Paris Before the Deluge Page 19

  To bring the young woman to him, to render her submissive to his will, he had thrown her father into a dungeon. Well, fatality! He had only succeeded in opening her arms to his rival, in rendering her the commensal and the maidservant of Hyperion.

  What could he do, then? What he had done: soften her up, offer her the release of her father, and then his own hand, while showing his bride-to-be that he was not an unworthy man, that he had his birthplace, his name embellished by present power. Well, once again, fatality! That name, that birthplace on which he had put his finger, had just vanished like a deceptive will-o’-the-wisp.

  He was, therefore, at bay; he was fidgeting with rage in his armchair, sometimes falling back into profound reveries that extended long into the night, in the midst of which he formed thousands of various projects.

  The next day, Hyperion came to the manor house, supported on the arms of Lady Speos and Ormudza. His face was pale and drawn; his respiration was so weak and so precipitate that one would have thought he was about to expire.

  When they arrived, Atlas, who was writing in his study, got up abruptly, and raised his head proudly, like a snake about to strike. Hyperion looked at him without arrogance, but without fear. Then, taking Ormudza by the hand, he led her toward the astonished clubman.

  “My lord,” he said, “here is my sister; if it is only up to me, be her husband and her protector, as you have promised to be her father’s protector.

  That speech was a thunderbolt for Atlas, who was far from expecting such a step. He no longer knew, in truth, whether he ought to rejoice in an event that placed his rival so high in his estimation. Accustomed to battling the vicissitudes of life, he found himself devoid of strength against its favors. He would certainly have preferred to have to knock down a rival than to owe him thanks for a unexpected benefit that he had sought by means of so many bad deeds…so many crimes, some might say—those who call the action criminal rather than the intention; those who take no account of innate human weakness and the innate fury of human passions.

  Atlas was, therefore, deflated. He made no reply to Hyperion, but he extended his hand toward the young woman, who stood there motionless, her eyes lowered. He smiled bitterly.

  Hyperion took a step toward him then, and shook his hand, saying: “What is said is said, my lord. It’s up to you to obtain, not merely Ormuzda’s hand but her heart.”

  He went out then with his companions, his heart full of tears, because he had just made a superhuman effort.

  “Nimrod! Nimrod!” shouted Atlas, when he found himself alone, taking a deep breath into lungs that seemed violently oppressed.

  But Nimrod, his adviser, did not respond. Atlas opened the door through which he had seen him go out when Hyperion arrived. Nimrod was not there; the only person there was Chemnis, prostrate before a statuette of the Buddha Sylax, pouring out a flood of tears.

  That sight gripped his heart. He clenched his fists over his chest and cast a glance of malediction at the heavens...

  Meanwhile, Nimrod was prowling around Ludia’s cottage, waiting for an opportunity to speak to the lady in private. The opportunity eventually came.

  Ludia shivered at the sight of him.

  “Don’t tremble, Madame,” he said to her, smiling. “I’ve brought you some good news. I hope that in a fortnight, I’ll be able to show you your son.”

  “I don’t believe it, Nimrod,” Ludia replied, coldly.

  “In a fortnight, Madame,” Nimrod repeated, emphasizing his words, “I will show you your son and reconcile you with my master, the lord. Adieu, Madame—rely on me!”

  The lady was amazed. She did not know what meaning to attach to the words of her evil genius who had a habit of promising a good deed while preparing two evil ones.

  In any case, Nimrod’s assurance only served further to confuse her hopes and her quest.

  XVIII. A Visit from Nimrod

  A fortnight after that encounter, Lady Speos’ little house was deserted. Ypsoer was its sole guardian; he came to open the door and windows from time to time to renew the air. Then, with his arms folded, his neck craning and his eyes fixed, he took up a station at a bend in the highway, as if he were expending someone to arrive by that route.

  A similar monotony reigned on the other side of the mountain, in Atlas’ manor house. Nothing was heard but the occasional sound of a door opening and closing again immediately. Sometimes, someone raised the curtain of a little high window overlooking the road that people coming from Lutecia had to follow in order to reach the village; then everything returned to complete immobility.

