The Nabob. Alphonse Daudet
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haughty mien of an exceptional being.
Somebody near him mentioned her name—Felicia Ruys. At once he understood the rare attraction of this young girl, the continuer of her father’s genius, whose budding celebrity had penetrated even to the remote country district where he had lived, with the aureole of reputed beauty. While he stood gazing at her, admiring her least gestures, a little perplexed by the enigma of her handsome countenance, he heard whispers behind him.
“But see how pleasant she is with the Nabob! If the duke were to come in!”
“The Duc de Mora is coming?”
“Certainly. It is for him that the party is given; to bring about a meeting between him and Jansoulet.”
“And you think that the duke and Mlle. Ruys——”
“Where have you come from? It is an intrigue known to all Paris. The affair dates from the last exhibition, for which she did a bust of him.”
“And the duchess?”
“Bah! it is not her first experience of that sort. Ah! there is Mme. Jenkins going to sing.”
There was a movement in the drawing-room, a more violent swaying of the crowd near the door, and conversation ceased for a moment. Paul de Gery breathed. What he had just heard had oppressed his heart. He felt himself reached, soiled, by this mud flung in handfuls over the ideal which in his own mind he had formed of that splendid adolescence, matured by the sun of Art to so penetrating a charm. He moved away a little, changed his place. He feared to hear again some whispered infamy. Mme. Jenkins’s voice did him good, a voice that was famous in the drawing-rooms of Paris and that in spite of all its magnificence had nothing theatrical about it, but seemed an emotional utterance vibrating over unstudied sonorities. The singer, a woman of forty or forty-five, had splendid ash-blond hair, delicate, rather nerveless features, a striking expression of kindness. Still good-looking, she was dressed in the costly taste of a woman who has not given up the thought of pleasing. Indeed, she was far from having given it up. Married a dozen years ago, for a second time, to the doctor, they seemed still to be at the first months of their dual happiness. While she sang a popular Russian melody, savage and sweet like the smile of a Slav, Jenkins was ingenuously proud, without seeking to dissimulate the fact, his broad face all beaming; and she, each time that she bent her head as she regained her breath, glanced in his direction a timid, affectionate smile that flew to seek him over the unfolded music. And then, when she had finished amid an admiring and delighted murmur, it was touching to notice how discreetly she gave her husband’s hand a secret squeeze, as though to secure to themselves a corner of private bliss in the midst of her great triumph. Young de Gery was feeling cheered by the spectacle of this happy couple, when quite close to him a voice murmured—it was not, however, the same voice that he had heard just before:
“You know what they say—that the Jenkinses are not married.”
“How absurd!”
“I assure you. It would seem that there is a veritable Mme. Jenkins somewhere, but not the lady we know. Besides, have you noticed——”
The dialogue continued in an undertone. Mme. Jenkins advanced, bowing, smiling, while the doctor, stopping a tray that was being borne round, brought her a glass of claret with the alacrity of a mother, an impresario, a lover. Calumny, calumny, ineffaceable defilement! To the provincial young man, Jenkins’s attentions now seemed exaggerated. He fancied that there was something affected about them, something deliberate, and, too, in the words of thanks which she addressed in a low voice to her husband he thought he could detect a timidity, a submissiveness, not consonant with the dignity of the legitimate spouse, glad and proud in an assured happiness. “But Society is a hideous affair!” said de Gery to himself, dismayed and with cold hands. The smiles around him had upon him the effect of hypocritical grimaces. He felt shame and disgust. Then suddenly revolting: “Come, it is not possible.” And, as though in reply to this exclamation, behind him the scandalous tongue resumed in an easy tone: “After all, you know, I cannot vouch for its truth. I am only repeating what I have heard. But look! Baroness Hemerlingue. He gets all Paris, this Jenkins.”
The baroness moved forward on the arm of the doctor, who had rushed to meet her, and appeared, despite all his control of his facial muscles, a little ill at ease and discomfited. He had thought, the good Jenkins, to profit by the opportunity afforded by this evening party to bring about a reconciliation between his friend Hemerlingue and his friend Jansoulet, who were his two most wealthy clients and embarrassed him greatly with their intestine feud. The Nabob was perfectly willing. He bore his old chum no grudge. Their quarrel had arisen out of Hemerlingue’s marriage with one of the favourites of the last Bey. “A story with a woman at the bottom of it, in short,” said Jansoulet, and a story which he would have been glad to see come to an end, since his exuberant nature found every antipathy oppressive. But it seemed that the baron was not anxious for any settlement of their differences; for, notwithstanding his word passed to Jenkins, his wife arrived alone, to the Irishman’s great chagrin.
She was a tall, slender, frail person, with eyebrows that suggested a bird’s plumes, and a youthful intimidated manner. She was aged about thirty but looked twenty, and wore a head-dress of grasses and ears of corn drooping over very black hair peppered with diamonds. With her long lashes against cheeks white with that transparency of complexion which characterizes women who have long led a cloistered existence, and a little ill at ease in her Parisian clothes, she resembled less one who had formerly been a woman of the harem than a nun who, having renounced her vows, was returning into the world.
An air of piety, of extreme devoutness, in her bearing, a certain ecclesiastical trick of walking with downcast eyes, elbows close to the body, hands crossed, mannerisms which she had acquired in the very religious atmosphere in which she had lived since her conversion and her recent baptism, completed this resemblance. And you can imagine with what ardent curiosity that worldly assembly regarded this quondam odalisk turned fervent Catholic, as she advanced escorted by a man with a livid countenance like that of some spectacled sacristan, Maitre le Merquier, deputy of Lyons, Hemerlingue’s man of business, who accompanied the baroness whenever the baron “was somewhat indisposed,” as on this evening.
At their entry into the second drawing-room, the Nabob came straight up to her, expecting to see appear in her wake the puffy face of his old comrade to whom it was agreed that he should go and offer his hand. The baroness perceived him and became still whiter. A flash as of steel shot from beneath her long lashes. Her nostrils dilated, quivered, and, as Jansoulet bowed, she quickened her step, carrying her head high and erect, and letting fall from her thin lips an Arab word which no one else could understand but of which the Nabob himself well appreciated the insult; for, as he raised his head again, his tanned face was of the colour of baked earthenware as it leaves the furnace. He stood for an instant without moving, his huge fists clinched, his mouth swollen with anger. Jenkins came up and rejoined him, and de Gery, who had followed the whole scene from a distance, saw them talking together with preoccupied air.
The thing was a failure. The reconciliation, so cunningly planned, would not take place. Hemerlingue did not desire it. If only the duke, now, did not fail to keep his engagement with them. This reflection was prompted by the lateness of the hour. The Wauters who was to sing the music of the Night from the Enchanted Flute, on her way home from her theatre, had just entered, completely muffled in her hoods of lace.
And there was still no sign of the Minister.
It was, however, a clearly understood, definitely promised arrangement. Monpavon was to call for him at the club. From time to time the good Jenkins glanced at his watch, while applauding absently the bouquet of brilliant notes which the Wauters was pouring forth from her fairy lips, a bouquet costing three thousand francs, useless, like the other expenses of the evening, if the duke did not come.
Suddenly the double doors were flung wide open:
“His excellency M. le Duc de Mora!”
A long quiver of excitement welcomed him, a respectful curiosity that ranged itself in two rows instead of the mobbing crowd that flocked on the heels of the Nabob.
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