Alphonse Daudet

“ With those magic words Jenkins can obtain whatever he wants. With his hoarse, cheerful voice, which seems to be hailing a vessel in the fog, the Nabob calls, "Bompain." The man in the fez, tearing himself away from the cellaret, crosses the salon majestically, whispers, goes away and returns with an inkstand and a check-book, the leaves of which come out and fly away of themselves. What a fine thing is wealth! To sign a check for two hundred thousand francs on his knee costs Jansoulet no more than to take a louis from his pocket. ”

“ But, whatever his method, there is never any doubt as to the theme; and the essential unity is always apparent. This severity of design in no way limits the variety of the successive acts of his drama.
While a novel of Balzac's is often no more than an analysis of character, and while a novel of Zola's is a massive epic of human endeavor, a novel of Daudet's is a gallery of pictures, brushed in with the sweep and certainty of a master-hand,—portraits, landscapes with figures, marines, battlepieces pieces, bits of genre, views of Paris. ”

“ At the club, at the theatre, wherever I go, I see Baroness Hemerlingue's little snake's head, I hear the echo of her hissing, I feel the venom of her hatred. Everywhere I am conscious of mocking glances, conversations broken off when I appear, smiles that lie, or kindness in which there is a mingling of pity. And then the defections, the people who move away as if a catastrophe were coming. For instance, here is Felicia Ruys, with my bust just finished, alleging some accident or other as an excuse for not sending it to the Salon. ”

“ Although he finally gave up reading such missives, the poor candidate was shaken by all those doubts, by all those passions, being caught in a network of petty intrigues, his mind full of terror and distrust, anxious, excited, nervous, feeling keenly the truth of the Corsican proverb:
"If you are very ill-disposed to your enemy, pray that he may have an election in his family."
We can imagine that the check-book and the three great drawers in the mahogany commode were not spared by that cloud of devouring locusts that swooped down upon "Moussiou Jansoulet's" salons. ”

“ The Nabob, too, was as white as a sheet. A cold breath had passed over them. The manager assumed an indifferent air.
"It's the reflection. We all look green."
"To be sure—to be sure," said Jenkins, "it's the reflection of the pond. Just come and look, Monsieur le Secrétaire." And he led him to the window to point out the great sheet of water in which the willows dipped their branches, while Madame Polge hastily closed the curtains of his cradle upon the little Wallachian's never-ending dream. ”

“ After all, we must agree that Paris is a wonderful great city, for any one to be able to live here in that way for fifteen years, twenty years of tricks and dodges and throwing dust in people's eyes, without everybody finding him out, and to go on making a triumphant entry into salons in the wake of a footman shouting his name at the top of his voice: "Monsieur le Marquis de Bois-l'Héry." ”

“ He alights with Jenkins and Jansoulet from a magnificent carriage with the Nabob's red and gold livery. Feigning the utmost astonishment, Pondevèz rushes forward to meet his visitors.
"Ah! Monsieur Jenkins, what an honor! What a surprise!"
Salutations are exchanged on the stoop, reverences, handshakings, introductions. Jenkins, his coat thrown back from his loyal breast, indulges in his heartiest, most engaging smile; but a meaning furrow lies across his brow. He is anxious concerning the surprises that the establishment may have in store, for he knows its demoralized condition. ”

“ That imagination, always on the alert, gave to M. Joyeuse's face a strangely feverish, haggard expression, in striking contrast to the faultlessly correct dress and bearing of the petty clerk. He lived through so many passionate existences in a single day. Such waking dreamers as he, in whom a too restricted destiny holds in check unemployed forces, heroic faculties, are more numerous than is generally supposed. Dreaming is the safety valve through which it all escapes, with a terrible spluttering, an intensely hot vapor and floating images which instantly disappear. ”

“ And yet Jansoulet loved his little ones, especially the youngest, who, with his long hair and his doll-like aspect, reminded him of little Afchin in her carriage. But they were still at the age when children belong to the mother, when neither a stylish tailor nor accomplished masters nor a fashionable boarding-school nor the ponies saddled for the little men in the stable, when nothing in short takes the place of the watchful and attentive hand, the warmth and gayety of the nest. ”

“ Customers are rare so near the barriers. He would sit for many hours in the studio, talking in an undertone, reading by his friend's side, listening to the rain on the window-panes or the wind whistling as in mid-ocean, rattling the old doors and window-frames in the graveyard of demolished buildings below. On the next floor he heard familiar sounds, full of charm for him, snatches of song accompanying the work of willing hands, a chorus of laughter, the piano lesson given by Grandmamma, the tic-tac of the metronome, a delicious domestic hurly-burly that warmed his heart. ”

