Paris Before the Deluge Read online

  “Oh, as to that, you’re right, my lord.”

  “So, I’m ruined; for Ludia’s fortune, after being regularized, will be found not to be what it is supposed to be. Then again, I’m dishonored, for Mo-kie-thi’s property is no longer intact. Part of it has paid my debts.”

  “Ruined…dishonored…,” muttered Nimroad. “All that’s not certain.”

  Nimrod stood up then and took hold of the contract that Speos had appeared to be reading so attentively when he arrived.

  “Will Lord Speos give me a little of the contents of this scrap of paper,” he said, “if I find a means of conserving the whole for him?”

  “But that piece of paper is the contract of my heritage.”

  “I suspected as much, Master.”

  “Oh well! Yes, yes, Nimrod.”

  “Only a quarter.”

  “A quarter—so be it!”

  “Are you sure, Master?”

  “I swear on my honor!”

  “Honor is a precious thing, and I esteem the honor of Lord Speos above the honor of the most honorable man in Atlantis—but will you, my lord, swear it in writing?”

  Speos, who expected anything on the part of his despotic servant, did not think the moment appropriate for him to moralize about the insult of his request. He contented himself with making a slight grimace to signify his resentment, and started writing.

  “There,” he said, handing him the compromise he had just made.

  “You’re the legitimate heir of Lord Mo-kie-thi,” said Nimrod, standing up and heading for the door of the study in order to leave.

  Speos called him back. “One more word, Nimrod,” he said. “I’m a man of honor; I’m not asking you to do anything base or to commit a crime in order to conserve my inheritance.”

  “Oh, my lord Master,” Nimrod replied, “it’s almost an insult to forbid me to commit a crime.”

  “That’s true, in fact,” Speos murmured, putting his hand on the contract as if someone might dispute its possession with him.

  “Coward!” muttered Nimrod, as he went out. “He wants a man dead and doesn’t have the courage to admit it. That’s because he’s also an honest man.”

  Nimrod closed the study door very softly, pressing to his heart the document of division that the Master had just signed.

  X. The Demon of the Night

  The next day, the entire village of Me-nu-tchi was in ecstasy before a horrible heap of ashes. Fire had broken out again during the night in Lord Nirvana’s house, and had consumed everything that it had spared on the previous occasion.

  There was no shortage of conjectures as to the cause of the blaze. One old lady thought that she alone knew the truth. She assured everyone that, at daybreak, she had seen the demon of fire escaping, all black and blazing, from the midst of the flames. Fear rendering her superstitious, she swore that she had recognized his two red horns and his scorpion’s tail, which he had caused to whistle through the air as he flew off in the direction of Lutecia.

  The said demon was none other than an unfortunate victim of the fire, who was incapable of flying like a malevolent angel and had quite simply fled along the road to Lutecia to avoid the peril that menaced him.

  He was a man whose physiognomy indicated a frank and loyal character. A very singular bonhomie, but which did not lack dignity and energy, was imprinted on his entire person. His costume was very simple, similar to that of a worker, but that was undoubtedly a disguise, easily betrayed by the unknown individual’s face and distinguished manners.

  “After all,” he said to himself, pausing in his precipitate flight, “Why be so fearful? What harm have I done? Who, then, is pursuing me? I’m hiding like a malefactor; it’s really too ridiculous. Nirvana was trying to frighten me needlessly. Let’s go, come what may!”

  And the mysterious individual headed resolutely for a small isolated house painted red on all sides, displaying a large garland of oak-leaves above the door, announcing to everyone who knew how to read that one could get something to eat and drink there.

  “Hey, my man!” said the traveler, striking the broad stone slab that served the wine-merchant as a counter, and putting on a detached expression, like that of a man accustomed to that sort of place in order not to belie his workman’s costume. “Wine!”

  “At your service,” replied a fat man who was obliged to turn sideways to pass through a narrow door leading from his room to the counter.

  “You’re up very early, my lad,” the fat merchant added, briskly pouring his measure into a small sandstone jug, in such a way as only to half-fill it, the rest disappearing into the hollow stone, where nothing was lost.

