The Nabob [137]
his susceptibility to wholly physical impressions and accustomed to life under a blue sky and the warmth of the sunshine--however that may have been, certain it is that the attendants of the legislative body beheld that day a proud and haughty Jansoulet whom they had not previously known. The fat Hemerlingue's carriage, caught sight of at the gate, recognisable by the unusual width of its doors, completed his reinstatement in the possession of his true nature of assurance and bold audacity. "The enemy is there. Attention!" As he crossed the Salle des Pas-Perdus, he caught sight of the financier chatting in a corner with Le Merquier, the examiner; he passed quite near them, and looked at them with a triumphant air which made people wonder:
"What is the meaning of this?"
Then, highly pleased at his own coolness, he passed on towards the committee-rooms, big and lofty apartments opening right and left on a long corridor, and having large tables covered with green baize, and heavy chairs all of a similar pattern and bearing the impress of a dull solemnity. People were beginning to come in. Groups were taking up their positions, discussing matters, gesticulating, with bows, shakings of hands, inclinations of the head, like Chinese shadows against the luminous background of the windows.
Men were there who walked about with bent back, solitary, as it were crushed down beneath the weight of the thoughts which knitted their brow. Others whispering in their neighbour's ears, confiding to each other exceedingly mysterious and terribly important pieces of news, finger on lip, eyes opened wide in silent recommendation to discretion. A provincial flavour characterized it all, varieties of intonation, the violence of southern speech, drawling accents of the central districts, the sing-song of Brittany, fused into one and the same imbecile self-conceit, frock-coats as they cut them at Landerneau, mountain shoes, home-spun linen, and a self-assurance begotten in a village or in the club of some insignificant town, local expressions, provincialisms abruptly introduced into the speech of the political and administrative world, that flabby and colourless phraseology which has invented such expressions as "burning questions that come again to the surface" and "individualities without mandate."
To see these excited or thoughtful people, you might have supposed them the greatest apostles of ideas in the world; unfortunately, on the days of the sittings they underwent a transformation, sat in hushed silence in their places, laughing in servile fashion at the jests of the clever man who presided over them, or only rising to make ridiculous propositions, the kind of interruption which would tempt one to believe that it is not a type only, but a whole race, that Henri Monnier has satirized in his immortal sketch. Two or three orators in all the Chamber, the rest well qualified to plant themselves before the fireplace of a provincial drawing-room, after an excellent meal at the Prefect's, and to say in nasal voice, "The administration, gentlemen," or "The Government of the Emperor," but incapable of anything further.
Ordinarily the good Nabob had been dazzled by these poses, that buzzing as of an empty spinning-wheel which is made by would-be important people; but to-day he found his own place, and fell in with the general note. Seated at the centre of the green table, his portfolio open before him, his elbows planted well forward upon it, he read the report drawn up by de Gery, and the members of the committee looked at him in amazement.
It was a concise, clear, and rapid summary of their fortnight's proceedings, in which they found their ideas so well expressed that they had great difficulty in recognising them. Then, as two or three among them considered the report too favourable, that it passed too lightly over certain protests that had reached the committee, the examiner addressed the meeting with an astonishing assurance, with the prolixity, the verbosity of his own people, demonstrated that a deputy ought not to be held responsible
"What is the meaning of this?"
Then, highly pleased at his own coolness, he passed on towards the committee-rooms, big and lofty apartments opening right and left on a long corridor, and having large tables covered with green baize, and heavy chairs all of a similar pattern and bearing the impress of a dull solemnity. People were beginning to come in. Groups were taking up their positions, discussing matters, gesticulating, with bows, shakings of hands, inclinations of the head, like Chinese shadows against the luminous background of the windows.
Men were there who walked about with bent back, solitary, as it were crushed down beneath the weight of the thoughts which knitted their brow. Others whispering in their neighbour's ears, confiding to each other exceedingly mysterious and terribly important pieces of news, finger on lip, eyes opened wide in silent recommendation to discretion. A provincial flavour characterized it all, varieties of intonation, the violence of southern speech, drawling accents of the central districts, the sing-song of Brittany, fused into one and the same imbecile self-conceit, frock-coats as they cut them at Landerneau, mountain shoes, home-spun linen, and a self-assurance begotten in a village or in the club of some insignificant town, local expressions, provincialisms abruptly introduced into the speech of the political and administrative world, that flabby and colourless phraseology which has invented such expressions as "burning questions that come again to the surface" and "individualities without mandate."
To see these excited or thoughtful people, you might have supposed them the greatest apostles of ideas in the world; unfortunately, on the days of the sittings they underwent a transformation, sat in hushed silence in their places, laughing in servile fashion at the jests of the clever man who presided over them, or only rising to make ridiculous propositions, the kind of interruption which would tempt one to believe that it is not a type only, but a whole race, that Henri Monnier has satirized in his immortal sketch. Two or three orators in all the Chamber, the rest well qualified to plant themselves before the fireplace of a provincial drawing-room, after an excellent meal at the Prefect's, and to say in nasal voice, "The administration, gentlemen," or "The Government of the Emperor," but incapable of anything further.
Ordinarily the good Nabob had been dazzled by these poses, that buzzing as of an empty spinning-wheel which is made by would-be important people; but to-day he found his own place, and fell in with the general note. Seated at the centre of the green table, his portfolio open before him, his elbows planted well forward upon it, he read the report drawn up by de Gery, and the members of the committee looked at him in amazement.
It was a concise, clear, and rapid summary of their fortnight's proceedings, in which they found their ideas so well expressed that they had great difficulty in recognising them. Then, as two or three among them considered the report too favourable, that it passed too lightly over certain protests that had reached the committee, the examiner addressed the meeting with an astonishing assurance, with the prolixity, the verbosity of his own people, demonstrated that a deputy ought not to be held responsible