“ That handsome, open face, the air of frankness and serenity diffused over the whole person of that already well known physician, who talked of his art so freely, yet performed miraculous cures, and his assiduous attentions to her father, made a deep impression on the girl. Jenkins soon became the friend, the confidant, a vigilant and gentle guardian. Sometimes in the studio, when some one—the father himself most frequently—made a too equivocal remark or a ribald jest, the Irishman would frown and make a little noise with his lips, or else would divert Felicia's attention. ”

“ Who passes judgment on you, and who condemns you? Sometimes, before going out to dinner, Jansoulet, on going up to his wife's room, would find her smoking in her easy-chair, with her head thrown back and piles of manuscript by her side, and Cabassu, armed with a blue pencil, reading in his hoarse voice and with his Bourg-Saint-Andéol intonation some dramatic lucubration which he cut and slashed remorselessly at the slightest word of criticism from the lady. "Don't disturb yourselves," the good Nabob's wave of the hand would say, as he entered the room on tiptoe. ”

“ And when he admitted that he was afraid of Paris for them, she laughed at his fears, called him a provincial, for she was full of affection for the city where she was born, where she had grown chastely to womanhood, and which gave her in return the vivacity, the natural refinement, the sprightly good-humor which make one think that Paris, with its rains, its fogs, its sky which is no sky, is the true fatherland of woman, whose nerves it spares and whose patient and intelligent qualities it develops. ”

“ A few men were there, very few, all persons of distinction, laden with years and decorations, talking on the arm of a divan or leaning over the back of a chair with the condescending air we assume in conversing with children. But amid the placid murmur of the private conversations, one voice rang out, loud and discordant, the voice of the Nabob, who was threading his way through that social conservatory with the self-assurance due to his immense fortune and a certain contempt for woman which he had brought with him from the Orient. ”

“ Jenkins expanded in that factitious sunlight of wealth; he saluted with a "good-morning, boys," the powdered Swiss with the broad gilt baldric and the footmen in short clothes and blue and gold livery, all of whom had risen in his honor, touched lightly with his finger the great cage of monkeys capering about with shrill cries, and darted whistling up the white marble stairs covered with a carpet soft and dense as a lawn, to the duke's apartments. ”

“ As if I didn't know my Hemerlingue, who's as cowardly as he is fat. But, after all, let them say what they choose. I snap my fingers at 'em. What can they do against me? Destroy my credit with the bey? That makes no difference to me. I have no more business in Tunis, and I shall get away from there altogether as soon as possible. There's only one city, one country in the world, and that is Paris, hospitable, open-hearted Paris, with no false modesty, where any intelligent man finds room to do great things. And, you see, de Géry, I propose to do great things. I've had enough of business life. ”

“ He is ugly to look at, but he seems kind; and then he is absurdly rich, and wealth, in that degree, must be amusing. Oh! I know all about it. There probably is some black spot in his life which has brought him good luck. All that gold can't have been honestly come by. But tell me truly, Jenkins, with your hand on that heart which you invoke so often, do you think that I am a very tempting wife for an honest man? Consider: of all these young men who ask as a favor to be allowed to come here, what one has ever thought of asking for my hand? Never a single one. De Géry no more than the rest. ”

“ He was born in Provence and he died in Paris; he began as a poet and he ended as a veritist; and in each case there was logical evolution and not contradiction. The Parisian did not cease to be a Provençal; and the novelist was a lyrist still. Poet though he was, he had an intense liking for the actual, the visible, the tangible. He so hungered after truth that he was ready sometimes to stay his stomach with facts in its stead,—mere fact being but the outward husk, whereas truth is the rich kernel concealed within. ”

“ Among those children of great manufacturers, Parisian notaries and gentleman-farmers, a substantial little world by themselves, somewhat inclined to stiffness and formality, the well-known name of old Ruys, and the respect which is universally manifested in Paris for a high reputation as an artist, gave to Felicia a position apart from the rest and greatly envied; a position made even more brilliant by her success in her studies, by a genuine talent for drawing, and by her beauty, that element of superiority which produces its effect even upon very young girls. ”

“ Everything is streaming and dripping. A sound of water, a deafening sound of water. Alone in his magnificently furnished chamber with its seignorial bed and its curtains of Chinese silk with purple stripes, the Nabob is still stirring, striding back and forth, revolving bitter thoughts. His mind is no longer intent upon the affront to himself, the public affront in the presence of thirty thousand persons, nor upon the murderous insult that the Bey addressed to him in presence of his mortal enemies. ”

“ It was improper beyond expression to allow a girl to be closeted in that way with a man.
He was astonished that so serious-minded, so devout a person as Constance—What did it look like?
The old lady gazed at him in stupefaction. As if Felicia were like other girls! And then, what danger could there be with the Nabob, such a serious man and so ugly? Moreover, Jenkins ought to know well enough that Felicia never consulted anybody, that she did only what she chose.
"No, no, it's impossible; I cannot allow this," exclaimed the Irishman. ”

