Tales of Two Countries
Charles meanwhile bent over his work and let Alphonse be spokesman.
When Alphonse asked him about anything, he answered shortly and quietly
without looking up.
Thus most people thought that Charles was a confidential clerk, while
Alphonse was the real head of the house.
As Frenchmen, they thought little about marrying, but as young Parisians
they led a life into which erotics entered largely.
Alphonse was never really in his element except when in female society.
Then all his exhilarating amiability came into play, and when he leaned
back at supper and held out his shallow champagne-glass to be refilled,
he was as beautiful as a happy god.
He had a neck of the kind which women long to caress, and his soft,
half-curling hair looked as if it were negligently arranged, or
carefully disarranged, by a woman’s coquettish hand.
Indeed, many slim white fingers had passed through those locks; for
Alphonse had not only the gift of being loved by women, but also the yet
rarer gift of being forgiven by them.
When the friends were together at gay supper-parties, Alphonse paid no
particular heed to Charles. He kept no account of his own love-affairs,
far less of those of his friend. So it might easily happen that a beauty
on whom Charles had cast a longing eye fell into the hands of Alphonse.
Charles was used to seeing his friend preferred in life; but there are
certain things to which men can scarcely accustom themselves. He seldom
went with Alphonse to his suppers, and it was always long before the
wine and the general exhilaration could bring him into a convivial
humor.
But then, when the champagne and the bright eyes had gone to his head,
he would often be the wildest of all; he would sing loudly with his
harsh voice, laugh and gesticulate so that his stiff black hair fell
over his forehead; and then the merry ladies shrank from him, and
called him the “chimney-sweep.”--As the sentry paces up and down in the
beleaguered fortress, he sometimes hears a strange sound in the silent
night, as if something were rustling under his feet. It is the enemy,
who has undermined the outworks, and to-night or to-morrow night there
will be a hollow explosion, and armed men will storm in through the
breach.
If Charles had kept close watch over himself he would have heard strange
thoughts rustling within him. But he would not hear--he had only a dim
foreboding that some time there must come an explosion.--And one day it
came.
It was already after business hours; the clerks had all left the outer
office, and only the principals remained behind.
Charles was busily writing a letter which he wished to finish before he
left.
Alphonse had drawn on both his gloves and buttoned them. Then he had
brushed his hat until it shone, and now he was walking up and down and
peeping into Charles’s letter every time he passed the desk.
They used to spend an hour every day before dinner in a café on the
great Boulevard, and Alphonse was getting impatient for his newspapers.
“Will you never have finished that letter?” he said, rather irritably.
Charles was silent a second or two, then he sprang up so that his chair
fell over: “Perhaps Alphonse imagined that he could do it better? Did
he not know which of them was really the man of business?” And now the
words streamed out with that incredible rapidity of which the French
language is capable when it is used in fiery passion.
But it was a turbid stream, carrying with it many ugly expressions,
upbraidings and recriminations; and through the whole there sounded
something like a suppressed sob.
As he strode up and down the room, with clenched hands and dishevelled
hair, Charles looked like a little wiry-haired terrier barking at an
elegant Italian greyhound. At last he seized his hat and rushed out.
Alphonse had stood looking at him with great wondering eyes. When he was
gone, and there was once more silence in the room, it seemed as though
the air was still quivering with the hot words. Alphonse recalled them
one by one, as he stood motionless beside the desk.
“Did he not know which was the abler of the two?” Yes, assuredly! he had
never denied that Charles was by far his superior.
“He must not think that he would succeed in winning everything to
himself with his smooth face.” Alphonse was not conscious of ever having
deprived his friend of anything.
“I don’t care for your _cocottes_,” Charles had said.
Could he really have been interested in the little Spanish dancer? If
Alphonse had only had the faintest suspicion of such a thing he would
never have looked at her. But that was nothing to get so wild about;
there were plenty of women in Paris.
And at last: “As sure as to-morrow comes, I will dissolve partnership!”
Alphonse did not understand it at all. He left the counting-house and
walked moodily through the streets until he met an acquaintance. That
put other thoughts into his head; but all day he had a feeling as if
something gloomy and uncomfortable lay in wait, ready to seize him so
soon as he was alone.
When he reached home, late at night, he found a letter from Charles.
He opened it hastily; but it contained, instead of the apology he had
expected, only a coldly-worded request to M. Alphonse to attend at the
counting-house early the next morning “in order that the contemplated
dissolution of partnership might be effected as quickly as possible.”
Now, for the first time, did Alphonse begin to understand that the scene
in the counting-house had been more than a passing outburst of passion;
but this only made the affair more inexplicable.
And the longer he thought it over, the more clearly did he feel that
Charles had been unjust to him. He had never been angry with his friend,
nor was he precisely angry even now. But as he repeated to himself
all the insults Charles had heaped upon him, his good-natured heart
hardened; and the next morning he took his place in silence, after a
cold “Good-morning.”
