Diane and Her Friends/The Real Birthday of Dorante
VIII
THE REAL BIRTHDAY OF DORANTE
IT was the 15th of November. A fine rain had been falling all day, filling the hollows of the asphalt with shining pools and covering the sidewalks with a glistening surface of reflected lights. On account of this rain Inspector Joly had ordered a cab, for Madame Joly was wearing her best dress, it being the anniversary of their marriage, which they always observed by dining at the Fountain of Health. Twenty years before, on the 15th of November, the rain fell as it was falling to-night. It had not mattered then and it did not matter now, the 15th of November being still a door through which Madame Joly passed in a kind of trance, indifferent to the weather.
As it was always possible that some professional duty should interfere with this annual pilgrimage to the Fountain of Health, Madame Joly heard with relief her husband's key turning in the lock, as usual, at six o'clock. But at seven, as she was drawing on her gloves and M. Joly was about to put out the lights, the tinkle of the doorbell and a note left by a messenger filled her with alarm.
For three months M. Joly had been engaged in a relentless search for a band of counterfeiters who had given the Bank of France no small concern. Only the week before had he succeeded in locating their workshop in the cellar of the Restaurant des Tournelles, Place des Vosges; but as the chief of this band was absent from Paris, the execution of the plan formed for their capture was awaiting the information of his return. As luck would have it, this information arrived on the evening of the i5th of November, precisely as M. Joly was extinguishing the gas.
The note read as follows:
He has returned, and can be taken to-night at a rendezvous in the Restaurant des Tournelles—which is being watched.
They were standing in the vestibule. The cab was at the door. It had been impossible for Madame Joly not to see the word "Urgent" written on the corner of the envelope, as it was impossible for M. Joly not to see that the unconcern with which she waited while he was breaking the seal was really the heroic determination to endure disappointment without complaint. She was looking exceedingly pretty in her new furs; a little less slender, but otherwise exactly like the woman of twenty years ago. One would as soon strike an angel from God as disappoint a woman waiting to be loved. One of the reasons for adoring this woman was her forbearance under circumstances which would have justified one of less patience and confidence in asking questions.
M. Joly folded the note, tucked it carefully in the pocket of his white waistcoat, and said:—
"Come, let us be going."
At the foot of the three long nights of winding stairs, as he was holding the umbrella over Madame Joly while she was crossing the sidewalk to the cab, a passing policeman, his short cape dripping in the rain, recognized him and touched his hat. This simple gesture was like a hand placed upon his shoulder. Instantly awoke in him the instinct of the inspector, and under the uncontrollable impulse born of this sudden apparition of the symbol of authority and duty, he said to the driver:—
"Restaurant des Tournelles, Place des Vosges."
Even before he had taken his seat this impulse, as short-lived as it had been strong, vanished, and he realized that he, Inspector Joly, the man of method and resource, had lost his head. In the vestibule he had put inclination before duty, for the sake of a woman. On the sidewalk he had put duty before inclination, at the expense of one. These two irreconcilable acts plunged him in the depths of contradiction and indecision. If the first was a crime, the second was a folly. He was too gallant to lay upon the woman beside him the blame for yielding to inclination. He was too just to hold his innocent subordinate responsible for entangling her in the meshes of duty.
"The devil!" he said to himself, "I have made a mess of it."
Before turning into Rue Saint- Jacques it became evident to Madame Joly that he was thinking profoundly of something and again she refrained. She also was thinking of something, and it was pleasant to believe that that something which absorbed him was that same memory which quickened the beating of her own heart. But when, after crossing the Pont d'Arcole, the cab turned along the quays to the right, she murmured:—
"He is taking the wrong direction."
M. Joly was at that instant on the verge of confession. He was saying to himself: "After all, a date has no real importance. Why be a slave to a calendar? The year has three hundred and sixty-five days, but the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth has no value not possessed by the others. Besides, there is leap-year, which disarranges everything. We might have been married on the 2gth of February! Decidedly, anniversaries should be regulated by sentiment, not by Pope Gregory XIII." He remembered also that Madame Joly was as reasonable as she was pretty.
