Tales of Two Countries
monsieur_ great injustice, and I beg you never to give him a hint of my
stupidity.”
Charles was no longer listening to the chatter of the garrulous tailor.
He soon left the shop, and went up the street quite absorbed in the one
thought that Alphonse had paid.
He thought how foolish it really was of him to wait and wait for the
other’s ruin. How easily might not the adroit and lucky Alphonse come
across many a brilliant business opening, and make plenty of money
without a word of it reaching Charles’s ears. Perhaps, after all, he was
getting on well. Perhaps it would end in people saying: “See, at last
Monsieur Alphonse shows what he is fit for, now that he is quit of his
dull and crabbed partner!”
Charles went slowly up the street with his head bent. Many people
jostled him, but he heeded not. His life seemed to him so meaningless,
as if he had lost all that he had ever possessed--or had he himself cast
it from him? Just then some one ran against him with more than usual
violence. He looked up. It was an acquaintance from the time when he and
Alphonse had been in the Crédit Lyonnais.
“Ah, good-day, Monsieur Charles!” cried he, “It is long since we met.
Odd, too, that I should meet you to-day. I was just thinking of you this
morning.”
“Why, may I ask?” said Charles, half-absently.
“Well, you see, only to-day I saw up at the bank a paper--a bill for
thirty or forty thousand francs--bearing both your name and that
of Monsieur Alphonse. It astonished me, for I thought that you
two--hm!--had done with each other.”
“No, we have not quite done with each other yet,” said Charles, slowly.
He struggled with all his might to keep his face calm, and asked in
as natural a tone as he could command: “When does the bill fall due? I
don’t quite recollect.”
“To-morrow or the day after, I think,” answered the other, who was a
hard-worked business man, and was already in a hurry to be off. “It was
accepted by Monsieur Alphonse.”
“I know that,” said Charles; “but could you not manage to let _me_
redeem the bill to-morrow? It is a courtesy--a favor I am anxious to
do.”
“With pleasure. Tell your messenger to ask for me personally at the bank
to-morrow afternoon. I will arrange it; nothing easier. Excuse me; I’m
in a hurry. Good-bye!” and with that he ran on----Next day Charles sat
in his counting-house waiting for the messenger who had gone up to the
bank to redeem Alphonse’s bill.
At last a clerk entered, laid a folded blue paper by his principal’s
side, and went out again.
Not until the door was closed did Charles seize the draft, look swiftly
round the room, and open it. He stared for a second or two at his name,
then lay back in his chair and drew a deep breath. It was as he had
expected--the signature was a forgery.
He bent over it again. For long he sat, gazing at his own name, and
observing how badly it was counterfeited.
While his sharp eye followed every line in the letters of his name,
he scarcely thought. His mind was so disturbed, and his feelings so
strangely conflicting, that it was some time before he became conscious
how much they betrayed--these bungling strokes on the blue paper.
He felt a strange lump in his throat, his nose began to tickle a little,
and, before he was aware of it, a big tear fell on the paper.
He looked hastily around, took out his pocket-handkerchief, and
carefully wiped the wet place on the bill. He thought again of the old
banker in the Rue Bergère.
What did it matter to him that Alphonse’s weak character had at last
led him to crime, and what had he lost? Nothing, for did he not hate
his former friend? No one could say it was his fault that Alphonse was
ruined--he had shared with him honestly, and never harmed him.
Then his thoughts turned to Alphonse. He knew him well enough to be sure
that when the refined, delicate Alphonse had sunk so low, he must have
come to a jutting headland in life, and be prepared to leap out of it
rather than let disgrace reach him.
At this thought Charles sprang up. That must not be. Alphonse should not
have time to send a bullet through his head and hide his shame in the
mixture of compassion and mysterious horror which follows the suicide.
Thus Charles would lose his revenge, and it would be all to no purpose
that he had gone and nursed his hatred until he himself had become evil
through it. Since he had forever lost his friend, he would at least
expose his enemy, so that all should see what a miserable, despicable
being was this charming Alphonse.
He looked at his watch; it was half-past four. Charles knew the café
in which he would find Alphonse at this hour; he pocketed the bill and
buttoned his coat.
But on the way he would call at a police-station, and hand over the bill
to a detective, who at a sign from Charles should suddenly advance
into the middle of the café where Alphonse was always surrounded by his
friends and admirers, and say loudly and distinctly so that all should
hear it:
“Monsieur Alphonse, you are charged with forgery.”
It was raining in Paris. The day had been foggy, raw, and cold; and well
on in the afternoon it had begun to rain. It was not a downpour--the
water did not fall from the clouds in regular drops--but the clouds
themselves had, as it were, laid themselves down in the streets of Paris
and there slowly condensed into water.
No matter how people might seek to shelter themselves, they got wet on
all sides. The moisture slid down the back of your neck, laid itself
like a wet towel about your knees, penetrated into your boots and far up
your trousers.
A few sanguine ladies were standing in the _portes cochères_, with their
skirts tucked up, expecting it to clear; others waited by the hour in
the omnibus stations. But most of the stronger sex hurried along under
their umbrellas; only a few had been sensible enough to give up the
battle, and had turned up their collars, stuck their umbrellas under
their arms, and their hands in their pockets.