“ As soon as the door was closed, he said, with the accent of a stage hero addressing the perjured seducer:
"Monsieur de Géry, I am not a Cassandra yet." And, as he observed his interlocutor's unbounded amazement, he added: "Yes, yes, we understand each other. I see perfectly clearly what attracts you to M. Joyeuse's, nor has the warm welcome you receive there escaped me. You are rich, you are of noble birth, no one can hesitate between you and the poor poet who carries on an absurd trade in order to gain time to attain success, which will never come perhaps. ”

“ From the place where he stood he watched the interesting procession, still in progress at midnight, of Jenkins' guests, the whole body of the fashionable physician's patients; the very flower of society, a large sprinkling of politics and finance, bankers, deputies, a few artists, all the jaded ones of Parisian high life, pale and wan, with gleaming eyes, saturated with arsenic like gluttonous mice, but insatiably greedy of poison and of life. ”

“ No, what I must have, what I will have, is a husband to protect me from others and from myself, to keep me from a mass of black things of which I am afraid when life becomes a bore to me, from abysses into which I feel that I may plunge,—some one who will love me while I work, and will relieve my poor old exhausted fairy from doing sentry duty. ”

“ Numa is a native of the South of France, as was Daudet himself; and it is out of the fulness of knowledge that the author evolves the character, brushing in the portrait with bold strokes and unceasingly adding caressing touches till the man actually lives and moves before our eyes. The veracity of the picture is destroyed by no final inconsistency. What Numa is, Numa will be. Daudet never descends at the end of his novels like a god from the machine to change character in the twinkling of an eye, and to convert bad men to good thoughts and good deeds. ”

“ The upshot of it was that, one fine morning, Moëssard stopped coming to the office. He had succeeded, it seems; but the Caisse Territoriale did not seem to him a sufficiently advantageous investment for his dear friend's funds. That was honorable, wasn't it?
However, the sentiment of honor is so easily lost that one can scarcely believe it. When I think that I, Passajon, with my white hair, my venerable appearance, my spotless past—thirty years of academic service—have accustomed myself to living amid these infamies and base intrigues like a fish in water! ”

“ It is the sense-of-humor that makes the master of comedy, that helps him to see things in due proportion and perspective, that keeps him from exaggeration and emphasis, from sentimentality and melodrama and bathos. It is the sense-of-humor that prevents our making fools of ourselves; it is humor itself that softens our laughter at those who make themselves ridiculous. In his serious stories Daudet employs this negative humor chiefly, as though he had in memory La Bruyère's assertion that "he who makes us laugh rarely is able to win esteem for himself." ”

“ But she went on without listening to her:
"Who is this Monpavon, Doctor? And Bois-l'Héry? And Mora himself? And—"
She was on the point of saying, "And the Nabob?" but checked herself.
"And how many others! Oh! really, I advise you to speak contemptuously of Bohemia. Why, your clientage as a fashionable physician, O sublime Jenkins, is made up of nothing else. Bohemia of manufacturing, of finance, of politics; fallen stars, the tainted of all castes, and the higher you go the more of them there are, because high rank gives impunity and wealth closes many mouths." ”

“ The Work of Bethlehem is founded. The noblest of my humanitarian dreams has taken shape. We have bought a magnificent villa at Nanterre in which to install our first branch. The superintendence, the management of that establishment is what it has occurred to me to offer to you, as to another myself. A princely house to live in, the salary of a major-general, and the satisfaction of rendering a service to the great human family. Say the word and I will take you to see the Nabob, the noble-hearted man who pays the expenses of our undertaking. ”

“ And Felicia, hardly able to contain herself, twisted her wrath into irony, mimicked Jenkins, the affected gestures, the hand on the heart; then, puffing out her cheeks, said in a hoarse, whistling voice, full of false effusiveness:
"We must be kind, we must be humane. To do good without hope of reward!—that is the secret." ”

“ Now Jenkins' attentions seemed overdone to the provincial. He thought that there was something affected, studied in them, and at the same time he fancied that he noticed in the thanks she expressed to her husband in a low tone a dread, a submissiveness derogatory to the dignity of a lawful wife, happy and proud in an unassailable position. "Why, society is a hideous thing!" said de Géry to himself in dismay, his hands as cold as ice. ”

“ Was he in good humor? To think that all of us, however humble we may be, however cruelly enslaved by destiny, have always below us some poor creature more humble, more enslaved than ourselves, in whose eyes we are great, in whose eyes we are gods, and, as gods, indifferent, scornful or cruel.
We can fancy M. Joyeuse's torture when he was compelled to invent incidents, to manufacture anecdotes concerning the villain who had dismissed him so heartlessly after ten years of faithful service. ”