If she had remained silent a second longer, purpose would have been converted into action, and he would have confided to her these reflections. Unfortunately her interruption, in itself so natural and so innocent, like an unexpected jolt deranged so completely his mental process that he followed mechanically the direction of the cab instead of his thought, and said:—
"We are going to another place."
Much to the dismay of the curé of Saint-Médard, M. Joly had always contended that in order thoroughly to realize the meaning of any commandment of the Decalogue one must first break it. He now perceived that this reasoning applied also to proverbs. He saw clearly why the first step is so costly; "and the second," he thought, "is still more so—to a certain extent it is also imperative. In the automatism of the brain there is a kind of blundering logic—"
The cab had stopped.
"It is here," he said.
As Madame Joly stepped out under the arcade of the Place des Vosges, above the three lighted windows she read the words Bibeault Restaurant des Tournelles. There was no doorway on the street, the entrance being through a side corridor, where she waited for her husband, who was paying for the cab.
"Ah," said M. Joly, to a man who stepped out from the shadow of a pillar, "it is you, Pichon."
"He is inside," whispered the agent. "We have four of ours within call."
"Four! It is a small army you have." M. Joly counted out the exact fare, added fifty centimes, and dismissed the driver. "Pichon, if I tap once on the window you will know he is coming out. But do your work quietly. I am dining with my wife. Afterward, when I tap twice, you will come in."
"The old fox!" muttered the agent, "to bring his wife with him!"
When Madame Joly, on opening the door of her apartment, saw the messenger, she said to herself, "Something has occurred our evening is ruined." But the words, "Come, let us be going," reassured her, and her fears vanished. At the Pont d'Arcole, however, her first conviction returned. The cab was taking the wrong direction. "I was right," she thought. "Something has occurred." Standing in the corridor waiting for her husband, she was now asking herself, "Why, since for some reason he is not dining with me at the Fountain of Health, am I dining with him at the Restaurant des Tournelles?" Yet once more she refrained. Nothing in all the twenty years justified the supposition that the reason was a bad one.
"It is disgraceful," said M. Joly, rejoining her. "The moment one puts one's hand in one's pocket a beggar appears."
"He seemed to me a very well-dressed one," she replied. "You did well to give him nothing."
In the Fountain of Health there was a little cabinet, always reserved for them on the 15th of November. On entering it Madame Joly invariably experienced that same delicious sensation she had known when in this very room she found herself for the first time alone with her husband. Behind the door was a hook, on which M. Joly had hung, first, her cloak, and then his coat; and this coat, thus deposited over her own garment, had been a symbol of possession, of something strange but infinitely dear, of something immediately realized in a more definite form when, between the closing of the door and the appearance of the waiter with the menu, she had abandoned herself to two protecting arms in a manner she had never dreamed possible.
There was no cabinet in the Restaurant des Tournelles. The iron stand on which the waiter hung the new furs was a poor substitute for the hook in the Fountain of Health. Nevertheless, the room was a pleasant one, resembling more an inn in the country than a restaurant of the capital. A fire was burning on the hearth, before which a little girl, with brown hair drawn smooth above her temples, was turning a spit. More critical than on that night when she first dined tête-à-tête with her husband, Madame Joly noted with satisfaction that the linen was spotless and the glasses bright. She noted also with relief the presence of several of her own sex.