Although it was early in the autumn it was already dusk at five o’clock.
A few gas-jets lighted in the narrowest streets, and in a shop here and
there, strove to shine out in the thick wet air.
People swarmed as usual in the streets, jostled one another off the
pavement, and ruined one another’s umbrellas. All the cabs were taken
up; they splashed along and bespattered the foot-passengers to the best
of their ability, while the asphalte glistened in the dim light with a
dense coating of mud.
The cafés were crowded to excess; regular customers went round and
scolded, and the waiters ran against each other in their hurry. Ever and
anon, amid the confusion, could be heard the sharp little ting of the
bell on the buffet; it was la _dame du comptoir_ summoning a waiter,
while her calm eyes kept a watch upon the whole café.
A lady sat at the buffet of a large restaurant on the Boulevard
Sebastopol. She was widely known for her cleverness and her amiable
manners.
She had glossy black hair, which, in spite of the fashion, she wore
parted in the middle of her forehead in natural curls. Her eyes were
almost black and her mouth full, with a little shadow of a mustache.
Her figure was still very pretty, although, if the truth were known, she
had probably passed her thirtieth year; and she had a soft little hand,
with which she wrote elegant figures in her cash-book, and now and then
a little note. Madame Virginie could converse with the young dandies who
were always hanging about the buffet, and parry their witticisms, while
she kept account with the waiters and had her eye upon every corner of
the great room.
She was really pretty only from five till seven in the afternoon--that
being the time at which Alphonse invariably visited the café. Then
her eyes never left him; she got a fresher color, her mouth was always
trembling into a smile, and her movements became somewhat nervous. That
was the only time of the day when she was ever known to give a random
answer or to make a mistake in the accounts; and the waiters tittered
and nudged each other.
For it was generally thought that she had formerly had relations with
Alphonse, and some would even have it that she was still his mistress.
She herself best knew how matters stood; but it was impossible to be
angry with Monsieur Alphonse. She was well aware that he cared no more
for her than for twenty others; that she had lost him--nay, that he had
never really been hers. And yet her eyes besought a friendly look, and
when he left the café without sending her a confidential greeting, it
seemed as though she suddenly faded, and the waiters said to each other:
“Look at Madame; she is gray to-night”----Over at the windows it
was still light enough to read the papers; a couple of young men were
amusing themselves with watching the crowds which streamed past. Seen
through the great plate-glass windows, the busy forms gliding past one
another in the dense, wet, rainy air looked like fish in an aquarium.
Farther back in the café, and over the billiard-tables, the gas was
lighted. Alphonse was playing with a couple of friends.
He had been to the buffet and greeted Madame Virginie, and she, who had
long noticed how Alphonse was growing paler day by day, had--half in
jest, half in anxiety--reproached him with his thoughtless life.
Alphonse answered with a poor joke and asked for absinthe.
How she hated those light ladies of the ballet and the opera who enticed
Monsieur Alphonse to revel night after night at the gaming-table, or at
interminable suppers! How ill he had been looking these last few weeks!
He had grown quite thin, and the great gentle eyes had acquired a
piercing, restless look. What would she not give to be able to rescue
him out of that life that was dragging him down! She glanced in the
opposite mirror and thought she had beauty enough left.
Now and then the door opened and a new guest came in, stamped his feet
and shut his wet umbrella. All bowed to Madame Virginie, and almost all
said, “What horrible weather!”
When Charles entered he saluted shortly and took a seat in the corner
beside the fireplace.
Alphonse’s eyes had indeed become restless. He looked towards the door
every time any one came in; and when Charles appeared, a spasm passed
over his face and he missed his stroke.
“Monsieur Alphonse is not in the vein to-day,” said an onlooker.
Soon after a strange gentleman came in. Charles looked up from his
paper and nodded slightly; the stranger raised his eyebrows a little and
looked at Alphonse.
He dropped his cue on the floor.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, I’m not in the mood for billiards to-day,” said
he, “permit me to leave off. Waiter, bring me a bottle of seltzer-water
and a spoon--I must take my dose of Vichy salts.”
“You should not take so much Vichy salts, Monsieur Alphonse, but rather
keep to a sensible diet,” said the doctor, who sat a little way off
playing chess.
Alphonse laughed, and seated himself at the newspaper table. He
seized the _Journal Amusant_, and began to make merry remarks upon the
illustrations. A little circle quickly gathered round him, and he was
inexhaustible in racy stories and whimsicalities.
While he rattled on under cover of the others’ laughter, he poured out
a glass of seltzer-water and took from his pocket a little box on which
was written, in large letters, “Vichy Salts.”
He shook the powder out into the glass and stirred it round with a
spoon. There was a little cigar-ash on the floor in front of his chair;
he whipped it off with his pocket-handkerchief, and then stretched out
his hand for the glass.
At that moment he felt a hand on his arm. Charles had risen and hurried
across the room; he now bent down over Alphonse.
Alphonse turned his head towards him so that none but Charles could