the nape of his neck.
Two hours had gone by, and Flavie had still not appeared. Nantas summoned Germain and told him to find M. Danvilliers, if the Baron was at home. Once he was alone again, he walked up and down in his study, refusing to see anyone else that day. Little by little, his agitation had grown. It was clear that his wife was meeting someone. She must have renewed her relations with M. des Fondettes, who had been a widower for six months. Of course, Nantas refused to fall prey to jealousy; for ten years, he had strictly observed the treaty he had concluded; nonetheless, he intended, he said, not to seem ridiculous. Never would he allow his wife to compromise his position, making him the butt of everyone’s mockery. And his strength was abandoning him, while those feelings of a husband who simply wants to be treated with respect overwhelmed him with such disturbing power that he had never experienced anything like it, even when venturing on his most daring gambles in the early days of his fortune.
Flavie came in, still in her town outfit; she had merely taken off her hat and gloves. Nantas, his voice trembling, told her he would have gone up to her room, if she had let him know she was back. But without sitting down, and looking as pressed for time as a client, she gestured him to get on with it.
‘Madame,’ he began, ‘it has become necessary for us to have a talk… Where did you go this morning?’
The quaver in her husband’s voice, and the brutality of his question, took her completely by surprise.
‘I went,’ she replied coldly, ‘exactly where I pleased.’
‘Precisely, and that’s just what I cannot agree to any more,’ he continued, turning very pale. ‘You have to remember what I told you, I will never tolerate your using the freedom I am granting you in such a way as to dishonour my name.’
Flavie smiled with sovereign contempt.