M. Joly chose a table near the window and began to study the menu. Always at the Fountain of Health he ordered the dinner which inaugurated their married life—a pâté d'ltalie, sole au vin blanc, capon with water-cress, an omelette au confiture, and a bottle of Burgundy, followed by biscuit, cream-cheese, and green chartreuse, which latter Madame Joly had learned to sip with more confidence than she had exhibited on that evening when for the first time in her life she discovered the immense difference between vin ordinaire and Romanée. It was not because there was no pâté d'ltalie on the menu that M. Joly ordered a potage Julienne. Madame Joly accepted this substitution without surprise. It would have been a sacrilege to eat the dinner of the Fountain of Health in the Restaurant des Tournelles. At the same time her curiosity redoubled. But pride had now come to the assistance of confidence, and again she refrained. M. Joly saw this acquiescence, but not the curiosity. While completing his order he observed her attentively. To all appearances she was quite at ease. This tranquillity increased his admiration of her and also his irritation at himself. It would require all his skill to extricate himself from his dilemma without losing her confidence or his own self-respect. For confession of some sort, though postponed, was inevitable. He had already admitted that in ordering the potage Julienne. He decided, however, contrary to the practice of the curé of Saint-Médard, to eat his dinner first and make his confession afterward. It would certainly be easier after the Burgundy than before the soup. Moreover, between the soup and the Burgundy something might happen.
"My dear," he began, protecting the wide expanse of his shirt from mishap with his napkin, "we dine to-night on the spot where Henri II lost his life in a tournament, and the three favorites of Guise had an argument of swords with the minions of his brother, Henri III. In that house over there died Rachel, and in this square lived Victor Hugo."
M. Joly had two manners of speaking, which his wife had long since learned to distinguish. One was his professional manner, in which he now addressed her, and which she loved because it differentiated so completely the outside world from their own; the other recalled the Fountain of Health, and had not changed in tenderness or deference since his coat embraced her cloak on the hook behind the door of the cabinet particulier.
"What you say is most interesting," she replied, looking out into the square through the muslin curtain.
"Few people think of the past amid whose memorials they live," pursued M. Joly. "Like Montaigne, I love this city of Paris—even to the spots and blemishes on her fan" body."
His voice had fallen into its second manner, and Madame Joly suddenly afflicted with a fit of shyness, kept her eyes steadily fixed on the house of Rachel.
"One would not suppose this melancholy square, with its low arcade and red-brick houses, was once the court end of town. It is true, at that time it did not exist. Formerly there stood here that famous Palais des Tournelles, so called because of its vast assemblage of turrets, constructed under Charles V. But that palace was destroyed by Catharine de Medicis in 1565. Not till 1604 was the present square begun by Henri IV."
Madame Joly was well aware of her husband's passion for history, but never before on the 15th of November had he conversed upon so remote a past. The description of the masquerade which nearly proved fatal to Charles VI interested her but moderately. To the account of the tournament held in honor of the marriage of Elizabeth with Philip II of Spain she listened more attentively, for a marriage always excited her sympathies. The glimpse of a white dress in a carriage on its way to the Mairie always caused her to stop, and she followed its occupant in thought far beyond the point where the carriage passed from sight. But the little girl with the brown hair, who, released from her duties at the spit, was gazing wistfully at the basket of fruit on the table, interested her still more. Having no children, she had accumulated a store of affection which overflowed at the slightest provocation. She had even suggested to M. Joly the project of adopting what nature had not supplied. He also adored children, but the question which nature decides so arbitrarily had thus far proved an obstacle, the relative advantages of the sexes being still under discussion. Nevertheless, the project had not been abandoned, and in that suburban retreat of Monrepos which they had planned for their old age, and of which they dreamed at night before falling asleep, playing in the imaginary paths between the imaginary flowerbeds was an imaginary child of undetermined sex.
A LITTLE CHILD PLAYING ABOUT THE GARDEN
In one of the pauses of her husband's narration, Madame Joly beckoned the child nearer. In the pale-blue eyes was that devouring look which the sight of the forbidden engenders in one who is hungry. Madame Joly saw this look and made a second sign. The act which for the mother becomes commonplace, even irksome, was for her a precious opportunity.
"Would you like a peach?" she said to the small figure advancing timidly with a shy air of inquiry.
