The Nabob eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 527 pages of information about The Nabob.

The Nabob eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 527 pages of information about The Nabob.

Impassable and cold in the midst of his success, he continued to read in his gloomy voice, penetrating like the rain of Lyons: 

“Now, gentlemen, one asks how a stranger, a Provencial returned from the East, ignorant of the interests and needs of this island where he had never been seen before the election, a true type of what the Corsican disdainfully calls a ’continental’—­how has this man been able to excite such an enthusiasm, such devotion carried to crime, to profanity.  His wealth will answer us, his fatal gold thrown in the face of the electors, thrust by force into their pockets with a barefaced cynicism of which we have a thousand proofs.”  Then the interminable series of denunciations:  “I, the undersigned, Croce (Antoine), declare in the interests of truth, that the Commissary of Police Nardi, calling on us one evening, said:  ’Listen, Croce (Antoine), I swear by the fire of this lamp that if you vote for Jansoulet you will have fifty francs to-morrow morning.’” And this other:  “I, the undersigned, Lavezzi (Jacques-Alphonse), declare that I refused with contempt seventeen francs offered me by the Mayor of Pozzonegro to vote against my cousin Sebastiani.”  It is probably that for three francs more Lavezzi (Jacques-Alphonse) would have swallowed his contempt in silence.  But the Chamber did not look into things so closely.

Indignation seized on this incorruptible Chamber.  It murmured, it fidgeted on its padded seats of red velvet, it raised a positive clamour.  There were “Oh’s” of amazement, eyes lifted in astonishment, brusque movements on the benches, as if in disgust at this spectacle of human degradation.  And remark that the greater part of these deputies had used the same electoral methods, that these were the heroes of those famous orgies when whole oxen were carried in triumph, ribanded and decorated as at Gargantuan feasts.  Just these men cried louder than others, turned furiously towards the solitary seat where the poor leper listened, still and downcast.  Yet in the midst of the general uproar, one voice was raised in his favour, but low, unpractised, less a voice than a sympathetic murmur, through which was distinguished vaguely:  “Great services to the Corsican population—­Considerable works—­Territorial Bank.”

He who mumbled thus was a little man in white gaiters, an albino head, and thin hair in scattered locks.  But the interruption of this unfortunate friend only furnished Le Merquier with a rapid and natural transition.  A hideous smile parted his flabby lips.  “The honourable M. Sarigue mentions the Territorial Bank.  We shall be able to answer him.”  He seemed in fact to be very familiar with the Paganetti den.  In a few neat and lively phrases he threw the light on to the depths of the gloomy cave, showed all the traps, the gulfs, the windings, the snares, like a guide waving his torch above the oubliettes of some sinister dungeon.  He spoke of the fictitious quarries, of the railways on paper, of the chimeric

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The Nabob from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.