Hector was going to die because he had said he would, because the newspapers had announced the fact. He confessed this to himself as he went along, and bitterly reproached himself.
He remembered a pretty spot in Viroflay forest, where he had once fought a duel; he would commit the deed there. He hastened toward it. The weather was fine and he met many groups of young people going into the country for a good time. Workmen were drinking and clinking their glasses under the trees along the river-bank. All seemed happy and contented, and their gayety seemed to insult Hector’s wretchedness. He left the main road at the Sиvres bridge, and descending the embankment reached the borders of the Seine. Kneeling down, he took up some water in the palm of his hand, and drank—an invincible lassitude crept over him. He sat, or rather fell, upon the sward. The fever of despair came, and death now seemed to him a refuge, which he could almost welcome with joy. Some feet above him the windows of a Sиvres restaurant opened toward the river. He could be seen from there, as well as from the bridge; but he did not mind this, nor anything else.
“As well here, as elsewhere,” he said to himself.
He had just drawn his pistol out, when he heard someone call:
“Hector! Hector!”
He jumped up at a bound, concealed the pistol, and looked about. A man was running down the embankment toward him with outstretched arms. This was a man of his own age, rather stout, but well shaped, with a fine open face and, large black eyes in which one read frankness and good-nature; one of those men who are sympathetic at first sight, whom one loves on a week’s acquaintance.
Hector recognized him. It was his oldest friend, a college mate; they had once been very intimate, but the count not finding the other fast enough for him, had little by little dropped his intimacy, and had now lost sight of him for two years.
“Sauvresy!” he exclaimed, stupefied.
“Yes,” said the young man, hot, and out of breath, “I’ve been watching you the last two minutes; what were you doing here?”
“Why—nothing.”
“How! What they told me at your house this morning was true, then! I went there.”
“What did they say?”
“That nobody knew what had become of you, and that you declared to Jenny when you left her the night before that you were going to blow your brains out. The papers have already announced your death, with details.”
This news seemed to have a great effect on the count.
“You see, then,” he answered tragically, “that I must kill myself!”
“Why? In order to save the papers from the inconvenience of correcting their error.”
“People will say that I shrunk—”
“Oh, ’pon my word now! According to you, a man must make a fool of himself because it has been reported that he would do it. Absurd, old fellow. What do you want to kill yourself for?”
Hector reflected; he almost saw the possibility of living.
“I am ruined,” answered he, sadly.
“And it’s for this that—stop, my friend, let me tell you, you are an ass! Ruined! It’s a misfortune, but when a man is of your age he rebuilds his fortune. Besides, you aren’t as ruined as you say, because I’ve got an income of a hundred thousand francs.”
“A hundred thousand francs—”
“Well, my fortune is in land, which brings in about four per cent.”
Tremorel knew that his friend was rich, but not that he was as rich as this. He answered with a tinge of envy in his tone:
“Well, I had more than that; but I had no breakfast this morning.”
“And you did not tell me! But true, you are in a pitiable state; come along, quick!”
And he led him toward the restaurant.
Tremorel reluctantly followed this friend, who had just saved his life. He was conscious of having been surprised in a distressingly ridiculous situation. If a man who is resolved to blow his brains out is accosted, he presses the trigger, he doesn’t conceal his pistol. There was one alone, among all his friends, who loved him enough not to see the ludicrousness of his position; one alone generous enough not to torture him with raillery; it was Sauvresy.
But once seated before a well-filled table, Hector could not preserve his rigidity. He felt the joyous expansion of spirit which follows assured safety after terrible peril. He was himself, young again, once more strong. He told Sauvresy everything; his vain boasting, his terror at the last moment, his agony at the hotel, his fury, remorse, and anguish at the pawnbroker’s.
“Ah!” said he. “You have saved me! You are my friend, my only friend, my brother.”
They talked for more than two hours.
“Come,” said Sauvresy at last, “let us arrange our plans. You want to disappear awhile; I see that. But to-night you must write four lines to the papers. To-morrow I propose to take your affairs in hand, that’s a thing I know how to do. I don’t know exactly how you stand; but I will agree to save something from the wreck. We’ve got money, you see; your creditors will be easy with us.”
“But where shall I go?” asked Hector, whom the mere idea of isolation terrified.
“What? You’ll come home with me, parbleu, to Valfeuillu. Don’t you know that I am married? Ah, my friend, a happier man than I does not exist! I’ve married—for love—the loveliest and best of women. You will be a brother to us. But come, my carriage is right here near the door.”
1. The public pawnbroker establishment of Paris, which has branch bureaus through the city.
Chapter XIV
M. Plantat stopped. His companions had not suffered a gesture or a word to interrupt him. M. Lecoq, as he listened, reflected. He asked himself where M. Plantat could have got all these minute details. Who had written Tremorel’s terrible biography? As he glanced at the papers from which Plantat read, he saw that they were not all in the same handwriting.
The old justice of the peace pursued the story:
Bertha Lechaillu, though by an unhoped-for piece of good fortune she had become Madame Sauvresy, did not love her husband. She was the daughter of a poor country school-master, whose highest ambition had been to be an assistant teacher in a Versailles school; yet she was not now satisfied. Absolute queen of one of the finest domains in the land, surrounded by every luxury, spending as she pleased, beloved, adored, she was not content. Her life, so well regulated, so constantly smooth, without annoyances and disturbance, seemed to her insipid. There were always the same monotonous pleasures, always recurring each in its season. There were parties and receptions, horse rides, hunts, drives—and it was always thus! Alas, this was not the life she had dreamed of; she was born for more exciting pleasures. She yearned for unknown emotions and sensations, the unforeseen, abrupt transitions, passions, adventures. She had not liked Sauvresy from the first day she saw him, and her secret aversion to him increased in proportion as her influence over him grew more certain. She thought him common, vulgar, ridiculous. She thought the simplicity of his manners, silliness. She looked at him, and saw nothing in him to admire. She did not listen to him when he spoke, having already decided in her wisdom that he could say nothing that was not tedious or commonplace. She was angry that he had not been a wild young man, the terror of his family.
He had, however, done as other young men do. He had gone to Paris and tried the sort of life which his friend Tremorel led. He had enough of it in six months, and hastily returned to Valfeuillu, to rest after