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THE MYSTERY OF ORCIVAL.
29
play at the expense of all. Young, noble, elegant, rich by
millions, endowed with vigorous health, this last descendant
of a great family squandered most foolishly and ignobly both
his youth and his patrimony. He acquired by excesses of all
kinds a wide and unenviable celebrity. People talked of his
stables, his carriages, his servants,-his furniture, his dogs,
his favorite loves. His cast-off horses.still took prizes, and
a jade distinguished by his notice was eagerly sought by the
young bloods of the town. Do not think, however, that he
was naturally vicious; he had a warm heart, and even generous
emotions, at twenty. Six years of unhealthy pleasures had
spoiled him to the marrow." Foolishly vain, he was ready to
do anything to maintain his notoriety. He had the bold and
determined egotism of one who has never had to think of any
one but himself, and has never suffered. Intoxicated by the
flatteries of the so-called friends who drew his money from
him, he admired himself, mistaking his brutal cynicism for
wit, and his lofty disdain of all morality and his idiotic skep-
*                ticism, for character.    He was also feeble; he had caprices,
but never a will; feeble as a child, a woman, a girl. His
biography was to be found in the petty journals of the day,
which retailed his sayingsor what he might have said; his
least actions and gestures were reported.
One night when he was supping at the Cafe de Paris, he
threw all the plates out the window. It cost him twenty
thousand francs. Bravo! One morning gossiping Paris
learned with stupefaction that he had eloped to Italy with the
wife of X------, the bankera lady nineteen years married!
He fought a duel, and killed his man. The week after, he
was wounded in another. He was a hero! On one occasion
he went to Baden, where he broke the bank. Another time,
after playing sixty hours, he managed to lose 120,000 francs
won by a Russian prince.
He was one of those men whom success intoxicates, who
long for applause, but who care not for what they are ap-
plauded. Count Hector was more than ravished by the noise
he made in the world. It seemed to him the acme of honor
and glory to have his name or initials constantly in the col-
umns of the Parisian World. He did not betray this, how-
ever, but said, with charming modesty, after each new ad-
venture:
"When will they stop talking about me?"
On great occasions he borrowed from Louis XIV. the epi-
gram :
" Afferme the deluge."
The deluge came in his life-time.
One April morning, his valet, a villianous fellow, drilled
and dressed up by the countwoke him at nine o'clock, with
this speech:
" Monsieur, a bailiff is down-stairs in the ante-chamber,
and has come to seize your furniture."
Hector turned on his pillow, yawned, stretched, and re-
plied :
"Well, tell him to begin operations with the stables and
carriage-house; and then come up and dress me."
He did not seem disturbed, and the servant retired amazed
at his master's coolness. The count had at least sense enough
to know the state of his finances; and he had foreseen, nay,
expected the bailiff's visit. Three years before, when he had
been laid up for six weeks in consequence of a fall from his
horse, he had measured the depth of the gulf toward which
he was hastening. Then, he might yet have saved himself. But
he must have changed his whole course of life, reformed his
household, learned that twenty one-franc pieces made a na-
poleon. Fie, never! After mature reflection he had said to
himself that he would go on to the end. When the last hour
came, he would fly to the other end of France, erase his
name from his linen, and blow his brains out in some forest.
This hour had now come.
By contracting debts, signing bills, renewing obligations,
paying interests and compound interests, giving commissions
by always borrowing, and never paying, Hector had consumed
the princely heritagenearly four millions in landswhich
he received at his father's death. The winter just past had
cost him fifty thousand crowns. He had tried eight days be-
fore to borrow a hundred thousand francs, and had failed.
He had been refused, not because his property was not as
much as he owed, but because it was known that property
sold by a bankrupt does not bring its value.
Thus it was that when the valet came in and said, "The
bailiff is here," he seemed like a speccre commanding suicide.
Hector took the announcement coolly, and said, as he got up:
"Well, here's an end of it."