  “By Sylax! If I’m up very early, my stout old fellow, I’m not the only one. That’s understandable for a traveler like me, but you’re at home, and already have your door open...”

  “It’s not entirely usual here, my old comrade,” the merchant replied, sitting down facing his customer, in such a way that the latter was obliged to invite him to have a few drinks with him, which was not something that people did twice. “You’re on the road very early,” he added, when he had made himself comfortable, “but we’ve had a man who was on the road even before you, for it was scarcely two o’clock when he knocked on the door. As he was a friend, we emptied two jugs together. Then, as the sun was about to rise out there, I said to myself: Elasippe my friend, you won’t go back to bed.”

  “I’m not sorry to have been preceded here by a traveler even earlier than myself,” replied the dubious laborer, “for I needed a drink, and I wouldn’t have dared wake you up.”

  “You’d have been wrong. Nimrod isn’t so fussy. He arrived at an undue hour, it’s true, but it doesn’t matter—he came in all the same.”

  “Nimrod!” said the traveler, trying to remember something.

  “The very same—do you know him? Ah, a good fellow, devilishly generous, always pays, always has a full purse. He’s my friend. He’s also a friend of Speos, a so-called, now one of our most illustrious Me-nu-tcheans.”

  “Oho! You’re a friend of Speos,” said the traveler, who became very thoughtful.

  “As you say, Comrade,” relied the wine merchant, smoothing his long moustache with satisfied fingers. “A good and honest patriot.”

  “I congratulate you, Citizen,” said the stranger, who did not appear to pay much attention to the republican epithet that he applied to the fat wine-merchant, who nevertheless started.

  “Citizen!” he exclaimed. “You’re one of ours, aren’t you, my lad? I’d already guessed. You’re for the democratic and fraternal republic, such as it’s in preparation in our glorious clubs. For myself, you see, when I don’t scent good game, I don’t reveal myself, but you have the odor of a good patriot. I’m truly sorry that Nimrod didn’t run into you here. What a joy it would have been for him to make your acquaintance! He’s one who likes nobles, by Sylax. If he got hold of them all, he’d gladly throw them into a furnace like the one he saw last night in Me-nu-tche. Did you see it? You came from that direction, I believe.”

  “Yes…yes, in fact, I did see it.”

  “By the three divine friends! That was well done—because, you see, it was the house of a noble, that one. I say this very quietly, but I wouldn’t be astonished if it was a true patriot who did that fine work! And yet it’s said—Nimrod said the same—that it was the work of nobles.”

  “What! Nobles who burn their own houses!”

  “No doubt. It’s a ruse, so that they can say afterwards that it was the democrats, in order to frighten the people who might, in the end, find themselves victim to a similar accident one day.”

  “Oh yes—that’s true,” replied the stranger, with an ironic and incredulous little smile.

  “Anyway, I think that there soon won’t be any need to roast the nobles, because they seem to me to have caught the scent of the straw and the firebrand already, and they’re making themselves scarce. It’s all the neighboring islands that are taking them in, and so much th
e better, because Nimrod tells me that our clubs have a law in their pocket, but a law...”

  “Against the nobles?”

  “Right, against the nobles…but a law that won’t do me any harm, because my little house needs enlarging, since my business, thank God, isn’t going too badly. There’s a little plot of land nearby that would suit me very well, but it belongs to a leftover who’s voyaging in the other world, or at least abroad.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Mo-kie-thi. You don’t know Mo-kie-thi? Everyone knows him. He’s a rich man—very rich—who left Atlantis at least sixteen or seventeen years ago, perhaps more, for a voyage from which he’s in no hurry to return. But what does it matter? Dead or alive, here or there...”

  “Well?”

  “The State will take his lands.”

  “Ah!”

  “The law that Nimrod tells me that our club wants to obtain against the nobles is the law of confiscation: confiscation against the exiles, first, or the fugitives, and then confiscation against all the nobles, to the profit of the Republic.”

