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"And there is an endless stream of pilgrims. They strike bargains with Our Lady. They pray for an extension of markets, new outlets for sausages and silks. They consult her on ways and means of getting rid of spoiled vegetables and pushing off their shoddy. In the centre of the city, in the church of Saint Boniface, I found a placard requesting the faithful, out of respect for the holy place, not to give alms. It was not seemly, you see, that the commercial orisons be disturbed by the ridiculous plaints of the indigent."
"Well," said Durtal, "it's a strange thing, but democracy is the most implacable of the enemies of the poor. The Revolution, which, you would think, ought to have protected them, proved for them the most cruel of régimes. I will show you some day a decree of the Year II, pronouncing penalties not only for those who begged but for those who gave."
"And yet democracy is the panacea which is going to cure every ill," said Des Hermies, laughing. And he pointed to enormous posters everywhere in which General Boulanger peremptorily demanded that the people of Paris vote for him in the coming election.
Durtal shrugged his shoulders. "Quite true. The people are very sick. Carhaix and Gévingey are perhaps right in maintaining that no human agency is powerful enough to effect a cure."
CHAPTER XXI
Durtal had resolved not to answer Mme. Chantelouve's letters. Every day, since their rupture, she had sent him an inflamed missive, but, as he soon noticed, her Mænad cries were subsiding into plaints and reproaches. She now accused him of ingratitude, and repented having listened to him and having permitted him to participate in sacrileges for which she would have to answer before the heavenly tribunal. She pleaded to see him once more. Then she was silent for a while week. Finally, tired, no doubt, of writing unanswered letters, she admitted, in a last epistle, that all was over.
After agreeing with him that their temperaments were incompatible, she ended:
"Thanks for the trig little love, ruled like music-paper, that you gave me. My heart ca
"Her heart!" he laughed, then he continued to read:
"I understand that it is not your earthly mission to satisfy my heart but you might at least have conceded me a frank comradeship which would have permitted me to leave my sex at home and to come and spend an evening with you now and then. This, seemingly, so simple, you have rendered impossible. Farewell forever. I have only to renew my pact with Solitude, to which I have tried to be unfaithful-"
"With solitude! and that complaisant and paternal cuckold, her husband! Well, he is the one most to be pitied now. Thanks to me, he had evenings of quiet. I restored his wife, pliant and satisfied. He profited by my fatigues, that sacristan. Ah, when I think of it, his sly, hypocritical eyes, when he looked at me, told me a great deal.
"Well, the little romance is over. It's a good thing to have your heart on strike. In my brain I still have a house of ill fame, which sometimes catches fire, but the hired myrmidons will stamp out the blaze in a hurry.
"When I was young and ardent the women laughed at me. Now that I am old and stale I laugh at them. That's more in my character, old fellow," he said to the cat, which, with ears pricked up, was listening to the soliloquy. "Truly, Gilles de Rais is a great deal more interesting than Mme. Chantelouve. Unfortunately, my relations with him are also drawing to a close. Only a few more pages and the book is done. Oh, Lord! Here comes Rateau to knock my house to pieces."
Sure enough, the concierge entered, made an excuse for being late, took off his vest, and cast a look of defiance at the furniture. Then he hurled himself at the bed, grappled with the mattress, got a half-Nelson on it, and balancing himself, turning half around, hurled it onto the springs.
Durtal, followed by his cat, went into the other room, but suddenly Rateau ceased wrestling and came and stood before Durtal.
"Monsieur, do you know what has happened?" he blubbered.
"Why, no."
"My wife has left me."
"Left you! but she must be over sixty."
Rateau raised his eyes to heaven.
"And she ran off with another man?"
Rateau, disconsolate, let the feather duster fall from his listless hand.
"The devil! Then, in spite of her age, your wife had needs which you were unable to satisfy?"
The concierge shook his head and finally succeeded in saying, "It was the other way around."
"Oh," said Durtal, considering the old caricature, shrivelled by bad air and "three-six," "but if she is tired of that sort of thing, why did she run off with a man?"
Rateau made a grimace of pitying contempt, "Oh, he's impotent. Good for nothing-"
"Ah!"
"It's my job I'm sore about. The landlord won't keep a concierge that hasn't a wife."
"Dear Lord," thought Durtal, "how hast thou answered my prayers!-Come on, let's go over to your place," he said to Des Hermies, who, finding Rateau's key in the door, had walked in.
"Righto! since your housecleaning isn't done yet, descend like a god from your clouds of dust, and come on over to the house."
On the way Durtal recounted his concierge's conjugal misadventure.
"Oh!" said Des Hermies, "many a woman would be happy to wreathe with laurel the occiput of so combustible a sexagenarian.-Look at that! Isn't it revolting?" pointing to the walls covered with posters.
It was a veritable debauch of placards. Everywhere on lurid coloured paper in box car letters were the names of Boulanger and Jacques.
"Thank God, this will be over tomorrow."
"There is one resource left," said Des Hermies. "To escape the horrors of present day life never raise your eyes. Look down at the sidewalk always, preserving the attitude of timid modesty. When you look only at the pavement you see the reflections of the sky signs in all sorts of fantastic shapes; alchemic symbols, talismanic characters, bizarre pantacles with suns, hammers, and anchors, and you can imagine yourself right in the midst of the Middle Ages."
"Yes, but to keep from seeing the disenchanting crowd you would have to wear a long-vizored cap like a jockey and blinkers like a horse."
Des Hermies sighed. "Come in," he said, opening the door. They went in and sitting down in easy chairs they lighted their cigarettes.
"I haven't got over that conversation we had with Gévingey the other night at Carhaix's," said Durtal. "Strange man, that Dr. Joha
"I am obliged to. I didn't tell you all about him, for a physician can't lightly make these dangerous admissions. But you may as well know that this priest heals hopeless cases.
"I got acquainted with him when he was still a member of the Parisian clergy. It came about by one of those miracles of his which I don't pretend to understand.
"My mother's maid had a granddaughter who was paralyzed in her arms and legs and suffered death and destruction in her chest and howled when you touched her there. She had been in this condition two years. It had come on in one night, how produced nobody knows. She was sent away from the Lyons hospitals as incurable. She came to Paris, underwent treatment at La Salpêtrière, and was discharged when nobody could find out what was the matter with her nor what medication would give her any relief. One day she spoke to me of this abbé Joha
"They placed her in a chair. The ecclesiastic, little, active, energetic, took her hand and applied to it, one after the other, three precious stones. Then he said coolly, 'Mademoiselle, you are the victim of consanguineal sorcery.'