Although he arrived a whole hour earlier than usual, he could see that
Charles had been working long and industriously. There they sat, each on
his side of the desk; they spoke only the most indispensable words; now
and then a paper passed from hand to hand, but they never looked each
other in the face.
In this way they both worked--each more busily than the other--until
twelve o’clock, their usual luncheon-time.
This hour of déjeûner was the favorite time of both. Their custom was to
have it served in their office, and when the old house-keeper announced
that lunch was ready, they would both rise at once, even if they were in
the midst of a sentence or of an account.
They used to eat standing by the fireplace or walking up and down in the
warm, comfortable office. Alphonse had always some piquant stories to
tell, and Charles laughed at them. These were his pleasantest hours.
But that day, when Madame said her friendly “_Messieurs, on a servi_,”
they both remained sitting. She opened her eyes wide, and repeated the
words as she went out, but neither moved.
At last Alphonse felt hungry, went to the table, poured out a glass of
wine and began to eat his cutlet. But as he stood there eating, with his
glass in his hand, and looked round the dear old office where they had
spent so many pleasant hours, and then thought that they were to lose
all this and imbitter their lives for a whim, a sudden burst of passion,
the whole situation appeared to him so preposterous that he almost burst
out laughing.
“Look here, Charles,” he said, in the half-earnest, half-joking tone
which always used to make Charles laugh, “it will really be too absurd
to advertise: ‘According to an amicable agreement, from such and such a
date the firm of--’”
“I have been thinking,” interrupted Charles, quietly, “that we will put:
‘According to mutual agreement.’”
Alphonse laughed no more; he put down his glass, and the cutlet tasted
bitter in his mouth.
He understood that friendship was dead between them, why or wherefore he
could not tell; but he thought that Charles was hard and unjust to him.
He was now stiffer and colder than the other.
They worked together until the business of dissolution was finished;
then they parted.
A considerable time passed, and the two quondam friends worked each in
his own quarter in the great Paris. They met at the Bourse, but never
did business with each other. Charles never worked against Alphonse; he
did not wish to ruin him; he wished Alphonse to ruin himself.
And Alphonse seemed likely enough to meet his friend’s wishes in this
respect. It is true that now and then he did a good stroke of business,
but the steady industry he had learned from Charles he soon forgot. He
began to neglect his office, and lost many good connections.
He had always had a taste for dainty and luxurious living, but his
association with the frugal Charles had hitherto held his extravagances
in check. Now, on the contrary, his life became more and more
dissipated. He made fresh acquaintances on every hand, and was more than
ever the brilliant and popular Monsieur Alphonse; but Charles kept an
eye on his growing debts.
He had Alphonse watched as closely as possible, and, as their business
was of the same kind, could form a pretty good estimate of the other’s
earnings. His expenses were even easier to ascertain, and he, soon
assured himself of the fact that Alphonse was beginning to run into debt
in several quarters.
He cultivated some acquaintances about whom he otherwise cared nothing,
merely because through them he got an insight into Alphonse’s expensive
mode of life and rash prodigality. He sought the same cafés and
restaurants as Alphonse, but at different times; he even had his clothes
made by the same tailor, because the talkative little man entertained
him with complaints that Monsieur Alphonse never paid his bills.
Charles often thought how easy it would be to buy up a part of
Alphonse’s liabilities and let them fall into the hands of a grasping
usurer. But it would be a great injustice to suppose that Charles for a
moment contemplated doing such a thing himself. It was only an idea he
was fond of dwelling upon; he was, as it were, in love with Alphonse’s
debts.
But things went slowly, and Charles became pale and sallow while he
watched and waited.
He was longing for the time when the people who had always looked down
upon him should have their eyes opened, and see how little the brilliant
and idolized Alphonse was really fit for. He wanted to see him humbled,
abandoned by his friends, lonely and poor; and then--!
Beyond that he really did not like to speculate; for at this point
feelings stirred within him which he would not acknowledge.
He _would_ hate his former friend; he _would_ have revenge for all the
coldness and neglect which had been his own lot in life; and every time
the least thought in defence of Alphonse arose in his mind he pushed it
aside, and said, like the old banker: “Sentiment won’t do for a business
man.”
One day he went to his tailor’s; he bought more clothes in these days
than he absolutely needed.
The nimble little man at once ran to meet him with a roll of cloth:
“See, here is the very stuff for you. Monsieur Alphonse has had a whole
suit made of it, and Monsieur Alphonse is a gentleman who knows how to
dress.”
“I did not think that Monsieur Alphonse was one of your favorite
customers,” said Charles, rather taken by surprise.
“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” exclaimed the little tailor, “you mean because I have
once or twice mentioned that Monsieur Alphonse owed me a few thousand
francs. It was very stupid of me to speak so. Monsieur Alphonse has
not only paid me the trifle he was owing, but I know that he has
also satisfied a number of other creditors. I have done _ce cher beau