He was very calm, though a [little confused. A little con-
fusion is excusable when a man passes from wealth to beg-
gary. He thought he would make his last toilet with especial
care. Parbleu! The French nobility goes into battle in
court costume! He was ready in less than an hour. Ha
put on his bejeweled watch chain; then he put a pair of little
pistols, of the finest quality, in his overcoat pocket; then he
sent the valet away, and opening his desk, he counted up
what funds he had left. Ten thousand and some hundreds
of francs remained. He might with this sum take a journey,
prolong his life two or three months; but he repelled with
disdain the thought of a miserable subterfuge, of a reprieve
in disguise. He imagined that with this money he might
make a great show of generosity which would be talked of in
the world ; it would be chivalrous to breakfast with his in-
amorata and make her a present of this money at dessert.
During the meal he would be full of nervous gayety, of cyn-
ical humor, and then he would announce his intention to kill
himself. The girl would not fail to narrate the scene every-
where; she would repeat his last conversation, his last will
and gift; all the cafes would buzz with it at night; the papers
would be full of it.
This idea strangely excited him, and comforted him at
once. He was going out, when his eyes fell upon the mass
of papers in his desk. Perhaps there was something there
which might dim the positiveness of his resolution. He
emptied all the drawers without looking or choosing, and put
all the papers in the fire. He looked with pride upon this
conflagration; there were bills, love letters, business letters,
bonds, patents of nobility, deeds of property. Was it not
his brilliant past which flickered and consumed in the fire-
place?
The bailiff occurred to him, and he hastily descended.
He was the most polite of bailiffs, a man of taste and wit, a
friend of artists, himself a poet at times. He had already
seized eight horses in the stables with all their harness and
trappings, and five carriages with their equippage, in the car-
riage house.
"I'm going on slowly, count," said he, bowing. "Per-
haps you wish to arrest the execution.    The sum is large, to
be sure, but a man in your position------"
" Believe that you are here because it suits me;" interrupt-
ed Hector, proudly, " this house doesn't suit me; I shall
never enter it again. So, as you are master, go on."
And wheeling round on his heel he went off.
The astonished bailiff proceeded with Mis work. He went
from room to room, admiring and seizing. He seized cups
gained at the races, collections of pipes and arms, and the
library, containing many sporting books, superbly bound.
Meanwhile the Count de Tremorel, who was resolved more
than ever on suicide, ascending the boulevards came to his
inamorata's house, which was near the Madeleine. He had
introduced her some six months before into the demi-monde
as Jenny Fancy. Her real name was Plagie Taponnet, and
although the count did not know it, she was his valet's sister.
She was pretty and lively, with delicate hands and a tiny
foot, superb chestnut hair, white teeth, and great imperti
nent black eyes, which were languishing, caressing, or pro-
voking, at will. She had passed suddenly from the most ab-
ject poverty to a state of extravagant luxury. This brilliant
change did not astonish her as much as you might think.
Forty-eight hours after her removal to her new apartments,
she had established order among the servants; she made them
obey a glance or a gesture; and she made her dressmakers
and milliners submit with good grace to her orders. Jenny
soon began to languish, in her fine rooms, for new excitement;
her gorgeous toilets no longer amused her. A woman's hap-
piness is not complete unless seasoned by the jealousy of
rivals. Jenny's rivals lived in the Faubourg du Temple, near
the barrier; they could not envy her splendor, for they did
not know her, and she was strictly forbidden to associate with
and so dazzle them. As for Tremorel, Jenny submitted to
him from necessity. He seemed to her the most tiresome of
men. She thought his friends the dreariest of beings. Per-
haps she perceived beneath their ironically polite manner, a
contempt for her, and understood of how little consequence
she was to these rich people, these high livers, gamblers,
men of the world. Her pleasures comprised an evening with
some one of her own class, card-playing, at which she won,
and a midnight supper. The rest of the time she suffered
ennui. She was wearied to death. A hundred times she
was on the point of discarding Tremorel, abandoning all this
luxury, money, servants, and resuming her old life.    Many