There is nothing any longer for me to do in Tunis,
and I shall withdraw myself from the place altogether
as soon as possible. There is only one town,
one country in the world, and that is Paris—Paris
welcoming, hospitable, not prudish, where every intelligent
man may find space to do great things. And I,
now, do you see, de Gery, I want to do great things.
I have had enough of mercantile life. For twenty
years I have worked for money; to-day I am greedy
of glory, of consideration, of fame. I want to
be somebody in the history of my country, and that
will be easy for me. With my immense fortune,
my knowledge of men and of affairs, the things I know
I have here in my head, nothing is beyond my reach
and I aspire to everything. Believe me, therefore,
my dear boy, never leave me”—one
would have said that he was replying to the secret
thought of his young companion—“remain
faithfully on board my ship. The masts are firm;
I have my bunkers full of coal. I swear to you
that we shall go far, and quickly, nom d’un
sort!”
The ingenuous southerner thus poured out his projects
into the night with many expressive gestures, and
from time to time, as they walked rapidly to and fro
in the vast and deserted square, majestically surrounded
by its silent and closed palaces, he raised his head
towards the man of bronze on the column, as though
taking to witness that great upstart whose presence
in the midst of Paris authorizes all ambitions, endows
every chimera with probability.
There is in young people a warmth of heart, a need
of enthusiasm which is awakened by the least touch.
As the Nabob talked, de Gery felt his suspicion take
wing and all his sympathy return, together with a shade
of pity. No, very certainly this man was not a
rascal, but a poor, illuded being whose fortune had
gone to his head like a wine too heavy for a stomach
long accustomed to water. Alone in the midst of
Paris, surrounded by enemies and people ready to take
advantage of him, Jansoulet made upon him the impression
of a man on foot laden with gold passing through some
evil-haunted wood, in the dark and unarmed. And
he reflected that it would be well for the protege
to watch, without seeming to do so, over the protector,
to become the discerning Telemachus of the blind Mentor,
to point out to him the quagmires, to defend him against
the highwaymen, to aid him, in a word, in his combats
amid all that swarm of nocturnal ambuscades which he
felt were prowling ferociously around the Nabob and
his millions.
THE JOYEUSE FAMILY
Every morning of the year, at exactly eight o’clock,
a new and almost tenantless house in a remote quarter
of Paris, echoed to cries, calls, merry laughter,
ringing clear in the desert of the staircase:
