Volume I Part 20 (1/2)
And he himself, placing his curly head, heavy as lead, on the old woman's knees, recalling the happy evenings of his childhood when he went to sleep that way if he were allowed to do so, if his older brother's head did not take up all the room--he enjoyed, for the first time since his return to France, a few moments of blissful repose, outside of his tumultuous artificial life, pressed against that old motherly heart which he could hear beating regularly, like the pendulum of the century-old clock standing in a corner of the room, in the profound silence of the night, which one can feel in the country, hovering over the boundless expanse. Suddenly the same long sigh, as of a child who has fallen asleep sobbing, was repeated at the farther end of the room.
”Is that--?”
”Yes,” she said, ”I have him sleep here. He might need me in the night.”
”I should like to see him, to embrace him.”
”Come.”
The old woman rose, took her lamp, led the way gravely to the alcove, where she softly drew aside the long curtain and motioned to her son to come, without making a noise.
He was asleep. And it was certain that something lived in him that was not there the day before, for, instead of the flaccid immobility in which he was mired all day, he was shaken at that moment by violent tremors, and on his expressionless, dead face there was a wrinkle of suffering life, a contraction as of pain. Jansoulet, profoundly moved, gazed at that thin, wasted, earth-colored face, on which the beard, having appropriated all the vitality of the body, grew with surprising vigor; then he stooped, placed his lips on the forehead moist with perspiration, and, feeling that he started, he said in a low tone, gravely, respectfully, as one addresses the head of the family:
”Good-evening, Aine.”
Perhaps the imprisoned mind heard him in the depths of its dark, degrading purgatory. But the lips moved and a long groan made answer; a far-off wail, a despairing appeal caused the glance Francoise and her son exchanged to overflow with impotent tears, and drew from them both a simultaneous cry in which their sorrows met: _Pecare!_ the local word expressive of all pity, all affection.
Early the next morning the uproar began with the arrival of the actors and actresses, an avalanche of caps, chignons, high boots, short petticoats, affected screams, veils floating over the fresh coats of rouge; the women were in a large majority, Cardailhac having reflected that, where a bey was concerned, the performance was of little consequence, that one need only emit false notes from pretty lips, show lovely arms and well-turned legs in the free-and-easy neglige of the operetta. All the plastic celebrities of his theatre were on hand, therefore, Amy Ferat at their head, a hussy who had already tried her eye-teeth on the gold of several crowns; also two or three famous comic actors, whose pallid faces produced the same effect of chalky, spectral blotches amid the bright green of the hedgerows as was produced by the plaster statuettes. All that motley crew, enlivened by the journey, the unfamiliar fresh air, and the copious hospitality, as well as by the hope of hooking something in that procession of beys, nabobs, and other purse-bearers, asked nothing better than to caper and sing and make merry, with the vulgar enthusiasm of a crowd of Seine boatmen ash.o.r.e on a lark. But Cardailhac did not propose to have it so. As soon as they had arrived, made their toilets and eaten their first breakfast, out came the books; we must rehea.r.s.e!--There was no time to lose. The rehearsals took place in the small salon near the summer gallery, where they were already beginning to build the stage; and the noise of the hammers, the humming of the refrains, the thin voices supported by the squeaking of the orchestra leader's violin, mingled with the loud trumpet-calls of the peac.o.c.ks on their perches, were blown to shreds in the mistral, which, failing to recognize the frantic chirping of its gra.s.shoppers, contemptuously whisked it all away on the whirling tips of its wings.
Sitting in the centre of the porch, as if it were the proscenium of his theatre, Cardailhac, while superintending the rehearsals, issued his commands to a mult.i.tude of workmen and gardeners, ordered trees to be felled which obstructed the view, drew sketches of the triumphal arches, sent despatches and messengers to mayors, to sub-prefects, to Arles to procure a deputation of girls of the province in the national costume, to Barbantane, where the most skilful dancers of the _farandole_ are to be found, to Faraman renowned for its herds of wild bulls and Camarguese horses; and as Jansoulet's name blazed forth at the foot of all these despatches, as the name of the Bey of Tunis also figured in them, everybody acquiesced with the utmost eagerness, the telegraphic messages arrived in an endless stream, and that little Sardanapalus from Porte-Saint-Martin, who was called Cardailhac, was forever repeating: ”There is something to work with;” delighted to throw gold about like handfuls of seed, to have a stage fifty leagues in circ.u.mference to arrange, all Provence, of which country that fanatical Parisian was a native, and thoroughly familiar with its resources in the direction of the picturesque.
Dispossessed of her functions, the old lady seldom appeared, gave her attention solely to the farm and her invalid, terrified by that crowd of visitors, those insolent servants whom one could not distinguish from their masters, those women with brazen, coquettish manners, those closely-shaven old villains who resembled wicked priests, all those mad creatures who chased one another through the halls at night with much throwing of pillows, wet sponges, and curtain ta.s.sels which they tore off to use as projectiles. She no longer had her son in the evening, for he was obliged to remain with his guests, whose number increased as the time for the fetes drew near; nor had she even the resource of talking about her grandsons with ”Monsieur Paul,” whom Jansoulet, always the kindest of men, being a little awed by his friend's seriousness of manner, had sent away to pa.s.s a few days with his brothers. And the careful housekeeper, to whom some one came every moment and seized her keys to get spare linen or silverware, to open another room, thinking of the throwing open of her stores of treasures, of the plundering of her wardrobes and her sideboards, remembering the condition in which the visit of the former bey had left the chateau, devastated as by a cyclone, said in her patois, feverishly moistening the thread of her distaff:
”May G.o.d's fire devour all beys and all future beys!”
