Читать книгу Human Follies (La Bêtise Humaine.) - Jules Noriac - Страница 6

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Paris is the dream of all provincialists. Rich and poor want to come here, at least once,—the first to enjoy life, the second to try to make their fortunes. No one can imagine the disappointment of these visitors, since each one has had his own peculiar ideas of the metropolis. For some, Paris is an immense succession of palaces; for others, the houses are built of gold and precious stones.

Paris never comes up to the ideas strangers have formed of it. In order to love and admire this great city, one must become acquainted with it. The inhabitants of the South, particularly, are greatly disappointed on arriving at the capital. Their imagination, more lively than that of the people of the North, embellishes the metropolis in a thousand different ways. As if to punish them for their imaginary castles, accident has always made them enter the city at its homeliest point. Before the railroad was built, the people of the South arrived at the Barrière d’Enfer. To them Paris presented a sorry aspect; to those who arrive now it presents no aspect at all.

Eusebe, on leaving the depot, walked straight ahead, valise in hand.

He saw the Seine, which he thought narrow. Then he came to a bridge, which he thought shabby. But all at once his face brightened up with an expression of delight: he was opposite the garden of the Museum.

“At last,” said he, “here is something worth looking at. What a beautiful, what an immense, garden! How admirably it is cultivated! It is unfortunate that a sentinel is placed at the gate to keep people from entering: it is ridiculous. But it is said there are a great many thieves in this immense city.”

Eusebe approached the soldier who guarded the entrance to the garden, and said,—

“Be so kind as to tell me the name of this magnificent enclosure.”

“Enclosure!” repeated the soldier: “don’t know.”

“I ask you the name of this enclosure.”

“Enclosure! Not known to the regiment.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Eusebe, mildly: “I simply want to know the name of this garden that you guard so well.”

“Ah! ah!” replied the son of Mars. “Should express yourself categorically, young man. That is called the Garden of Plants.” (Jardin des Plantes.)

“Thank you,” said Eusebe; but, as he turned to go, he made this reflection, which seemed to him sensible:—

“Garden of Plants: that is not a name. All gardens have plants; gardens give birth to plants, and a garden without plants would not be a garden. This soldier has evidently deceived me.”

Seeing an old man sitting on a bench enjoying the autumn sun, Eusebe, approaching him, took off his hat respectfully, and said,—

“I am a stranger, sir. Excuse me for troubling you, but I should like to know the name of this superb park.”

“I am glad, sir,” said the old man, kindly, “that I am able to tell you. The grounds that you see yonder are the garden of the king.”

“Of the emperor, you mean to say.”

“I mean to say what I say; and believe me, sir, it is not very becoming in a youth of your age to amuse himself at the expense of an old man like me. If it was for that you stopped, you would have done better to have kept on your way.”

Eusebe, not knowing what to reply, passed on, thinking himself really unfortunate. Since he left the Capelette, he had fallen from Charybdis into Scylla. The railroad agent had bullied him; the two travellers had laughed at him; the cabman had insulted him; the soldier had deceived him; and the old man had abused him. He began to think he would have to undergo a great deal in becoming acquainted with the world, and that the Parisians were not so highly civilized as they were generally supposed to be.

At this moment he was interrupted in his reflections by the cries of a woman. The people gathered around her, and he followed their example.

“What is the matter with this woman?” he asked of his neighbor.

“Her husband,” replied the spectator, “was a native of Auvergnat, a tradesman, who rented this shop six months ago. Business has not been good with him. His wife is a shrew, and his landlord an unfeeling Jew, who wanted to make him leave the premises. The poor man was unable to endure so many misfortunes, and has just hung himself. From where I stand you could see him hanging at the end of a cord. They have gone to inform the authorities.”

Eusebe stretched out his arms, thrust the crowd aside, and, with one bound, entered the shop, knife in hand.

“Stop!” cried the spectators. “Stop, young man! You will get into trouble. Wait for the officers. The law forbids you to touch persons who hang themselves. You will wish you had let him alone.”

Without listening to any of these remonstrances, the young man had cut the cord and placed the poor shopkeeper on a chair. With a motion of the hand he had kept back the crowd, that intercepted the air, and, on his knees before the Auvergnat, he watched anxiously for some signs of returning life.

All at once a murmur was heard in the crowd.

“Here comes the commissary! Here is M. Bézieux. Make way for the commissary.”

The magistrate advanced quietly. There was a pleasing benevolence in his expression, as his mild but piercing eyes ran over the group. The representative of the law arrived slowly, and without any appearance of being annoyed, to verify the sinister event that had just been announced to him.

“Where is the suicide?” demanded the magistrate.

For an instant the group was still, appearing to hesitate between anxiety to speak and silence. The bad instincts, however, soon got the ascendency, and, pointing to Eusebe, three or four persons cried out,—

“It was this young man who cut the cord: it was impossible for us to stop him.”

