The Torture Garden (Musaicum Must Classics). Octave Mirbeau

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ quiet man, with a wan grey face and dull eyes, who had revolutionized the Stock Exchange by his formidable manipulations. It was known, or at least it was said, that behind this silent and impenetrable mask one of the most powerful Empires of Europe was in operation. It was doubtless a purely romantic concept, for in these corrupt places one never knows which to admire more—their corruption or their insipidity. Nevertheless, Countess Borska and my friend entertained lively hopes of being taken into the confidence of the mysterious baron, and continued to hope all the more energetically as the latter opposed their discreet but definite advances, with an even more discreet and definite reserve. I even believe that he pushed his reserve so far as to give them malicious advice, which resulted in a disastrous transaction for our friends. Then they conceived of letting loose upon the recalcitrant banker a very pretty young woman, who was an intimate friend of their household, and to let me loose at the same time upon the very pretty young woman who, worked upon by them, was quite willing to accept us favorably—the banker for business, and me for pleasure. Their calculation was simple and I grasped it at the very start: introduce me into the place and there I, through the woman, and they through me, would become roasters of the secrets which the baron let slip in moments of tender forgetfulness! This is what might be called high−pressure politics!

      Alas! that demon of perversity, which visits me at the decisive moment when I ought to act, wished things otherwise, and brought about the clumsy abortion of this lovely project. At the dinner which was to seal this quite Parisian union, I behaved in so unmannerly a fashion to the young woman that after a scandalous scene she left the salon in shame, fury and tears, and went home, widowed of both our loves. The little celebration was cut short, and Eugene took me home in a cab. We went down the Champs Elysees amid a tragic silence.

      “Where shall I drop you off?” the great man said to me, as we turned the corner of the Rue Royale.

      “At the dive... on the boulevard,” I sneeringly replied to them, in a hurry to breathe some pure air, in the company of honest people. And suddenly, with a gesture of discouragement, my friend tapped me on the knee and oh, all my life I shall see the sinister expression of his mouth, and his look of hatred!——and he sighed:

      “Well! Well! No good will ever come of you!”

      He was right. And that time I could not blame him for it.

      Eugene Mortain belonged to that school of politicians which, under the famous name of opportunists, Gambetta unleashed upon France like a pack of carnivorous beasts. He aspired to power only for the material pleasures it could procure, and the money which clever men like he knew how to draw from muddy sources. Incidentally, I do not know why I am holding only Gambetta responsible for the historic honor of having gathered and unchained the miserable pack which still endures despite all the Panamas. Gambetta assuredly loved corruption; there lay in that thundering democrat a voluptuary, or rather a lusty dilettante who reveled in the stench of decomposition. But it must be said in his exoneration, and to their glory, that the friends with whom he surrounded himself, and which chance rather than judicious selection had rallied to his short−lived career, were rascals enough to hurl themselves of their own accord, upon that eternal prey, in which so very many jaws had already fleshed their furious teeth.

      Before attaining to the Chamber, Eugene Mortain had tackled every trade—even the lowest; he had passed through the lowest and shadiest depths of journalism, You cannot choose all your openings—you must take them where you find them. His initiation into Parisian life was spirited and prompt—and, moreover, carefully calculated. I mean that life which flows from the editorial offices to the Parliament, by way of the prefecture of police. Since he was devoured by immediate needs and ruinous appetites, there was no important blackmailing scheme or underhand affair of which our honest Eugene was not in some way or other the mysterious and violent brain. He had negotiated that stroke of genius whereby a great section of the press had been syndicated, in order to expedite the success of his vast undertakings. In this sort of discredited enterprise knew a good many of his calculations to be pure master−pieces, which revealed this little, rapidly cultivated provincial as an astounding psychologist and an admirable organizer of the evil instincts of the outcast. But he had the modesty never to boast of the beauty of his achievements, and the priceless art, by making use of others, of never exposing his own person in hours of danger. With constant craftiness and a perfect knowledge of his fields of operation, he always managed to avoid, by circumnavigation, the dank and muddy swamps of the police correctional, into which so many others clumsily allowed themselves to be engulfed. It is true that my assistance—be it said without fatuity—was not entirely useless to him in many circumstances. He was, into the bargain, a charming fellow; yes, in truth, a charming fellow. He could only be reproached for an awkwardness of demeanor—a persistent vestige of his provincial education—and vulgar details which added to the unpleasant conspicuousness of his too recently acquired wealth. But all these things were only externals which concealed all the better, from casual observers, whatever subtle resources his mind possessed, together with his acute instincts, his shrewd agility, and all the greedy and terrible tenacity of his soul. To rightly appreciate that soul it would have been necessary to see—as I, alas, have seen them so many times!—the two wrinkles which, at certain moments of relaxation, drooped from the corners of his lips and gave a frightful expression to his mouth—Ah yes, he was a charming fellow!

      “By judicious duels he silenced the malevolent rumors which always surround meteoric personalities. His natural gaiety and good—natured cynicism (which we readily considered an amiable paradox), no less than his lucrative and widely publicized love−affairs, succeeded in acquiring for him a questionable reputation, which was, however, enough for a future statesman who Was yet to go through the mill. He also possessed that marvelous faculty of being able to speak for five hours and on any subject, without ever expressing an idea. His quenchless eloquence poured forth ceaseless and indefatigable—the slow, monotonous, and suicidal torrent of the political vocabulary—and just as fluently upon questions of the merchant marine as on school reform, on finance as well as the beaux arts, on agriculture as well as religion. The parliamentary reporters recognized in him their own universal incompetence, and patterned their written jargon after his spoken gibberish. Obliging when it cost him nothing; generous and even prodigal when it might be very profitable to him; arrogant and servile according to circumstances and individuals; awkwardly skeptical, grossly corrupt, an enthusiast devoid of spontaneity and an unspontaneous wit—he was liked by everyone. Therefore his swift rise surprised and disconcerted no one. It was, to the contrary, favorably received by different political parties, for Eugene was not considered a fierce partisan, he discouraged no hope or ambition, and it was not unknown that, when the time was ripe, an understanding might be reached with him. All that mattered was to set the price. Such was the man and such the 'charming fellow' in whom my last hopes rested, and who actually held my life and death between his fingers.

      You will notice that in this hastily outlined sketch of my friend I have modestly effaced myself, although I collaborated vigorously, and often by curious methods, in the making of his career. I might tell any number of stories which are not, you may believe, exceptionally edifying. But what good would a complete confession be, since you may guess at all my depravities without any necessity for further display? And then, my role opposite this bold and prudent scamp was always—I do not say insignificant, ah nor laudable, for you would laugh in my face—but it remained almost a secret. Allow me to remain in that scarcely discreet shadow with which I have been pleased to shroud those years of sinister struggle and shady machination. Eugene does not 'acknowledge' me. And I myself, out of what remains of a quite bizarre modesty, occasionally feel an overwhelming repugnance at the thought that I might easily pass for his 'cat's−paw'.

      Besides, it occasionally happened that for entire months I lost sight of him, and 'gave him the slip', as we say, finding in the gambling−dens, at the Stock Exchange and in the dressing−rooms of kept women, sustenance which I was tired of seeking in politics, and whose quest was more to my taste for laziness and the unexpected. Sometimes, in the grip of a sudden poetic mood, I buried myself in a God−forsaken corner of the country, and in the presence of nature aspired to СКАЧАТЬ