At last the day arrived, the famous day of which people still talk throughout the whole province. Oh! about three o'clock in the afternoon, after a sumptuous breakfast presided over by the old mother with a new Cambrai cap on her head,--a breakfast at which, side by side with Parisian celebrities, prefects were present and deputies, all in full dress, with swords at their sides, mayors in their scarfs of office, honest cures cleanly shaven,--when Jansoulet, in black coat and white cravat, surrounded by his guests, went out upon the stoop and saw, framed in that magnificent landscape, amid flags and arches and ensigns, that swarm of heads, that sea of brilliant costumes rising tier above tier on the slopes and thronging the paths; here, grouped in a nosegay on the lawn, the prettiest girls of Arles, whose little white faces peeped sweetly forth from lace neckerchiefs; below, the _farandole_ from Barbantane, its eight tambourines in a line, ready for the word, hand in hand, ribbons fluttering in the wind, hats over one ear, the red _taillote_ about the loins; still lower, in the succession of terraces, the choral societies drawn up in line, all black beneath their bright-hued caps, the banner-bearer in advance, serious and resolved, with clenched teeth, holding aloft his carved staff; lower still, on an immense _rond-point_, black bulls in shackles, and Camargue gauchos on their little horses with long white manes, their leggings above their knees, brandis.h.i.+ng their spears; and after them more flags and helmets and bayonets, reaching to the triumphal arch at the entrance; then, as far as the eye could see on the other side of the Rhone,--over which two gangs of workmen had just thrown a bridge of boats, so that they could drive from the station to Saint-Romans in a straight line,--was an immense crowd, whole villages pouring down from all the hills, overflowing on the Giffas road in a wilderness of noise and dust, seated on the edge of the ditches, swarming among the elms, piled upon wagons, a formidable living lane for the procession to pa.s.s through; and over it all a huge white sun whose arrows a capricious breeze sent in every direction, from the copper of a tambourine to the point of a spear and the fringe of a banner, while the mighty Rhone, high-spirited and free, bore away to the ocean the s.h.i.+fting tableaux of that royal fete. In presence of those marvels, in which all the gold in his coffers shone resplendent, the Nabob felt a thrill of admiration and pride.
”It is fine,” he said, turning pale, and his mother, standing behind him, as pale as he, but from indescribable terror, murmured:
”It is too fine for any man. One would think that G.o.d was coming.”
The feeling of the devout old peasant woman was much the same as that vaguely experienced by all those people who had a.s.sembled on the roads as if to watch the pa.s.sage of a colossal procession on Corpus Christi, and who were reminded by that visit of an Oriental prince to a child of the province, of the legends of the Magian kings, the arrival of Gaspard the Moor bringing to the carpenter's son the myrrh and the crown.
Amid the heartfelt congratulations that were showered on Jansoulet, Cardailhac, who had not been seen since morning, suddenly appeared, triumphant and perspiring.
”Didn't I tell you that there was something to work with! Eh? Isn't this _chic_? There's a grouping for you! I fancy our Parisians would pay something handsome to attend a first performance like this.”
He lowered his voice because the mother was close by:
”Have you seen our Arles girls? No, look at them more carefully--the first one, the one standing in front to offer the bouquet.”
”Why, that's Amy Ferat!”
”_Parbleu!_ you can see yourself, my dear fellow, that if the bey throws his handkerchief into that bevy of pretty girls, there must be at least one who knows enough to pick it up. Those innocent creatures wouldn't know what it meant! Oh! I have thought of everything, you'll see. It's all mounted and arranged as if it were on the stage. Farm side, garden side.”
At that point, to give an idea of the perfectness of his organization, the manager raised his cane; his gesture was instantly repeated from end to end of the park, with the result that all the musical societies, all the trumpets, all the tambourines burst forth in unison in the majestic strains of the familiar song of the South: _Grand Soleil de la Provence_. The voices, the brazen notes ascended into the light, swelling the folds of the banners, giving the signal to the dancers of the _farandole_, who began to sway back and forth, to go through their first antics where they stood, while, on the other side of the river, a murmur ran through the crowd like a breeze, caused doubtless by the fear that the bey had arrived unexpectedly from another direction. A second gesture from the manager and the great orchestra subsided, more gradually, with _rallentando_ pa.s.sages and meteoric showers of notes scattered among the foliage; but nothing better could be expected from a company of three thousand persons.
Just then the carriages appeared, the state carriages which had figured in the festivities in honor of the former bey, two great pink and gold chariots _a la mode de Tunis_, which Mother Jansoulet had taken care of as precious relics, and which came forth from the carriage-house with their varnished panels, their hangings and gold fringe as bright and fresh as when they were new. There again Cardailhac's ingenuity had exerted itself freely, and instead of horses, which were a little heavy for those fragile-looking, daintily decorated vehicles, the white reins guided eight mules with ribbons, plumes, and silver bells upon their heads, and caparisoned from head to foot with those marvellous _sparteries_, of which Provence seems to have borrowed the secret from the Moors and to have perfected the cunning art of manufacturing.
If the bey were not satisfied with that!