Читать книгу The Complete Works of Emile Zola - Emile Zola - Страница 56

HOW M. DE CAZALIS AVENGED HIS NIECE’S DISHONOUR

THE lovers had eloped on a Wednesday. On the following Friday all Marseille knew the story; the gossips on their doorsteps embellished the adventure with many dramatic details; the nobility was indignant, whilst the middle-class folk had a hearty laugh. M. de Cazalis, in his rage, had done everything to increase the racket and turn his niece’s flight into a frightful scandal.

Clear-sighted people easily accounted for his show of anger. M. de Cazalis was a deputy of the opposition and had been returned at Marseille by a majority composed of a few liberals, some priests, and members of the aristocracy. Devoted to the cause of legitimacy, bearing one of the most ancient names of Provence, bowing humbly before all-powerful Mother Church, he had experienced considerable repugnance in flattering the liberals and receiving their votes. In his eyes they were merely varlets, servants, fit only to be whipped in the public streets. His indomitable pride suffered at the thought of lowering itself to their level.

Yet he had been obliged to bow before them. The liberals noised abroad the services they were rendering, and for a time a pretence was made of disdaining their assistance; but when they talked of intervening in the election by naming one of their own party as a candidate, M. de Cazalis was forced by circumstances to bury his hatred in the depths of his heart, promising himself his revenge on some future occasion. Then the most shameless jobbery was resorted to; the clergy took the field, votes were secured right and left, thanks to innumerable civilities and promises, with the result that M. de Cazalis was elected.

And here was Philippe Cayol, one of the leaders of the liberal party fallen into his hands. At last he would be able to gratify his hatred on the person of one of the louts who had bargained with him for his return to the Chamber. He should be made to pay for all; his relatives should be ruined and plunged into despair; and as for him, he should be thrown into prison, precipitated from the height of his dream of love on to the straw of a dungeon.

What! a little nobody had dared to win the love of the niece of a Cazalis! He had led her away with him, and now they were both roving along the roads, attending the hedge-school of love. It was a scandal to be made much of. An ordinary person would perhaps have preferred to hush it up, to conceal the deplorable adventure as far as possible; but a Cazalis, deputy and millionaire, was possessed of sufficient influence and pride to proclaim the shame of a relative abroad without a blush.

What mattered a young girl’s honour! All the world might know that Blanche de Cazalis had eloped with Philippe Cayol, but no one should be able to say that she was his wife, that she had degraded herself by marrying a poor devil without a handle to his name. Pride required that the child should remain dishonoured, and that her dishonour should be posted on the walls of Marseille.

M. de Cazalis had bills placarded in all the squares of the city, promising ten thousand francs reward to whosoever would bring him his niece and her seducer bound hand and foot. When one loses a pure-bred dog it is also usual to advertise for it.

Among the upper classes, the scandal spread still more noisily. M. de Cazalis disseminated his rage everywhere. He availed himself of the influence of his friends, of the clergy, and nobility. As guardian of Blanche who was an orphan, and as trustee of her fortune, he urged on the authorities in their search, and drew up the indictment of the accused. It might be said that he took pains to procure the greatest possible publicity for the gratis show about to begin.

One of the first measures he resorted to was to secure the arrest of Philippe Cayol’s mother. When the crown-attorney presented himself she replied to all questions that she did not know her son’s whereabouts. Her confusion, her anguish, her mother’s fears, which made her hesitate, were no doubt considered so many proofs of complicity. She was sent to prison, more as a hostage, and possibly in the hope that her son would surrender himself in order to secure her release.

When Marius heard of his mother’s arrest he almost went mad. He knew she was in delicate health, and pictured her, with terror, shut up in a bare and icy cold cell; she would die there, tortured by all the pangs of suffering and despair.

Marius was also suspected at the outset. But his firm answers, and the bail that his employer, the shipowner Martelly, offered on his behalf, saved him from imprisonment. He wanted to remain free in order to work for the salvation of his family.

Little by little his upright mind was able to properly weigh the facts. At first, he had been overwhelmed by Philippe’s guilt, he had seen only the irreparable wrong his brother had done. And he had humbled himself, desiring solely to calm Blanche’s uncle and give him every reparation possible. But, in face of the deputy’s rigour, of the scandal he was raising, the young man had a revulsion of feeling. He had seen the fugitives, and knew that Blanche was voluntarily accompanying Philippe, and he was indignant at hearing the latter accused of abduction. Hard words flew around him: his brother was called a scoundrel, a villain, and his mother did not come off much better. In consequence, his love of truth prompted him to defend the lovers, to take the part of the fugitives even against the authorities. Besides which, the deputy’s noisy accusations sickened him. He felt that true grief is dumb, and that an affair in which a young girl’s honour is at stake should not be ventilated in public. And he felt all this, not because he wished to see his brother escape chastisement, but because his delicacy was wounded by all this publicity given to a child’s shame. Moreover, he knew the meaning of the deputy’s rage; by striking Philippe, he was striking far more the republican than the abductor.

