The Nabob [148]
PEARLS
About a week after his adventure with Moessard, that new complication in the terrible muddle of his affairs, Jansoulet, on leaving the Chamber, one Thursday, ordered his coachman to drive him to Mora's house. He had not paid a visit there since the scuffle in the Rue Royale, and the idea of finding himself in the duke's presence gave him, through his thick skin, something of the panic that agitates a boy on his way upstairs to see the head-master after a fight in the schoolroom. However, the embarrassment of this first interview had to be gone through. They said in the committee-rooms that Le Merquier had completed his report, a masterpiece of logic and ferocity, that it meant an invalidation, and that he was bound to carry it with a high hand unless Mora, so powerful in the Assembly, should himself intervene and give him his word of command. A serious matter, and one that made the Nabob's cheeks flush, while in the curved mirrors of his brougham he studied his appearance, his courtier's smiles, trying to think out a way of effecting a brilliant entry, one of those strokes of good-natured effrontery which had brought him fortune with Ahmed, and which served him likewise in his relations with the French ambassador. All this accompanied by beatings of the heart and by those shudders between the shoulder-blades which precede decisive actions, even when these are settled within a gilded chariot.
When he arrived at the mansion by the river, he was much surprised to notice that the porter on the quay, as on the days of great receptions, was sending carriages up the Rue de Lille, in order to keep a door free for those leaving. Rather anxious, he wondered, "What is there going on?" Perhaps a concert given by the duchess, a charity bazaar, some festivity from which Mora might have excluded him on account of the scandal of his last adventure. And this anxiety was augmented still further when Jansoulet, after having passed across the principal court-yard amid a din of slamming doors and a dull and continuous rumble of wheels over the sand, found himself--after ascending the steps--in the immense entrance-hall filled by a crowd which did not extend beyond any of the doors leading to the rooms; centring its anxious going and coming around the porter's table, where all the famous names of fashionable Paris were being inscribed. It seemed as though a disastrous gust of wind had gone through the house, carrying off a little of its calm, and allowing disquiet and danger to filter into its comfort.
"What a misfortune!"
"Ah! it is terrible."
"And so suddenly!"
Such were the remarks that people were exchanging as they met.
An idea flashed into Jansoulet's mind:
"Is the duke ill?" he inquired of a servant.
"Ah, monsieur, he is dying! He will not live through the night!"
If the roof of the palace had fallen in upon his head he would not have been more utterly stunned. Red lights flashed before his eyes, he tottered, and let himself drop into a seat on a velvet-covered bench beside the great cage of monkeys. The animals, over-excited by all this bustle, suspended by their tails, by their little long-thumbed hands, were hanging to the bars in groups, and came, inquisitive and frightened, to make the most ludicrous grimaces at this big, stupefied man as he sat staring at the marble floor, repeating aloud to himself, "I am ruined! I am ruined!"
The duke was dying. He had been seized suddenly with illness on the Sunday after his return from the Bois. He had felt intolerable burnings in his bowels, which passed through his whole body, searing as with a red-hot iron, and alternating with a cold lethargy and long periods of coma. Jenkins, summoned at once, did not say much, but ordered certain sedatives. The next day the pains came on again with greater intensity and followed by the same icy torpor, also more accentuated, as if life, torn up by the roots, were departing in violent spasms. Among those around him, none was greatly concerned. "The day after a visit to Saint-James Villa," was muttered in the antechamber,
About a week after his adventure with Moessard, that new complication in the terrible muddle of his affairs, Jansoulet, on leaving the Chamber, one Thursday, ordered his coachman to drive him to Mora's house. He had not paid a visit there since the scuffle in the Rue Royale, and the idea of finding himself in the duke's presence gave him, through his thick skin, something of the panic that agitates a boy on his way upstairs to see the head-master after a fight in the schoolroom. However, the embarrassment of this first interview had to be gone through. They said in the committee-rooms that Le Merquier had completed his report, a masterpiece of logic and ferocity, that it meant an invalidation, and that he was bound to carry it with a high hand unless Mora, so powerful in the Assembly, should himself intervene and give him his word of command. A serious matter, and one that made the Nabob's cheeks flush, while in the curved mirrors of his brougham he studied his appearance, his courtier's smiles, trying to think out a way of effecting a brilliant entry, one of those strokes of good-natured effrontery which had brought him fortune with Ahmed, and which served him likewise in his relations with the French ambassador. All this accompanied by beatings of the heart and by those shudders between the shoulder-blades which precede decisive actions, even when these are settled within a gilded chariot.
When he arrived at the mansion by the river, he was much surprised to notice that the porter on the quay, as on the days of great receptions, was sending carriages up the Rue de Lille, in order to keep a door free for those leaving. Rather anxious, he wondered, "What is there going on?" Perhaps a concert given by the duchess, a charity bazaar, some festivity from which Mora might have excluded him on account of the scandal of his last adventure. And this anxiety was augmented still further when Jansoulet, after having passed across the principal court-yard amid a din of slamming doors and a dull and continuous rumble of wheels over the sand, found himself--after ascending the steps--in the immense entrance-hall filled by a crowd which did not extend beyond any of the doors leading to the rooms; centring its anxious going and coming around the porter's table, where all the famous names of fashionable Paris were being inscribed. It seemed as though a disastrous gust of wind had gone through the house, carrying off a little of its calm, and allowing disquiet and danger to filter into its comfort.
"What a misfortune!"
"Ah! it is terrible."
"And so suddenly!"
Such were the remarks that people were exchanging as they met.
An idea flashed into Jansoulet's mind:
"Is the duke ill?" he inquired of a servant.
"Ah, monsieur, he is dying! He will not live through the night!"
If the roof of the palace had fallen in upon his head he would not have been more utterly stunned. Red lights flashed before his eyes, he tottered, and let himself drop into a seat on a velvet-covered bench beside the great cage of monkeys. The animals, over-excited by all this bustle, suspended by their tails, by their little long-thumbed hands, were hanging to the bars in groups, and came, inquisitive and frightened, to make the most ludicrous grimaces at this big, stupefied man as he sat staring at the marble floor, repeating aloud to himself, "I am ruined! I am ruined!"
The duke was dying. He had been seized suddenly with illness on the Sunday after his return from the Bois. He had felt intolerable burnings in his bowels, which passed through his whole body, searing as with a red-hot iron, and alternating with a cold lethargy and long periods of coma. Jenkins, summoned at once, did not say much, but ordered certain sedatives. The next day the pains came on again with greater intensity and followed by the same icy torpor, also more accentuated, as if life, torn up by the roots, were departing in violent spasms. Among those around him, none was greatly concerned. "The day after a visit to Saint-James Villa," was muttered in the antechamber,