  “But is it really a republic that we’ll have in the end? Because I can’t see that anyone’s in a hurry to found a stable government.”

  “It can’t be long—we’re on the right road. That’s the first news I ask for every morning, myself, right away. But while waiting for our republic to be firmly based, and waiting for the laws to rid us of the nobility that has robbed us for such a long time, ours are taking care of them—for after all, we don’t want to die of hunger, and it’s the nobles who have all the money, all the wheat, and all the food. They’ve stolen three-quarters of the land from us; we have to take it back from them, and share it out as ought to have been done in the beginning. Then, everything will be better, even my little business—for, you see, the nobles don’t drink and eat in my hostelry, and the workers, when they have the cash, have better things to spend it on. Isn’t that right?”

  “Oh! Yes...”

  “That’s right—and long live the Republic! Down…down with the aristocracy!” cried the excellent innkeeper, emptying his cup in a single draught.

  The traveler smiled approvingly at his companion of the moment—but in truth, his smile was so sad and so constrained that it almost betrayed his most secret thoughts. The cheerful republican fixed him with two astonished eyes that demanded an explanation for his partner’s silence, but the latter bent down, took his foot in his hand and made a horrible grimace that the innkeeper appeared to understand.

  “Damn!” he said. “Are you suffering, Comrade?”

  “Yes, I’m suffering.”

  “Well, you can rest here as long as you like.”

  “On the contrary—the pain’s telling me to march, and I’ll be on my way.”

  He paid for the wine that his terrible companion had drunk, and left.

  “Adieu, brother!” the wine-merchant called to him from the threshold. “And don’t go past Master Elasippe’s house, no matter what time it is, without going in!”

  The traveler nodded his head affirmatively while he drew away silently. That silence made the worthy Elasippe tremble horribly; he appeared somewhat lacking in courage away from the shelter of his counter.

  The traveler, meanwhile, went on his way no less troubled than the man he had troubled so much. The innkeeper’s sinister words were still ringing in his ears.

  He had no difficulty convincing himself that his interlocutor was not one of those bold and dangerous individuals to whom the secrets of a party have been confided, but the man had an isolated house that might well be a meeting-place of revolutionaries, and if he could not lay claim to the honor of taking judicious account of what he had heard, he might well, at least, flatter himself on telling the truth.

  Those reflections slowed down the traveler’s pace. At present, he was far from having the firm resolution that had driven him into Elasippe’s tavern, and the closer he came to Lutecia, the more he believed that a fatal event was imminent.

  He found Nirvana’s recommendations perfectly justified now, the latter having advised him to maintain a strict incognito until further notice, and he was inclined to obey them—but Nirvana had not foreseen the burning of his house and the imperative flight of his guest when making his recommendations.

  He had, therefore, to make his own decisions now, and find a shelter on his own in the midst of the enemy camp—which redoubled all the terrors awakened by what the innkeeper Elasippe had said.

  XI. Power and Poverty

  The mysterious traveler finally went into the great city of Lutecia, which he feared so much. It was, however, calm; everything there inspired the greatest feeling of security. Even he, the accursed, the victim of the blaze whom everyone was pursuing, would be unnoticed in the crowd, he thought. Neither thieves, nor bailiffs, nor agents of the police were on his trail. No one would point the finger at him. Even so, the slightest noise made him tremble; he turned his head away abruptly at the slightest contact he made with the passers-by.

  Evidently, he had been sternly warned about dangers that might only have been imaginary.

  His anxiety calmed down somewhat, however, at the sight of the peace that reigned around him. He began considering the places around him more tranquilly, and the sight of the immense city where he had lived for such a long time.

  He was in one of the most populous and most animated suburbs, the suburb of the Buddha. The place had lost much of its ancient physiognomy; anyone who had not seen it for ten years would certainly no longer have recognized it. He sought to recover half-forgotten memories; he wanted to get his bearings in order to direct his paces more reliably and eventually find the shelter he sought, but which was certainly not in that neighborhood of poverty, labor and misery.