“He did perfectly right,” said the magistrate. “Although younger than any one of you, he greatly surpasses you all in good sense. You ought to know that the idea is absurd that it is dangerous to assist an individual who attempts to commit suicide, or has been assassinated, before the arrival of the officers of justice. The magistrates come simply to take cognizance of the fact. It is the duty of every good citizen to save the lives of his fellow-men by every means in his power. The stupid tradition which makes the vulgar suppose one ought not to assist a man in danger, is not, however, without foundation. It unfortunately happened in the Middle Ages, and even before and after that period, that some individuals, who, at the risk of their lives, ventured to assist persons attacked by assassins, were arrested under the supposition that they were themselves the murderers, and as such they were executed; but in the enlightened age in which we live, with the means for ascertaining the truth at our command, justice cannot be mistaken.”

“I would not trust to it,—not I,” murmured a ragpicker, who had been a calm spectator of the drama of which the shop had been the scene. “I don’t pretend to say that justice can be mistaken, but I would not trust to it: I, for my part, prefer keeping on the safe side. There are a great many strange things now-a-days.”

“Sir,” said the commissary to Eusebe, who was anxiously watching the convulsive movements of the Auvergnat, “your conduct in this affair merits the highest commendation.”

“Not at all,” replied the young man, timidly.

“I beg your pardon,” rejoined the magistrate, who had misinterpreted Eusebe’s reply: “a man, whoever he may be, is still a man, and as such is a member of the great family which we call humanity.”

“Certainly, sir; you are perfectly right,” said the young man, who sought in vain for profundity in the good-natured officer’s reply. He then added, “This man, sir, was driven to this unnatural deed by poverty. I wish to assist him.”

“This desire does you honor.”

“Here,” continued Eusebe, “is a paper of the Bank of France, which is worth fifty louis, and each louis, as you doubtless know, is worth twenty twenty-sous pieces. Be so kind as to give it to him, if he will promise not to make another attempt to commit suicide until his money is gone. It is probable that by that time Providence, who has preserved him to-day, will make provision for his future welfare.”

The magistrate looked at Eusebe attentively. His dress, which was more than plain, his manner of expressing himself, his timidity, his gestures, and even the belt that contained his treasure, puzzled the functionary in a manner which he did not try to conceal. This honorable magistrate, who by years of experience in his profession had learned to form a tolerably correct opinion of men at a glance, was at a loss to know what to think of the singular being he had before him. The clerk, who imagined what was passing in the brain of the commissary, was as much perplexed as his superior. Nevertheless, as a murmur of applause and some words in favor of the young stranger ran through the circle, the worthy functionary thought the time propitious for ventilating his ideas in a short discourse. Addressing himself now to the crowd, and now to Eusebe, he was thus delivered:—

“If it is beautiful and rare to find presence of mind and reason united in youth, it is certainly not less honorable to add to these qualities philanthropy. Not only did you wish to save this man (and you have saved him), but you now desire to assure the existence he owes you. This I call sublime. Such acts, sir, do so great honor to their author that our thanks would be out of place: he finds his reward in his heart. What recompense is to be compared to the consciousness of having been a benefactor? Allow me, sir, to ask your name, in order that I may send it in to the Administration, which knows how to appreciate such disinterestedness.”

“My name is Eusebe Martin.”

“Are you a relation of M. Martin, of the Tribunal of Commerce?”

“I think not. I have just arrived from Limousin. I know no one in Paris.”

“You are quite young.”

“Twenty-one.”

“I am glad of it; for were you not of age I could not accept your gift.”

“I don’t know,” said Eusebe.

The commissary looked at the clerk with astonishment.

“You have a trade?”

“No. I came to Paris to admire civilization and study life.”

“Study life!” said the clerk, who was inclined to be humorous. “He is not a physician.”

The magistrate was lost in conjectures.

“What is your father’s business?” he inquired.

“My father, sir, lives at the Capelette. His chief employment is to seek where truth and falsehood are to be found.”

“Be so kind as to accompany me,” said the functionary, dryly, making a sign to the crowd to stand aside and let them pass.

Eusebe bowed without replying, and walked along beside the commissary, which allowed him to hear the clerk say to his superior,—

“The poor fellow is stark mad.”

To which the magistrate replied,—

“That is very evident.”

Eusebe felt the blood mount to his cheeks, not from fear, but from shame. He thought they took him for a fool because he was so ignorant.

This unexpected departure was interpreted in different ways by the curious, who had not heard the dialogue.

“They are going to give him the cross,” (of the Legion of Honor,) said a naïve policeman.

“The cross! Oh, very likely, since it is the police that gives the cross now-a-days!” replied a wag, in a white blouse.

“Why not?”

“Because it is not in their power.”

“They have power enough to put you where the dogs won’t bite you, you blackguard!”

“Hear! hear!”

“Did you hear?” said a woman with a handkerchief over her head; “did you hear? He began by saying the young man did right in cutting the rope, and still he has arrested him all the same.”

“Just as though he was obliged to go!”

A quarter of an hour later, a physician hurried through the crowd, crying,—

“Where is the patient?”

The unfortunate shopkeeper was in one corner, studying how he could possess himself of the thousand francs without letting his wife know it, while she had followed the commissary, hoping to get the money without the knowledge of her husband.