A peach, in November! Equivalent, as stated on the menu, to a whole franc. Casting a quick look behind her, the child held out her hand, seized the proffered treasure, and hid it in some mysterious place under her apron.
"You love peaches?" said M. Joly, encircling the slender waist with his arm and drawing the child to his knee.
A nod for answer.
"They do not grow on the trees of Paris," he added encouragingly.
The child shook her head. Then, gaining confidence, "They grow in Cormontreuil."
"Ah, you are from Cormontreuil. I suppose, then, since peaches grow in Cormontreuil, you love Cormontreuil better than Paris?"
Another nod of assent, and after another silence, "In Paris there are no orchards."
"But," remonstrated M. Joly, "Paris is so gay, with people and lights."
The small fingers were playing with the curious pendant on his watch-chain—a Japanese gold coin set with green garnets.
"There are more lights in Paris, monsieur, but not so many stars."
"That is true," admitted M. Joly. "I had not thought of that."
"Run away, Dorante," said the host, serving the coffee in person; "you annoy monsieur."
"On the contrary, she amuses me," said M. Joly. "Have a care, Mademoiselle Dorante, I am about to strike a match."
The child retreated to the skirts of Madame Joly, from which safe retreat she watched the short puffs of smoke from M. Joly's newly lighted cigar.
"It seems you adore Molière, since you name your daughter Dorante," he said, addressing the host.
"Pardon, monsieur, she does not belong to me, but to my wife's brother—who is dead," he added.
"Ah, that makes a difference."
It not being clear what difference was referred to, the man was silent.
"More probably, then," pursued M. Joly reflectively, "it was a whim of the mother."
"There is no mother," was the curt reply.
"So much the better," said M. Joly.
This time the man thought he understood. "You are right, monsieur," he said, turning away. "One mouth to feed is enough."
Madame Joly had lifted Dorante to her lap. Her husband's remark astonished her. To be an orphan, when there existed people who were childless, was a provision of Providence which tormented her.
"Poor little one!" she murmured, resting her cheek on the brown hair.
M. Joly moved his cup to one side and, leaning forward, crossed his arms on the table. Madame Joly in no wise resembled the Madonna of Botticelli in the Louvre, yet it was of this picture that he was thinking. Through the smoke of his cigar he saw a little girl with brown hair playing among the parterres of Monrepos.
"Marie," he said softly, for Dorante's eyes were growing heavy, "you have been wondering why we are dining in the Restaurant des Tournelles."
Madame Joly looked up and smiled.
"I knew very well there was some reason," she said.
"Ah, you knew that?"
"Certainly. That note—it was so evident."
"To be sure. I had forgotten. And so you thought—"
"That some duty interfered. It could be nothing else."
."And you were not disappointed?"
"I did not say that."
"Well, what did you say?"
"I said what I have just told you, that only some duty—"
"But," interposed M. Joly, "on this occasion might I not have set this duty aside? A woman loves the sacrifice, even of honor, for her sake."
"She forgives it, but she does not love it. Besides, you are incapable—"
"Let that pass," interrupted M. Joly quickly. "The question is: Why are you here? Have you asked yourself that?"
Madame Joly smiled again.
"Undoubtedly. But you could not imagine. Well, I am going to tell you. There are two men at the table behind you—do not move—you will wake Dorante—look in the glass above my head—the one with the monocle and the white hands. Those hands are clever ones. They have accomplished a miracle—since they have reproduced a note of the Bank of France, which experts have always declared impossible. Thanks to the amiability of the uncle of Dorante, this miracle takes place beneath our feet, perhaps on the very spot where a queen of France of whom I was just speaking consulted the oracles of the astrologers. Well, those white hands will wear to-night an ornament not made in the Rue de la Paix. Wait; he is going."
The two men had risen and were putting on their coats.
M. Joly tapped once on the window.
On reaching the door the man with the monocle passed out first.