  That was when Chemnis, left alone, fell back into her chair, hiding her face in her hands and making every effort to stifle her sobs.

  One day, when she was in one of those crises of desolation, Ypsoer came into her room.

  “Well, my lady, are you a little more content now?” he said to her, doubtless attributing the young woman’s emotion to joy.

  “Why would I be?”

  “Because you’ve had news from Lutecia, about your brother.”

  “About my brother? From whom?”

  “From whom? But from Nimrod, who arrived yesterday evening and only left this morning.”

  “Nimrod! Nimrod has come and gone again!” said the young woman, with an astonishment full of chagrin.

  “Gone again…I don’t know,” Ypsoer replied, reproaching himself for his assumption. “I say that because I saw my neighbor Silene harnessing his two reindeer to his sleigh this morning to take Nimrod to the city…at least, that’s what I thought...”

  “And I haven’t seen him!” the young woman exclaimed, in a heart-rending tone.

  “You haven’t seen him! Oh, well—but don’t weep like that, my lady,” the peasant said. “I can give you news myself. First of all, Nimrod came to the Desert yesterday; he came to our house. He asked me lots of questions about lost children, as if I weren’t fearful of making reckless judgments. Anyway, he questioned me a great deal, about this and that, my travels, about Sylacea, where I lived for some time, about two charming children that I had there...” The peasant looked at Chemnis tenderly. “Then, he seemed content; he slapped his forehead with his hand, saying: ‘That’s it…I have them.’ Then he went to the carriage-driver Silene and said: ‘Take me to the city.’ And he left.”

  Chemnis was still listening to Ypsoer, with all the more attention because she was expecting some news that would interest her—but there was none; there was nothing except Nimrod’s clandestine journey, which she did not understand.

  She waited with even more anxiety, therefore, for the return of Atlas, who had promised that he would not be away for long.

  After leaving the Valley of the Desert, Nimrod had indeed, as he had told the peasant, gone directly to the city, but not to Lord Speos’ house. He headed for a poor house in the poorest quarter of Lutecia, into which he entered as if he were familiar with it.

  He went up at the first floor, opened a door very discreetly, which he closed in the same fashion, and carefully drew the curtains over the window, in such a fashion as to hide the light of a little lamp that was burning on the mantelpiece. It was dark.

  “It’s me, Mother,” he said to an old woman who had stood up abruptly when he came in but was standing there open-mouthed, her neck taut, holding her breath, at the sight of her son’s mysterious expression. She kept her eyes fixed on him, and her heart beat with all the anguish of anxiety, in expectation of what Nimrod was going to tell her.

  “Sit down, Mother,” he said, finally “and let’s talk.”

  The old woman was, in fact, Nimrod’s mother.

  Nimrod, as we already know, was a lost child of the great city of the Pah-ri-ziz. Hazard, his skill, undoubtedly, and his boldness, most of all—which never failed in his conceptions—had made him what we see. Needless to say, however, that had not been without intimate conflicts, sometimes without remorse, always without regrets and without hatred—especially without hatred, for, more fortunate tha
n others of his caste, he knew where he came from. His father was a member of the high aristocracy, rich and powerful, but his mother was only a humble daughter of the proletariat.

  Neglectful, like all of those who only think of the pleasures of the moment, his father had abandoned him completely at the same time as he had abandoned his mother.

  The young mother, for her part, was not neglectful; she never forgot; no more did her son.

  Hence the horrible struggle that we have seen him maintain with so much obstinacy, which many people, obviously, would condemn, but which some might perhaps excuse, remembering that if one encountered many lost children like Nimrod in Atlantis, the depravity of mores was probably amended by the threat of the punishment of vengeance. For, we repeat once again, however strange the immorality of the Pah-ri-ziz might seem to us, the social crime for which we are reproaching them at present was so ordinary that it had become entirely commonplace, as a perfectly acceptable accident for people of good social standing.

