Landri

“ Behind her poses the marquis divined the immutable "one does not mix with the canaille when one has a name like ours," of the pure-blooded aristocrat; and then, too, she loved his son, and he knew it. Landri, for his part, blamed the young woman for that defiant air, that radicalism which was like a caricature of his own ideas. ”

“ You must let me select your advocate and instruct him. A manifesto, Landri,—I propose to have a manifesto, which will stir up others!—Come, tell me the whole story. The newspapers are full of lies. They claim that you hesitated, that you went up the church steps with the sappers.—How did it happen?"
"Why, just as they say," replied the young man.
"You hesitated?" rejoined the marquis; and, gazing at Landri, with infinite affection in his clear blue eyes, he continued: "I understand your pallor now. The sacrifice was very painful. ”

“ He realized that, before they disappear, the social species like the animal species spend their last vigor in producing most perfect types in which all the excellences of all that have gone before are consummated. Once more Landri had a realizing sense of the superiority of that man who, for lack of a suitable environment, had spent his long life in attitudinizing, and for motives so profound, so blended with the most generous idealism! He was too intelligent not to understand the bearing of the lofty philosophy amassed by M. de Claviers in his solemn harangue. ”

“ At the close of this conversation, Landri's wounded sensibility found a symbol of his destiny in the aspect of that garden. He, too, like those trees, bore witness to the effects of discipline. No more than they could he develop freely. He should never marry Valentine,—M. de Claviers reasoned too justly. She would never enter a noble family without the consent of its head. The allusion made by the far-sighted and implacable marquis to the possibilities of his military career, finished freezing his heart. ”

“ I suppose?"
"I shall have to," replied Landri, "if you do not give your consent."
He realized that he was lost if he yielded to the emotion with which that plaint, so affectionate in its manly simplicity, had filled his heart anew. This constant laying bare to the quick of his sensitive nature by that man's mere presence proved to him once more how necessary it was that he should muster energy to complete the rupture. He loved him, he revered him too deeply to be able to live in falsehood with him.
"My consent?" echoed the marquis, and his anger flared up once more. "Never! No, never! ”

“ You seem to have no suspicion that I am passing through one of the most ghastly hours of my whole life! Don't tell me that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of Monsieur Jaubourg's papers. I know it. Don't tell me that this act of Landri's proves that he and his father are crazy. I know it. But I know something else, by an experience of many, many years! Monsieur de Claviers and Landri, with all their failings and their prejudices and their follies and their absurdities, are perfectly honorable men, incapable of wronging any one knowingly. ”

“ Landri replied: "I have no wish but to obey you. As to the last point, I propose, not only not to live in Paris, but to leave France, to undertake the farming business in Canada. On my return from Saint-Mihiel, you said to me—I remember your exact words: 'It is a horrible thing to me that the family you will found will bear the name of mine.' It would be no less horrible to me, knowing that that name is not my own. I cannot change it in France, without causing people to seek the cause of such a resolution. ”

“ He is reliable, perfectly reliable." Landri had not seen him since the time in the chamber of death when the marquis was kneeling at the bedside, praying. In imagination he saw that figure, in black coat and white cravat, making the final arrangements—that impassive face of a close-mouthed witness or confederate. Joseph had been in his master's service thirty years. He must inevitably have discovered Jaubourg's liaison with Madame de Claviers. He knew the secret of Landri's birth. ”

“ I have no pride, either. I withdraw that also. As you will pass through Paris again to-morrow, returning to Saint-Mihiel, come again to see me. I shall have reflected meanwhile. I shall be in a condition to answer otherwise than under the impulse of an emotion which discomposes me. Oh! why, in all the talks we have had together in these last three years, have you never told me so much about all these intimate details of your life? I would have helped you—I would have tried, at all events."
"That is another of the misfortunes of the noble," Landri replied. ”

“ I don't class them together, Monsieur de Claviers and him. Landri is weak. He doesn't dare to break a lance against the prejudices of a society which he estimates none the less at its real worth. You saw how absurdly he acted in that matter of the inventory. He is not a believer, he adores the army, and still he gets his job taken away from him! He has a poor head, but he's a very good fellow."
"Landri did not come to apologize either for himself or his father," said the doctor. "He came to accuse us."
"Us?" cried Chaffin. ”

“ The Claviers-Grandchamps will die with me, and it is better so. They will die as all the great families of France are dying, one after another. We are passing away, like the old monarchy that made us and that we made. But there will be no stain on the shield. I shall know how to make a fitting end.—And now," he added after a pause, in the tone of one who has made up his mind, manfully, and will lament no more, "let us part. At what time does your boat sail?"
"At half-past four," said Landri.
"It is nearly four," exclaimed the marquis. "You must go aboard. Adieu!" ”

“ Landri inquired; and his heart gave a great throb of relief, as on the day before with Despois and Vigouroux, when the servant replied:—
"Why, yes, Monsieur le Comte, very well. Monsieur le Marquis went to Grandchamp yesterday to hunt, with several friends."
"He hunts!" thought the young man. "Then nothing extraordinary is happening! Evidently I was right. He wishes to talk with me about money matters only." ”

“ Landri replied; "but I am surprised that she pleases you, with such ideas as she has."
"As she thinks she has," the marquis corrected him. "That will pass off. It's the impulse of youth. What will not pass off, is the old stock. She has it to the tips of her fingers and toes. Did you look at her? Ah! she's a genuine Charlus, and signed! Do you know what I said to myself when I saw her on horseback to-day?—And how beautifully she rides!—That she would make the sweetest little Comtesse de Claviers-Grandchamp.—And do you know this too? That it depends on you alone? ”

