The silent dismay of those closest to him had saddened Nicolas, although for a long time he had refused to draw the appropriate conclusions. But eventually he had had to accept that the relationship had been a mistake, and that Madame de Lastérieux was not worthy of him. He had immediately felt it as a blow to his pride that he had yielded to a creature he could not respect – for which there was nobody to blame but himself – but then, although ashamed of loving her, had told himself that she still loved him. What had happened this evening, though, had been the last straw. Why had he agreed to that intimate dinner? Of course, he knew perfectly well why … Accepting her invitation had obliged him to reject Monsieur de Noblecourt, who had planned to share a Twelfth Night cake this evening with some friends: Nicolas, Semacgus, Inspector Bourdeau, and even, if his duties to the King allowed him, Monsieur de La Borde. It was with a heavy heart that Nicolas had had to decline.
When he had arrived at the house in Rue de Verneuil late that afternoon he had found, much to his surprise, that a merry company had already gathered. He was irritated by the ironic pout with which Madame de Lastérieux expressed her dismay at seeing him arrive so early, and by the announcement that there would be a dozen people for dinner, some of whom were already there. Abandoning him, she ran, laughing, to turn the page for a young man who was playing the pianoforte. Balbastre came and greeted him, his plump, outrageously made-up face creased with irony, his dark eyes devoid of warmth. Four strangers, all young, were playing cards at a precious Coromandel lacquer table. Apart from the organist, who was a regular visitor, Nicolas was the oldest person there. He felt a twinge of bitterness, and then immediately reproached himself. It was absurd: why should a young woman in her twenties make him feel as though he were playing the role of some greybeard in a play, some Alceste surrounded by young dandies? He leant back against a window. The angular face of the young man sitting at the pianoforte intrigued him: it seemed to conjure a vague, faded image from the distant past, like the face of a drowned man coming to the surface from the deep. Everything was conspiring to make him feel uneasy. And why hadn’t she introduced him to her guests? One more wound to his pride, to be added to the growing list of daily snubs. Casimir and Julia, her two servants from the West Indies, served syrup, chocolate and macaroons, and a delicious beverage which Nicolas had enjoyed on other, more intimate occasions: a clever mixture of sugar syrup and white rum to which Julia added a slice of bergamot peel and a few drops of a special potion – whenever asked what it contained, she would always laugh loudly and refuse to divulge the secret.
Soon after he arrived, he saw the young man take a book of drinking songs from his coat. Could it be that he was feeling jealous? Julie leant over the young man’s shoulder and threw her head back in a throaty laugh. She cast Nicolas a mocking glance and beckoned him to her. What did she want? When he reached her, she stood up.
‘Monsieur, go and prepare some eggnog for me, my mouth is so dry and I need refreshment.’
She underlined her request by striking him with her lace fan. The aggressiveness of this gesture seemed to Nicolas to open a rift between them. It had happened in the presence of a witness – that provocative-looking young man – and the tone was quite unacceptable. Not to mention the fact that she had revealed a secret of their private life: the eggnog he had prepared for her every night in the early days of their relationship. He had been patient long enough. Now he lost control, unable to conceal his anger.
‘Madame, I shall inform the servants of your wish. I bid you good evening.’
She was staring at him, the lower half of her face stretched taut in a half-smile, her eyes hard. The assembled company had fallen silent. Nicolas bowed and strode across the room so brusquely that he knocked Balbastre’s glass out of his hand and did not even apologise. He threw his cloak over his shoulders, did not wait for Casimir to open the door for him, ran down the steps four at a time, and plunged into the cold and snowy Rue de Verneuil. He had no idea where to go, and stamped frantically on the cobbles. It was at that moment that a carriage had loomed up and he had regained a sense of reality.
His first impulse was to dash to Rue Montmartre and join his friends. He soon changed his mind: it was not fitting, either for him or for them, to make them feel that he was only seeking out their company so that his evening would not be totally ruined. Such an attitude did not sit well with the esteem and respect he had for them. He looked at his repeater watch. It had been a gift from Madame Adélaïde, the King’s daughter, to thank him for retrieving her stolen jewels during an investigation. It was Monsieur Caron de Beaumarchais, watchmaker and factotum to the King’s daughters, who had delivered it to him. A lively character, to whom Nicolas had taken a liking, he had explained the workings of the watch, which rang the hours and the minutes with two different chimes, and given him a great deal of advice: always close the lid – which bore a delicate portrait of the princess – carefully rather than snapping it shut, always wind the mechanism slowly, never leave the precious object on cold marble. Surprised by this, Nicolas had asked why, and had learnt that the cold froze the oil in the mechanism and stopped the cogs from moving. He pressed on a spring, and heard six deep strokes, followed by six crystalline strokes: it was six thirty. On the corner of Rue de Beaune, he was jostled good-naturedly by a group of musketeers out for a good time, who had just left the nearby barracks.1
He reflected for a moment, unsure where to go. No, he was definitely too unhappy to show his face in Rue Montmartre. For some time now, he had been wanting to see the rising new star of the Théâtre-Français, Mademoiselle Raucourt.2 Her debut a year earlier in the role of Dido had been a sensation, and had been duly reported as such in Le Mercure and La Gazette. No other actress in living memory had made such an impression: she was not yet eighteen, and was pretty as a picture, with a voice that was said to be enchanting, an exceptional bearing and a prodigious intelligence in her approach to her roles. Nicolas would go and watch tonight’s play: it would distract him from his worries, and no doubt he would glean in passing some spicy or edifying titbit which would delight Monsieur de Sartine the next day.
The snow had turned to freezing rain by the time he passed the dark mass of the Pont Royal water pump. The lanterns along the right bank of the river and the terrace of the Tuileries glowed feebly through the damp air. Having a permanent pass, he knocked at the window of the guardroom and identified himself. The guard, grumbling at being disturbed in his enjoyment of a mulled wine which had coloured his white moustache red, opened the gate. As soon as he was in the gardens, Nicolas regretted taking this short cut. Instead of making things easier for himself, he found himself in a vast snowy expanse in which all the paths had disappeared. Now he was going to ruin his shoes – a particularly annoying thought, since they were as comfortable as felt slippers, and allowed him to stand for hours on end without feeling any tightness or fatigue. It would have been more sensible to take the longer way round through the colonnades of the Louvre. In the calm of the evening, he could have got the measure of the improvements the city authorities were making in the area, clearing the square and driving out the market stalls that had cluttered it for so many years. The plan was that when the ground had been properly levelled, it would be covered with a series of enclosed lawns which would be pleasant to the eye and permit a clear view of the Point-du-Jour.
The great dark masses of the statues helped him to get his bearings, and he waded in a more or less straight line towards the gate to the swing