  “I thought you’d abandoned me, Nimrod,” said the old woman, caressing her son’s hands.

  “Is there something you lack, Mother?”

  “Oh, no! No…but I haven’t seen you for years.”

  “Years! No—but it’s been a long time, I know. But I didn’t want to come to see you without bringing you some good news.”

  “Well?” said the old woman, widening her eyes, which shone with an unusual gleam.

  “Well, Mother, it’ll soon be finished,” said Nimrod.

  “Finished! Oh, divine Sylax, so much the better!” cried the old woman, standing up again abruptly. “That’s been the dream of my whole life. But tell me, then, Nimrod, how this old woman of the poor people, who had neither money, nor status, nor power, has finally been able to avenge herself on the rich and the powerful? Tell me, son, for, you see, the poorer I am, the more I think that I ought to be rich; and the uglier I become, the more I think that I was once beautiful—and beautiful for one man in particular, who took advantage of my inexperience and good faith with lying promises; and the older I get, the more I think that my youth was not so very long ago, and that he alone made me old before my time. Well, speak, Nimrod—what have you done for me? What have you done for yourself, elder son of Speos, Lord Speos…? For you are his elder son, alas.”

  The old woman had become animated in a frightful manner as she hurled at her son a title he did not bear, although it ought to have belonged to him, and which decorated another. Nimrod did not smile, as he would once have done. He no longer had any energy for evil; evil was no longer anything to him but a profession to fulfill, since the woman who have given him everything asked it of him.

  “What I’ve done, Mother,” said Nimrod tranquilly, “is that eighteen years ago, I pricked their heart with a pin, to make them die. And that life, I confess to you, has wearied me, it has exhausted me; I want to enjoy the fruit of my labors at last. I only have two or three more blows to deliver, and then I can retire from business. I have an income—an aristocratic income; we’ll be able to live henceforth like noble and powerful lords.”

  Nonchalantly, Nimrod continued: “It is, moreover, the balance-sheet of my position. The man who bears legally, and to my prejudice, the tile of Lord Speos is virtually ruined. His lawsuit against his old friend Mo-kie-thi, whom he refuses to recognize, will be settled, because I shall present myself as a witness. His wife will be dishonored in everyone’s eyes, because she has a grown-up son whom I shall introduce to the husband and the whole of Lutecian society. For his part, the husband has a grown-up daughter, whom I shall introduce to the wife and all their friends. Lady Speos’ son will be rejected by his fiancée; that’s in progress; the lord’s daughter, will lose her fiancé; that’s settled. And thus, thanks to one another, they’ll suffer unspeakable torments, which will outweigh those that the late Lord Speos caused Nimrod’s mother to endure. Everything is ready, Mother; then, the future is ours!”

  The old woman threw herself upon her son, hugged him in her arms and covered him with frantic kisses.

  “That’s it,” she said. “I always knew that we’d get there in the end.”

  Nimrod opened the door again then, cautiously, and went out the same way. That night, he slept with all the calm of a good angel.

  The next day, he went to Atlas with a clear expression. “Well,” he said, “how’s Speos?”

  “He’s triumphant. The fake Mo-kie-thi is unmasked; he’s in prison.”

  “Bah! That’s impossible. I know that man myself.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, and it’s necessary that you save him, Atlas. I’ve discovered something about him that will interest you greatly. Anyway, he really is the Lord Mo-kie-thi whose son was betrothed in his cradle to Ormudza Nirvana. The son isn’t dead, I can assure you. I know where he is.” He suddenly changed the subject: “What about Nirvana?”

  “He’s been promised his liberty; he’ll have it, if he doesn’t already.”

  “He must! It’s necessary to thwart Speos. Speos is a great villain. Remember that, Atlas.”

  And he left abruptly, leaving the young man in an astonishment and perplexity that defied description.