“ Did these words mean that Jaubourg had left Landri his whole fortune by his will? It was not possible that that man, prudent as he was, and so intent upon concealing his paternity that he had forbidden himself ever to embrace his son, should have contradicted the whole tenor of his life, in cold blood, by such a step! ”

“ The same impression of Necessity, of a network of events woven by a will stronger than his own, haunted Landri throughout that evening, which he was able to pass alone, by good luck, M. de Claviers having gone to Grandchamp. He found it on his pillow when he awoke, still pursued by the image of that young man with whom he had played as a child, and whom he saw as he had left him, pale and motionless in the grasp of that horrible thought: "My father is a thief." As he said to himself at Saint-Mihiel, "If the Clermont train had only been late!" ”

“ Then, as if that almost convulsive denial had renewed his strength, he added, speaking more jerkily than ever: "I know why you won't marry this girl, who is so rich, who would rescue you if Claviers has squandered everything! I know why. You still love the other."
"What other?" queried Landri. The overmastering compassion that he felt for the invalid's evident agony did not prevent him from starting at that direct allusion. One fact stood out in his memory: Valentine imploring him not to go up to Jaubourg's room, not to see him. ”

“ Complete confidence is so natural, so necessary, with the person one loves! It is the very breath of the heart.
That letter finished, he took another sheet to write another. It must not be that the marquis should learn from the newspapers of the episode of the Hugueville inventory. Landri owed it to himself as well as to him to conduct himself in his relations with him exactly as if the terrible revelation had never been made. But by what name should he call him? Thrice the young man dipped his pen in the ink and thrice he laid it down. ”

“ For the undiminished pride of the whole physiognomy said plainly enough that the nobleman had not surrendered, and that before any other witness he would have found a way to conceal his wound.
What was the wound? To know, Landri had no need to question him. What he had foreseen had happened. M. de Claviers suspected the truth. To what extent? How had he been warned? The young man instinctively collected all his strength, in order to undergo without faltering an interview in which his own secret might escape him. ”

“ Handsome, intellectual, generous, affectionate, entertaining, so kindly-natured and so perfect a type of the grand seigneur, the "Émigré" had prestige, he had charm, and he had been subjected to the atrocious outrage! That infamous deed provoked an outburst of revolt from the son of the culprit.
"How could any one betray such a man? And prefer to him—whom? O mother! mother!"
Landri was alone now. He could give free vent to the emotion that was suffocating him. Lying prone on the cushions of the carriage, he wept at last, and for a long, long while. ”

“ No one can speak to that man. Landri will think better of it. He's going to Paris to-morrow. He'll take advice. Advice? From whom? Jaubourg perhaps. No, he doesn't like him, and he loves, yes, adores, the marquis! The voice of the blood is like their wonderful Race; what an excellent joke!" Chaffin sneered. In thought he insulted his master twice over, in his person and in his ideas. "Landri will go and see Métivier, the notary, it's more likely. Yes, that's the better way. Métivier will send for me. When he knows the situation of affairs, he'll agree with me. ”

“ At that short distance Landri was able to study the group in detail with almost photographic accuracy, and he felt once more the sentiment of which he had told Madame Olier, a heartfelt admiration for his father. Monsieur de Claviers-Grandchamp realized in every respect the physically and mentally superior type of aristocrat, of the best. He was built of a more ample, richer human material. What a difference between his generous, his magnificent way of carrying off his rank, and the bickerings of Charlus about questions of precedence! ”

“ This sweet and tender image of the adorable woman upon whom Landri had formed the pious habit of letting his thoughts rest every night, for years past, before closing his eyes, was there again when he woke. Such is the sorcery of a passionate love in youth. To be sure, he was much engrossed by the step he was arranging to take with respect to Maître Métivier; the confusion in their financial affairs disclosed by Chaffin was most serious, and brought with it threatening consequences in the future. ”

“ The friendship between the sick man and M. de Claviers was legendary.—Friendship!—Suddenly Landri said to himself: "They all know. Such scandals as this the world always knows; it hawks them about and laughs at them. The whole club knows. All Paris knows. There were only two people who didn't know."
He walked on and on,—how long he could not have told,—flying from those witnesses of the family disgrace, flying from himself. He mechanically entered a restaurant for luncheon, but had hardly begun to eat when he rose. Another image sprang up in his mind,—that of Valentine Olier. ”

“ If he lasts two or three days, the skies will fall! He was very particular to tell me not to show myself, so that Monsieur le Marquis should not know of my coming. He was afraid of disturbing him too much. However, here I am."
"Tell Monsieur Jaubourg I will come to-morrow at eleven o'clock," replied Landri. The care taken by a dying man to spare his old friend a pang touched him. He felt the delicacy of it all the more keenly because his heart was frozen, as it were, by the deferential brutality of formal respect, so cruel in reality, of his former tutor. ”

“ But you are approaching thirty. I am sixty-five. Your three brothers are dead. I have no one but you to keep up the family. I should like not to go away before I have put in the saddle a Geoffroy IX of Claviers-Grandchamp. You are Landri X. We must look to it that the Geoffroys overtake the Landris. Well! what do you say?"
"I say, father," Landri replied, "that I came to Grandchamp to-day, myself, with the purpose of speaking to you about a project of marriage—a different one," he added.
"With some one whom I know?" inquired the marquis. ”

“ He felt humiliated by the consciousness that he had justified, by his own attitude, the silence for which he had warmly rebuked his former tutor. He realized fully, however, that the motive of passionate affection to which he yielded in postponing the awakening from that blissful dream on the brink of an abyss had nothing in common with the obscure schemes of a decidedly double-faced personage. Landri had received this impression anew when the other spoke of the despatch alleged to have been sent during the day by his son. ”