The Nabob [187]
me. Outrageously calumniated before my country, I owe it to myself and my children this public justification, and I will make it."
With a brusque movement he turned towards the tribune where he knew his enemy was watching him, and suddenly stopped, full of fear. There, in front of him, behind the pale, malignant head of the baroness, his mother, his mother whom he believed to be two hundred leagues away from the terrible storm, was looking at him, leaning against the wall, bending down her saintly face, flooded with tears, but proud and beaming nevertheless with her Bernard's great success. For it was really a success of sincere human emotion, which a few more words would change into a triumph. Cries of "Go on, go on!" came from all sides of the Chamber to reassure and encourage him. But Jansoulet did not speak. He had only to say: "Calumny has wilfully confused two names. I am called Bernard Jansoulet, the other Jansoulet Louis." Not a word more was needed.
But in the presence of his mother, still ignorant of his brother's dishonour, he could not say it. Respect--family ties forbade it. He could hear his father's voice: "I die of shame, my child." Would not she die of shame too, if he spoke? He turned from the maternal smile with a sublime look of renunciation, then in a low voice, utterly discouraged, he said:
"Excuse me, gentlemen; this explanation is beyond my power. Order an investigation of my whole life, open as it is to all, alas! since any one can interpret all my actions. I swear to you that you will find nothing there which unfits me to sit among the representatives of my country."
In the face of this defeat, which seemed to everybody the sudden crumbling of an edifice of effrontery, the astonishment and disillusionment were immense. There was a moment of excitement on the benches, the tumult of a vote taken on the spot, which the Nabob saw vaguely through the glass doors, as the condemned man looks down from the scaffold on the howling crowd. Then, after that terrible pause which precedes a supreme moment, the president made, amid deep silence, the simple pronouncement:
"The election of M. Bernard Jansoulet is annulled."
Never had a man's life been cut off with less solemnity or disturbance.
Up there in her gallery, Jansoulet's mother understood nothing, except that the seats were emptying near her, that people were rising and going away. Soon there was no one else there save the fat man and the lady in the white hat, who leaned over the barrier, watching Bernard with curiosity, who seemed also to be going away, for he was putting up great bundles of papers in his portfolio quite calmly. When they were in order, he rose and left his place. Ah! the life of public men had sometimes cruel situations. Gravely, slowly, under the gaze of the whole assembly, he must descend those steps which he had mounted at the cost of so much trouble and money, to whose feet an inexorable fatality was precipitating him.
The Hemerlingues were waiting for this, following to its last stage this humiliating exit, which crushes the unseated member with some of the shame and fear of a dismissal. Then, when the Nabob had disappeared, they looked at each other with a silent laugh, and left the gallery before the old woman had dared to ask them anything, warned by her instinct of their secret hostility. Left alone, she gave all her attention to a new speech, persuaded that her son's affairs were still in question. They spoke of an election, of a scrutiny, and the poor mother leaning forward in her red hood, wrinkling her great eyebrows, would have religiously listened to the whole of the report of the Sarigue election, if the attendant who had introduced her had not come to say that it was finished and she had better go away. She seemed very much surprised.
"Indeed! Is it over?" said she, rising almost regretfully.
And quietly, timidly:
"Has he--has he won?"
It was innocent, so touching that the attendant did not even dream of smiling.
"Unfortunately, no, madame. M. Jansoulet has not won. But why did
With a brusque movement he turned towards the tribune where he knew his enemy was watching him, and suddenly stopped, full of fear. There, in front of him, behind the pale, malignant head of the baroness, his mother, his mother whom he believed to be two hundred leagues away from the terrible storm, was looking at him, leaning against the wall, bending down her saintly face, flooded with tears, but proud and beaming nevertheless with her Bernard's great success. For it was really a success of sincere human emotion, which a few more words would change into a triumph. Cries of "Go on, go on!" came from all sides of the Chamber to reassure and encourage him. But Jansoulet did not speak. He had only to say: "Calumny has wilfully confused two names. I am called Bernard Jansoulet, the other Jansoulet Louis." Not a word more was needed.
But in the presence of his mother, still ignorant of his brother's dishonour, he could not say it. Respect--family ties forbade it. He could hear his father's voice: "I die of shame, my child." Would not she die of shame too, if he spoke? He turned from the maternal smile with a sublime look of renunciation, then in a low voice, utterly discouraged, he said:
"Excuse me, gentlemen; this explanation is beyond my power. Order an investigation of my whole life, open as it is to all, alas! since any one can interpret all my actions. I swear to you that you will find nothing there which unfits me to sit among the representatives of my country."
In the face of this defeat, which seemed to everybody the sudden crumbling of an edifice of effrontery, the astonishment and disillusionment were immense. There was a moment of excitement on the benches, the tumult of a vote taken on the spot, which the Nabob saw vaguely through the glass doors, as the condemned man looks down from the scaffold on the howling crowd. Then, after that terrible pause which precedes a supreme moment, the president made, amid deep silence, the simple pronouncement:
"The election of M. Bernard Jansoulet is annulled."
Never had a man's life been cut off with less solemnity or disturbance.
Up there in her gallery, Jansoulet's mother understood nothing, except that the seats were emptying near her, that people were rising and going away. Soon there was no one else there save the fat man and the lady in the white hat, who leaned over the barrier, watching Bernard with curiosity, who seemed also to be going away, for he was putting up great bundles of papers in his portfolio quite calmly. When they were in order, he rose and left his place. Ah! the life of public men had sometimes cruel situations. Gravely, slowly, under the gaze of the whole assembly, he must descend those steps which he had mounted at the cost of so much trouble and money, to whose feet an inexorable fatality was precipitating him.
The Hemerlingues were waiting for this, following to its last stage this humiliating exit, which crushes the unseated member with some of the shame and fear of a dismissal. Then, when the Nabob had disappeared, they looked at each other with a silent laugh, and left the gallery before the old woman had dared to ask them anything, warned by her instinct of their secret hostility. Left alone, she gave all her attention to a new speech, persuaded that her son's affairs were still in question. They spoke of an election, of a scrutiny, and the poor mother leaning forward in her red hood, wrinkling her great eyebrows, would have religiously listened to the whole of the report of the Sarigue election, if the attendant who had introduced her had not come to say that it was finished and she had better go away. She seemed very much surprised.
"Indeed! Is it over?" said she, rising almost regretfully.
And quietly, timidly:
"Has he--has he won?"
It was innocent, so touching that the attendant did not even dream of smiling.
"Unfortunately, no, madame. M. Jansoulet has not won. But why did