The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 5 of 6

"Seized you by the throat?"

"You are quite wrong. He looked at me first with a bewildered air; then letting fall his handkerchief, he threw himself into my arms, exclaiming, 'Oh, I am very unhappy!'"

"What a farce!"

"Well, but that did not prevent his voice – in spite of his death's-head look – from being so distressing, I may say so imploring – "

"Imploring! Come, come, no gammon! Why, there is no night-owl with a cold in her head which is not music to the governor's voice."

"That may be; but yet at this moment his voice was so plaintive that I was almost affected. 'Sir,' I said to him, believe me – ' 'Let me! – let me!' replied he, interrupting me. 'It is so consoling to be able to say to any one that we are suffering!' He evidently mistook me for some other person. You may suppose that when he thus addressed me I felt sure it was a mistake, or that he had a brain fever. I disengaged myself from him, saying, 'Sir, compose yourself, it is I!' Then he looked at me with a stupid air, and exclaimed, 'Who is it? Who's there? What do you want with me?' And he passed, at each question, his hand over his brow, as if to dispel the cloud which obscured his mind."

"Which obscured his mind! Capital! Well spoken! We'll get up a melodrama amongst us!

"'Methinks a man with such a power of words,Should try his hand at melodrame!'"

"Chalamel, will you be quiet?"

"What could ail the governor?"

"Ma foi! How can I tell? But of this I'm sure, that when he recovers he'll sing to another tune, for he frowned terribly, and said to me sharply, without giving me time to reply, 'What did you come for? Have you been here long? Am I to be surrounded with spies? What did I say? Reply – answer!' Ma foi! he looked so savage that I replied, 'I heard nothing, sir; I only this moment entered.' 'You are not deceiving me?' 'No, sir.' 'Well, what do you want?' 'Some signatures, sir.' 'Give me the papers!' And then he signed and signed – without reading – half a dozen notarial deeds; he who never put his initials to a deed without spelling it over word by word, and twice over from one end to the other. I remarked that from time to time his hand relaxed in the middle of his signature, as if he were absorbed in some fixed idea; then he went on signing very quick, and, as it were, convulsively. When all were signed he told me to retire, and I heard him descend the small staircase which leads from his room to the courtyard."

"I still ask what can be the matter with him?"

"Gentlemen, it is perhaps Madame Séraphin whom he regrets."

"He? What, he regret any one?"

"Now I think of it, the porter said that the curé of Bonne Nouvelle and the vicar had called several times to see the governor, and he was denied to them. Is not that surprising? – they who almost lived here!"

"What puzzles me is to know what the workpeople are at."

"They have been working at the pavilion three days running."

"And one evening they brought furniture covered up with a carpet."

"Perhaps he feels remorse for having put Germain into prison?"

"Talking of Germain, he will have some fine recruits in his prison, poor fellow! For I read in the Gazette des Tribunaux that the band of robbers and assassins, whom they seized in the Champs Elysées, in one of the small underground public-houses, had been locked up in La Force."

"Poor Germain! What society for him!"

"Louise Morel, too, will have her share of the recruits; for in this gang, they say, there is a whole family of thieves."

"Then they will send the women to St. Lazare, where Louise is?"

"Perhaps it was some of that gang who stabbed the countess, one of the governor's clients. He has often sent me to inquire after the state of this countess, and seems much interested in her recovery."

"Did they let you enter the house and see the spot where the assassination was committed?"

"Oh, no! I could not go farther than the entrance; and the porter was not at all a person inclined to talk."

"Gents, gents, take your places; here's the gov'nor coming up!" shouted Hop-the-Gutter, coming into the office with the carcass still in his hand.

The young men instantly took their seats at their respective desks, over which they bent, handling their pens with great dexterity; whilst Hop-the-Gutter deposited his turkey's skeleton in a box filled with law papers.

Jacques Ferrand entered the room. His red hair, mingled with gray, escaping from beneath an old black silk cap, fell in disorder down each side of his temples. Some of the veins which marbled his head appeared injected with blood, whilst his face, his flat nose, his furrowed cheeks, were all of ghastly paleness. The expression of his look, concealed by his large green spectacles, could not be seen; but the great alteration in the man's features announced the ravages of a consuming passion.

He crossed the office slowly, without saying a word to one of the clerks, or without even appearing to notice that they were there; then went into the room in which the chief clerk was employed, traversed it as well as his own cabinet, and again instantly descended the small staircase which led to the courtyard.

Jacques Ferrand having left all the doors open behind him, the clerks had a right to be astonished at the strange demeanour of their employer, who had come up one staircase and gone down another without pausing for a moment in any of the apartments he had mechanically traversed.

CHAPTER IV

AVOID TEMPTATION!

It is night. Profound silence reigns in the pavilion inhabited by Jacques Ferrand, interrupted only at intervals by gusts of wind and the dashing of rain, which falls in torrents. These melancholy sounds seemed to render still more complete the solitude of this abode. In a sleeping-room in the first floor, very nicely and newly furnished, and covered with a thick carpet, a young female is standing up before a fireplace, in which there is a cheerful blaze. It is strange, but in the centre of the door, carefully bolted, and which is opposite to the bed, is a small glass door, five or six inches square, which opens from the outside. A small reflecting lamp casts a half shadow in this chamber, hung with garnet-coloured paper; the curtains of the bed and the window, as well as the cover of the large sofa, are of silk and woollen damask of the same colour. We are precise in the details of this demi-luxury so recently imported into the notary's residence, because it announces a complete revolution in the habits of Jacques Ferrand, who, until now, was of the most sordid avarice, and of Spartan disregard (especially as it concerned others) to everything that respected comfortable existence. It is on this garnet-coloured ground that was shadowed forth the figure of Cecily, which we will now attempt to paint.

Tall and graceful, the creole was in the full flower of her age. Her spreading shoulders and hips made her waist appear so singularly small that it seemed as if it could be easily spanned. As simple as it was coquettish, her Alsatian costume was of singular taste, somewhat theatrical, – but for that reason more capable of producing the effect she desired. Her bodice, of black cassimere, half open on her full bosom, was very long-waisted, with tight sleeves, plain back, and slightly embroidered with purple wool down the seams, perfected by a row of small cut silver buttons. A short petticoat, of orange merino, which seemed of vast fullness, descended little lower than the knee; her stockings were of scarlet, with blue clocks, as we see them in the drawings of the old Flemish painters, who so complacently show us the garters of their robust heroines.

No artist ever drew more perfect legs than were those of Cecily: symmetrical and slim beneath the swelling calf, they terminated in a small foot, quite at ease, and yet restrained in a small slipper of black morocco, with silver buckles. Cecily was looking into the glass over the mantelpiece. The slope of her bodice displayed her elegant and dimpled neck of dazzling but not transparent whiteness.

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