Marius was thus in his turn overcome with anger. He was insulted through his family — his mother cast into prison, his brother tracked like a wild beast, his dearest affections dragged in the mud — they were the victims of bad faith and passion. At this he held up his head again. The guilt was not all on the side of the ambitious lover who had eloped with a wealthy young lady, it was equally the portion of him who was stirring up Marseille, and who intended using all his power to satisfy his pride. Since the authorities had undertaken to punish the first, Marius swore that sooner or later he would punish the second, and that in the meantime he would upset his plans and endeavour to counterbalance the influence his wealth and birth gave him.

From this moment, Marius displayed febrile energy, he devoted himself entirely to the preservation of his mother and brother. Unfortunately he was unable to learn what had become of Philippe. Two days after the flight, he had received a letter in which the fugitive implored him to send him a thousand francs to defray the expenses of his journey. The letter was dated from Lambesc.

Philippe had there found a few days’ hospitality in the house of M. de Girousse, an old friend of the family. M. de Girousse, who was the son of a former member of the parliament of Aix, was born in the midst of revolution. At his first breath he had inhaled the burning atmosphere of ‘89, and his blood had always preserved a little of the revolutionary fever. He felt uncomfortable in his mansion on the Cours at Aix; in his eyes the nobility of the town seemed possessed of such inordinate pride, such deplorable inertness, that he judged it severely and preferred to live at a distance from it. His upright mind, his love of logic had helped him to accept the new order of things, and he willingly held out his hand to the people and accommodated himself to the tendencies of modern society. At one time he had thought of founding a factory, and of exchanging his title of count for that of manufacturer, considering that now-a-days the only nobility is the nobility of talent and labour. And as he preferred living alone, away from his equals, he stayed the greater part of the year on an estate he owned near the little town of Lambesc. It was there that he had harboured the fugitives.

Marius was overwhelmed by Philippe’s request. His savings did not amount to more than six hundred francs. He bestirred himself, and during two days endeavoured to borrow the remainder of the amount. One morning, when he was beginning to despair, Fine called upon him. He had confided his trouble to the young woman the day before; she had been for ever on his footsteps since Philippe’s flight and constantly asking for news of his brother, being apparently most anxious to know whether the young lady was still with him. Fine laid five hundred francs on a table.

“There,” she said, with a blush. “You can return it to me later on. It’s some money I put aside to purchase my brother’s discharge, if he was drawn in the conscription.”

Marius would not accept it.

“You’re making me waste my time,” resumed Fine, with charming abruptness. “I must hurry back to my flowers. But if you don’t mind, I’ll call here every morning for news.”

And she hastened away.

Marius sent the thousand francs. Then he heard nothing further, but passed a whole fortnight in complete ignorance of the march of events. He knew Philippe was being relentlessly hunted down, and that was all. He would not believe the grotesque or frightful stories that were current with the public. He had enough with his own fears, without being frightened at the gossip of the town. He had never in his life before suffered so much. His anxiety nearly drove him mad; the least sound frightened him; he was for ever on the alert as though expecting some bad news at any moment. He heard that Philippe had gone to Toulon and had almost been arrested there. The fugitives, it was said, had then returned to Aix. There, all trace of them was lost. Had they attempted to cross the frontier? Had they remained in hiding among the hills? No one seemed to know.

Marius was all the more anxious because he had been obliged to neglect his work at the shipowner Martelly’s. If he had not been fixed to his desk by duty, he would have hastened to Philippe’s assistance, and would have personally occupied himself with his safety. But he dared not leave the business where his services were required. M. Martelly showed him quite a paternal sympathy. A widower for several years past and living with one of his sisters, who was twenty-three years of age, he treated Marius like a son. On the morrow of the scandal raised by M. de Cazalis, the shipowner called the young man into his private office.

“Ah! my friend,” he exclaimed, “this is a very unpleasant matter. Your brother is done for. We shall never be strong enough to save him from the terrible consequences of his folly!”

M. Martelly belonged to the liberal party, and was noted for the southern violence of his opinions. He had already had some spars with M. de Cazalis, and therefore knew his man. His strict probity, his immense fortune, placed him beyond all attack; but he possessed the haughtiness of his liberalism, and took a sort of pride in never making use of his power. He advised Marius to keep quiet and await events; he would render him all his assistance, once the struggle was started. Marius, consumed by his fever, was about to ask him for leave of absence, when Fine, all in tears, appeared one morning before him.

“The gentleman has been arrested!” she exclaimed, between her sobs. “They found him, with the young lady, in a cottage in the Trois-bons-Dieux quarter, about a league from Aix.”

And, as Marius, greatly agitated, rushed downstairs to make inquiries, which only too fully bore out the truth of Fine’s statement, she, still in tears, smiled and said in a low voice:

“At any rate, the young lady is no longer with him.”