  At that moment, a few paces away from him, in one of the most miserable houses of the street where he was standing, on the third and top floor, a young woman was working with a vivacity full of courage. She was sitting next to a dilapidated small table, one which two places were set for a poor meal, and a few fruits. She was, in fact, poor; everything indicated the fact, including the furniture, the frugality of the meal, and the feverish activity with which the young woman was working, without wasting a single precious second.

  At the noise of a familiar tread that she heard on the stairway, she ran to open the door.

  It was Atlas.

  He was sad, morose and consternated.

  “Nothing yet,” he said. “Nothing for me in this immense, rich, luxurious city of Lutecia, where there are people dying of indigestion while others are dying of hunger.” He laughed bitterly. “Ha ha! For such a celebrated, glorious, important man, it’s truly shameful. A poor fool who believed…what, then, did I believe? I thought that democracy was about to give me a good meal every day, a comfortable shelter and wealth. Yes, by Sylax! I thought that, whereas I don’t even know now which way to turn, and whether I ought to be glad have the skillful fingers of my little Chemnis to give me something to eat today—me, a strong man full of vigor, but with no work, with no money and with no hope for tomorrow. Atlantis, I curse you! Heaven and earth, you’re good for nothing! No, I’m mistaken—they’re good for tormenting us. But what am I saying? It’s humans who’ve rendered Heaven and earth futile. War against humans, then! Yes, war to the death!”

  Atlas was beside himself, rage overflowing from his heat. Chemnis tried to calm him down with caresses. She had some slight success, and managed to sit him down at her little table, where she served the frugal nourishment she had prepared with a smile full of grace and encouragement.

  “Don’t give up hope, my friend,” she said to him. “Heaven will be just to you, and the men you esteem will remember your merits. But have a little patience, and while waiting to be tranquil, be happy here. There’s no lack of work for your little sister, and she’ll never lack courage, as long as you wish her well.”

  “May your hand be blessed for the good it does!” said Atlas, with a tear in his eye, kissing
Chemnis’ hand. “Perhaps, one day, I’ll be able to return a hundredfold the price of your courage and your generosity. For in the end, am I not on the right path? Can democracy be so ingrate for one of its combatants?”

  Chemnis did not reply, and the most profound silence was then established around the little table, where the two diners ate with the best appetite they could. Atlas was pensive. Chemnis, understanding that he was painfully occupied with the thoughts that she suspected, dared not speak; she dared not oppose his dreams, hoping that they would be worn away of their own accord, for want of discussion. She was mistaken in her expectation, but she was right.

  “It doesn’t matter, Chemnis,” Atlas suddenly said, doubtless afraid of seeing his inner fire go out by itself. “My heart is ulcerated because there’s evil around us, and I can see where it is. It’s not in the inequality of fortunes, but of favors, in bad divisions, in the egotistical divisions of a perverse society, in the social every-man-for-himself, in the forgetfulness of the rights of all, the abuse of everyone’s duties, the meanness of a fraternity that speaks but doesn’t act. I’ll fight all that, I swear—and I’ll fight it to the death.”

  Chemnis said nothing, but she darted a soothing glance at the young man, who did not see it, because his eyes and mind were elsewhere.

  “Oh, the nobles, the nobles!” Atlas added, devouring his bread angrily. “What good is all that proud and egotistical aristocracy? Who sowed that bad grain in the field of a society of brothers?”

  “Leave it be, my friend,” said the swift voice of Chemnis, finally. “It’s not you or anyone else who can change what has always been.”

  “That’s true, sister,” said Atlas, with a smile full of bitterness. “Yesterday it was the nobles who were the kings of Atlantis; today it’s the rich; tomorrow it will be the clever—but there’ll still be the great, the powerful, the favored and the unfortunate…like me.” With the last despairing remark, he got up from the table.

  At that moment, a strange noise, a great tumult, became audible in the street; inarticulate cries, and then patriotic songs, rose up to Atlas’ little room. Atlas and Chemnis ran to the window and looked out.