  XIX. The Day of the Deluge

  Mid-November had arrived very quietly when Dr. Plunos retraced for the philosopher Chephren the various twists and turns of the strange story that he had seen in his ecstatic sleep. The evening of their final conversation, the doctor, who did not like going out in bad weather, had almost decided not to keep the appointment. However, as he had promised his friend, and as he was very desirous himself of revealing the exact extent of the virtue of the philosopher’s diamonds of democracy, he—the skeptic who believed in virtue but not in virtuous men—took the risk.

  Scarcely had he concluded the story of the meeting between Atlas and Nimrod than the philosopher rose to his feet, furious, waving his fist at someone he could not see, crying: “Infamous wretches! The infamous wretches!”

  “Permit me to tell you, Philosopher Chephren,” the doctor immediately replied, “That you’re getting carried away at present, obedient to I don’t know what zeal. To build one’s fortune on the affairs of others is not an infamy but a skill. These men have been very clever, after all. Do you think that when they came into the world they were charged to pursue the wellbeing of others or their own? Their own, no? That’s what they’ve done. Too bad if they’ve found obstacles in their passage, which they’ve broken through. God alone must provide for everyone, and to do that He often disrupts projects whose destruction is very sensible to their authors. What do you expect? It’s no longer astonishing to me, Philosopher, that the Pah-ri-ziz have expelled you from their society. There’s no means to live happily with that morality.”

  “Yes, but if my morality leads to wellbeing, to stability, to public prosperity, and if the morality of those men, on the contrary, leads the empire to its decadence, to its ruination... That’s where it will lead, Doctor, and if it isn’t God who takes care of that punishment, it will be humans themselves. Look around us, and see whether we’re on the eve of our destruction.”

  “That’s true, my friend,” the doctor replied, this time gravely, “And I assure you that your belief is mine; but I also believe that our morality will be rejected so long as your diamonds are always in honor.”

  While making these reflections, Dr. Plunos was pacing back and forth in the compartment of the ark where they were, and his eyes often went to the window that looked outside. Night was falling rapidly, and the sky was so completely covered by thick clouds that it was threatening to be very dark.

  “Pardon me, my friend,” he said to the philosopher, “but I believe the weather’s getting worse; I’ll come back to see you tomorrow. In any case, I lack the definite information today to relate the end of our story.”

  “Oh, the weather isn’t so bad yet,” the philosopher replied, endeavoring to keep his friend with him, “although it’s been threatening for several days. I can’t let you go with
out your saying a few more words. What is Atlas doing in Lutecia?”

  “Making preparations for his wedding, my friend.”

  “To Ormudza?”

  “To Ormudza.”

  “And Hyperion?”

  “The poor boy is in the Valley of the Desert, where he’s dying in order to liberate Nirvana, the father of the woman he loves.”

  “Poor boy! And Chemnis?”

  “She’s still waiting for Atlas; she’s hoping against all hope. Her own happiness is very dear to her, undoubtedly, but she isn’t selfish, and that of Atlas is even dearer to her. If she can’t become his wife, she’ll nevertheless remain his sister; that’s her hope…and then, who knows what the future holds? Who knows, after all, what the unexpected has in store?” The doctor suddenly became fearful. “But au revoir, Philosopher. The weather’s getting worse. Thunder is rumbling; the storm’s about to burst.”

  “No, not yet,” Chephren replied, and added: “What about Nimrod? What is Nimrod doing to finish it, as he puts it?”

  “Oh, who knows? I don’t know yet. Perhaps I’ll know tomorrow, and then I’ll tell you, if you don’t find out before I do.”

  “Evil angel!” Chephren exclaimed, meaning Nimrod, and holding on to the doctor’s arm as he opened the door to leave. “And Speos? And Ludia?” he added, squeezing the arm tightly as it threatened to escape from his grip.

  “Oh, as for them, I don’t know what they’re doing. I’ll know this evening, for I owe them a visit—the husband at least—and I’ll do that before going home. Tomorrow morning, I’ll write a few words to you, if I don’t come to see you at sunrise. But by Sylax, my friend, I beg you—can you hear those thunderclaps? We’re going to have a rare storm.”