'Gloria Victis!' A Romance. Ossip Schubin
from former financial acquaintances.
It was not acquisitiveness that spurred Zoë on to her various undertakings, but the restlessness of her temperament. She delighted in everything novel and fatiguing, whether it were a pilgrimage to Lourdes, a bargain day at the Bon Marché, or a first representation at the Français, to which, by persistent wire-pulling and constant appeals to one and another person of influence, she was able to obtain tickets of admission not only for herself but for all her most intimate friends. She had one means, however, far more entertaining than all others, of procuring the excitement needed by her temperament, and this was the introduction to 'the world,' of American or European financial magnates. She extorted for them invitations to the most distinguished routs, she designed the balls which these wealthy people were to give to dazzle Paris withal, and she expended an incredible amount of cunning and energy in inducing the aristocratic world to appear at these entertainments. Her tactics were those of genius; instead of contenting herself after the fashion of less skilful mortals with inviting the poorer and more modest members of Paris society, she bent all her efforts to securing the presence of some legitimist duchess at the ball, if only for an hour. She succeeded in doing this in most cases by placing at the duchess' disposal a large sum of money for charitable purposes. When she had gained over two or three of these fixed stars, the planets of Parisian society began to appear at these balls.
Planets, in their social relations, are notably much more fastidious than fixed stars, as is but natural; they are forced to reflect a light not their own.
The entire scheme was usually most successful; the balls were beautiful and everything went excellently well. Sometimes, indeed, not one of the assembled guests had the civility to invite the mistress of the mansion to dance, and many of those present affected to mistake the host for a footman, but none the less was everyone content and pleased when the ball was over. Zoë Melkweyser was glad that she had enjoyed so brilliant an opportunity of getting out of breath; the givers of the ball were pleased to read the long list of their distinguished guests in Figaro; and le monde rejoiced in having something to laugh at, and spent three days in ridiculing the extravagance of the Cotillon favours.
The latest and most brilliant of Zoë's protégés was Conte Capriani.
Who was he? What was he? 'A poisonous fungus that the sultry storm-laden atmosphere had bred upon heaven only knows what muck-heap.'
A clever statesman had made use of this phrase not long before to define the innate characteristics of this Crœ sus. The phrase had been laughingly caught up and repeated, and no one had troubled themselves further about Capriani's antecedents. In a smaller city they would soon have been investigated, but Paris never busies itself long with the solution of such commonplace mysteries; on the contrary it takes care not to pry into the past of an adventurer whom it finds of very great use. Thus the antecedents of this financial Jove remained, like those of most deities, shrouded in myth.
Among the many legends that had at first been circulated concerning him, was one that he had formerly been a lady's physician and that he had been most successful with his aristocratic patients.
Whether this were or were not true, certain it was that his air and manner suggested that adulatory, fawning servility which characterizes those physicians whose professional efforts are, for lack of other occupation, chiefly directed to soothing the nerves of hysteric women. His exterior was that of a man who has once been handsome, cidevant-beau, spoiled only by the piercing glance of his large black eyes, and the cynical droop of his loose under-lip. He carried his head well forward, as if listening, and around his mouth and eyes there were strange lines and wrinkles in the yellow skin which had of late grown flabby,--lines suggesting that some of the figures with which he played the despot had flown angrily into his face and embedded themselves there.
That he had begun life with nothing he himself was wont to declare, whenever he gave way to the fit of rage that seized him upon any offence offered to his vanity; but how he had gained his immense fortune he never told. He made profit out of every thing that afforded gain, most of all out of the credulity of indolent inexperienced avarice. His success as a 'bear' was famous, and notorious; it sometimes seemed as if ill-luck existed only for his advantage, and it was well known that he had emerged from great financial crises which ruined thousands, not only unharmed, but with an increase of wealth.
There were various whispers afloat concerning his speculations, but no one had been able to attach any direct blame to him. Once only, in connection with his construction of a Spanish railway he had laid himself open to a couple of disgraceful charges. The times were unpropitious; the public, exasperated by various huge swindles, demanded a victim; but whilst several lesser individuals, were brought to trial and subjected to a public investigation, all legal proceedings against Capriani were suddenly quashed. Why? … No one knew or at least no one told aloud what was known.
He was a 'personnage tare,' but the stain upon his name was of so peculiar a nature that prudence required of many well-known and eminent men that they should not see it. Poor devils who stood outside the demoniac spell of his financial magic art called him an unprincipled swindler: people who had penetrated within the conjuror's circle called him a financial genius, flattered him almost servilely in their longing to share in his colossal enterprises, and if they did so procured for him in return a slight social recognition. And it was curious to observe how much at heart the magnate had this same social recognition, how he sued for the favour of every lofty dignitary, of every capital letter in the social alphabet. He persisted unweariedly in hurling his golden bomb-shells into the stronghold of Parisian society, and at last the fortress capitulated. He was received, as an enemy to be sure, with closed shutters and in silence, but he was received everywhere, at all the embassies, throughout the entire official representative world, and even in some drawing-rooms of the Faubourg. Everywhere he met those who, while he smiled at them in the most friendly way, looked over his shoulder without seeing him, but this he endured serenely. The hour for revenge will come, he said to himself, and almost always it did come!
Thanks to an ostentatious benevolence backed by millions, he had of late contrived to improve perceptibly his social standing; at his last ball, several crowned heads had been present. Zoë was right; he was undoubtedly one of the most influential financiers in Europe; she might almost have described him as one of the most influential men.
In Paris he was one of the celebrities that are shown to strangers. When he walked past, or rather drove past, for he was physically indolent and avoided all bodily exertion, he was pointed out as Monsieur Grévy or Mdlle. Bernhardt is pointed out. He occupied a vast hotel that he had built after the model of the castle of Chenonceau, but two stories higher, in the neighbourhood of the Park Monceau; in a quarter of an hour after leaving the Avenue Labédoyère the Baroness Zoë's fiacre drew up before this mimicry of vanished feudalism erected by a modern Crœ sus.
"Gabrielle's betrothal will make everything smooth," she said to herself. "I am glad to be well rid of the affair!"
A Maître d'Hôtel, who, it was said, had formerly been chamberlain to the Duc de Morny, and one of whose duties it was to instruct his present master in the laws of aristocratic etiquette, conducted the baroness with dignified solemnity to the 'small drawing-room' where the Contessa Capriani was wont to receive on quiet evenings.
The 'small drawing-room' was a very large, and very brilliantly-furnished apartment, which, in spite of landscapes by Corot, in spite of gold-woven Japanese hangings, old inlaid cabinets and a thousand articles of value, produced a dreary in-harmonious impression. It was evident that nothing here was devised for the pleasure and comfort of the inmates of the house, but that everything was arranged with a view of impressing visitors. It almost seemed as if millions run mad had tossed all these splendours together aimlessly, insanely shouting, "something more costly, something more costly still!"
Here sat the Contessa busied with some fancy work. She appeared well-bred, but shy, and embarrassed by her wealth, as she advanced a few steps to welcome the baroness, made a few conventional remarks, and then begged with a sigh to be excused for going on with her work, which work consisted in cutting all sorts of flowers and birds out of a piece of cretonne in order to sew them on a piece of satin. She devoted several hours a day