"Monsieur," said M. Joly, crossing the room quickly and touching his companion on the shoulder, "you have dropped your change." In his hand was a two-franc piece.
"You are mistaken," said the man. "I have lost nothing."
"Pardon me, but I saw it roll under my chair."
"Come on; what are you waiting for?" cried a voice from the hall.
"In a minute—I am coming. Thanks, but I repeat, you are mistaken."
"I insist only because I saw," said M. Joly politely.
"Really, monsieur," said the man, who was beginning to be irritated, "you insist too much. I tell you it is not mine."
In his embarrassment M. Joly blocked the passage to the door.
"But you must admit that this silver belongs to some one."
"Oh, go to the devil with your silver and let me pass. I am in haste—my friend is waiting," cried the man, brushing his tormentor aside and slamming the door behind him.
M. Joly shrugged his shoulders.
"If I am not mistaken," he said, resuming his seat, "and if that beggar, Pichon, who is outside, acts with his customary promptness, the gentleman will not overtake his friend this evening. Marie, Pichon will never get over it—to be mistaken for a beggar!"
Madame Joly, jealous of her husband's reputation for sagacity, refrained again.
"It is now the turn of M. Bibeault. Marie,"—his voice fell again into its second manner,—"does it not seem to you that for a man who is about to lodge at the expense of the State a child is a superfluity?"
Madame Joly's eyes opened wide. She understood, but she refused to believe. At the same time her arms tightened about Dorante.
M. Joly waited patiently.
"You do not mean—" she could not go on—it was too incredible.
"Why not?" said her husband.
Why not! Because it was so contrary to all she had imagined. Not in this manner had she thought to select the heir to Monrepos. For this selection she had prescribed certain conditions, and it was not in the Restaurant des Tournelles that one would look for their fulfillment. If Dorante had been brought to her for approval, she would assuredly have examined her critically. She would have required answers to a thousand questions. But Dorante was sleeping peacefully and wisely in her arms. A thrill akin to that which the mother knows when she first feels the touch of the morsel of humanity which the nurse lays at her side wrought in her a strange contentment and peace. Conditions, even the question of sex, were forgotten.
She made a feeble effort to protest.
"But we know nothing about her," she gasped.
"What does one ever know about a child until it is grown up?" said M. Joly.
Far beyond the need of argument or persuasion, Madame Joly was not listening. In truth she did not know of what she was thinking. Visions were succeeding one another, strange, incredible visions, and momentous problems—of what colors were becoming to brown hair, of what room Dorante was to occupy, and before the rising tide of this new life and joy, she forgot also to refrain.
"And this is why I am here—you planned this beforehand "
"Marie," said M. Joly diplomatically, "more is accomplished in this world by grasping an opportunity than by foreseeing one."
The room was empty. A solitary waiter, yawning, was leaning against the desk where Madame Bibeault was casting up her accounts.
"Monsieur Bibeault, the bill if you please."
"Instantly; I am coming."
"Monsieur Bibeault," said M. Joly, scanning the bill, "I see that you are a man of heart."
The man looked at him inquiringly.
"Since you provide for those in need," explained M. Joly, designating the sleeping Dorante.
"Dame! Monsieur," with a shrug of the shoulders, "one does what one must."
"Fortunately, you have here a good business.
"By no means, monsieur. I have on my hands a bad affair. The situation is impossible. No one frequents this square but nursery-maids and babies."
M. Joly, thoughtful, leaned back in his chair.
"Why, then, do you not find some benevolent person to whom God has denied the blessing of children?"
The man laughed. "Such customers do not come to the Restaurant des Tournelles," he said laconically.
M. Joly pulled a chair from a neighboring table.
"Sit down, Monsieur Bibeault. I wish to talk with you. I am such a person."
The man gazed at this singular customer good-naturedly. The joke was a good one.
"Naturally you are surprised. You do not know me. Here is my card and address. You will make inquiries at your leisure. This child pleases us. She is a burden to you. We offer to relieve you of this burden."
M. Joly had a way of forcing a conclusion.
"Monsieur—" the man stammered, dumbfounded.
"But on certain conditions," continued M. Joly imperturbably. "It is necessary that Dorante should be happy. Let us suppose that she remains with us for a week. At the end of that time, if she is contented, if she continues to please us, we will see. There will be some legal formalities."
M. Bibeault had ceased smiling. It was impossible to misconceive the seriousness of this proposal.
"It is true, monsieur, I admit," he said, holding the card in his hand, "the child is a burden, but—"
"Go consult your wife," said M. Joly peremptorily.
Madame Joly listened to this business-like conversation in a kind of stupor. Its rapid march brought her back from dreams to reality. She had been living in unreality ever since the cab had turned in the wrong direction. She hovered now between the two, oppressed by a twofold anxiety—doubtful of her happiness and fearful of its loss.
The man returned with his wife.
"What is this nonsense my husband is telling me? " she said.
At the sound of her voice Dorante awoke.
M. Joly repeated his proposition. The woman listened incredulously.
"Mon Dieu, monsieur!" she said evasively, "such an affair is not to be concluded in a moment."
"Every affair has a beginning," replied M. Joly. "Moreover, I give you a week in which to reflect."
The woman looked at her husband, as if to say, "It is worth thinking of."
"Listen," she said. "As you say, there is a week. Suppose now, at the end of the week, we agree—I say that merely in passing. But monsieur forgets that till now—that is, for these eight years there have been expenses. A child is not fed and clothed for nothing—"
"At what do you estimate these expenses?" said M. Joly, taking out his pocketbook and pencil.
Madame Bibeault exchanged with her husband another look, which said, "Here is a goose to be plucked."
Profiting by this look, M. Joly tapped twice gently on the window.
"Let us see," he continued. "To-day is the fifteenth of November. Sixteen—seventeen—eighteen—nineteen twenty—twenty-one—two—on the twenty-second of November—" To her amazement Madame Joly saw her husband count out one by one ten notes of one hundred francs. "I give you one thousand francs but on account. On the twenty- second—"
The door opened and Pichon entered.
"Ah, Pichon, it is you!" cried M. Joly joyfully. "What luck brings you here! And to think that you should arrive at the very moment! Pichon, I am concluding a bargain. You will be a witness. I am making a purchase by installments. Here is the first, count them," thrusting the bank notes into the hands of the astonished Bibeault.
But M. Bibeault's eyes were riveted upon the door, where two agents were regarding the scene in silence. Fingering the notes mechanically, a pallor crept over his face.
At the same time Pichon began to smile.
"They do not please you?" asked M. Joly affably. "That is unreasonable—since they are of your own manufacture."
The man retreated step by step, like an animal, stupid with terror; then, turning suddenly, sprang toward the service door. Wrenching it open, he saw another agent.
Madame Bibeault uttered a scream. Dorante began to cry.
"You see," said M. Joly, rising and buttoning up his coat, "it is useless. Pichon, I am going home with madame. Ask one of your men to be so good as to get me a cab—it is raining. In an hour I will be back and make my report. As this is no place for the child, I charge myself with her. Meanwhile, you will examine Monsieur Bibeault's cellar—it is said to contain some rare vintages."
"Marie," he said, as the cab rattled over the pavement of the Place des Vosges, "I owe you a thousand apologies. But it is as you said. A man does not sacrifice duty for such a woman as you. The woman for whom one sacrifices honor is not worth it."
Holding the weeping Dorante close to her heart, Madame Joly made no reply.
"You see for yourself it would have been impossible to leave this little one in such a den. As for the Fountain of Health," searching in the dark for her hand, "we will dine there just the same on the fifteenth of November—by the calendar of our ally the Czar of Russia."