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Samuel Brohl & Company
by Victor Cherbuliez
January, 2001 [Etext #2470]
Project Gutenberg Etext of Samuel Brohl & Company, by Cherbuliez
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Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
SAMUEL BROHL & COMPANY
by VICTOR CHERBULIEZ
CHAPTER I
Were the events of this nether sphere governed by the calculus of
probabilities, Count Abel Larinski and Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz would
almost unquestionably have arrived at the end of their respective
careers without ever having met. Count Larinski lived in Vienna,
Austria; Mlle. Moriaz never had been farther from Paris than
Cormeilles, where she went every spring to remain throughout the fine
weather. Neither at Cormeilles nor at Paris had she ever heard of
Count Larinski; and he, on his part, was wholly unaware of the
existence of Mlle. Moriaz. His mind was occupied with a gun of his own
invention, which should have made his fortune, and which had not made
it. He had hoped that this warlike weapon, a true /chef-d'oeuvre/, in
his opinion superior in precision and range to any other known, would
be appreciated, according to its merits, by competent judges, and
would one day be adopted for the equipment of the entire Austro-
Hungarian infantry. By means of unremitting perseverance, he had
succeeded in obtaining the appointment of an official commission to
examine it. The commission decided that the Larinski musket possessed
certain advantages, but that it had three defects: it was too heavy,
the breech became choked too rapidly with oil from the lubricator, and
the cost of manufacture was too high. Count Abel did not lose courage.
He gave himself up to study, devoted nearly two years to perfecting
his invention, and applied all his increased skill to rendering his
gun lighter and less costly. When put under test, the new firearm
burst, and this vexatious incident ruined forever the reputation of
the Larinski gun. Far from becoming enriched, the inventor had sunk
his expenses, his advances of every kind; he had recklessly squandered
both revenue and capital, which, to be sure, was not very
considerable.
Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz had a more fortunate destiny than Count
Larinski. She did not plume herself on having invented a new gun, nor
did she depend upon her ingenuity for a livelihood; she had inherited
from her mother a yearly income of about a hundred thousand livres,
which enabled her to enjoy life and make others happy, for she was
very charitable. She loved the world without loving it too much; she
knew how to do without it, having abundant resources within herself,
and being of a very independent disposition. During the winter she
went out a great deal into society, and received freely at home. Her
father, member of the Institute and Professor of Chemistry at the
College of France, was one of those /savants/ who enjoy dining out; he
had a taste also for music and for the theatre. Antoinette accompanied
him everywhere; they scarcely ever remained at home except upon their
reception evenings; but with the return of the swallows it was a
pleasure to Mlle. Moriaz to fly to Cormeilles and there pass seven
months, reduced to the society of Mlle. Moiseney, who, after having
been her instructress, had become her /demoiselle de compagnie/. She
lived pretty much in the open air, walking about in the woods,
reading, or painting; and the woods, her books, and her paint-brushes,
to say nothing of her poor people, so agreeably occupied her time that
she never experienced a quarter of an hour's /ennui/. She was too
content with her lot to have the slightest inclination to change it;
therefore she was in no hurry to marry. She had completed twenty-four
years of her existence, had refused several desirable offers, and
wished nothing better than to retain her maidenhood. It was the sole
article concerning which this heiress had discussions with those
around her. When her father took it into his head to grow angry and
cry, "You must!" she would burst out laughing; whereupon he would
laugh also, and say: "I'm not the master here; in fact, I am placed in
the position of a ploughman arguing with a priest."
It is very dangerous to tax one's brains too much when one dines out
frequently. During the winter of 1875, M. Moriaz had undertaken an
excess of work; he was overdriven, and his health suffered. He was
attacked by one of those anemic disorders of which we hear so much
nowadays, and which may be called /la maladie a la mode/. He was
obliged to break in upon his daily routine, employ an assistant, and
early in July his physician ordered him to set out for Engadine, and
try the chalybeate water-cure at Saint Moritz. The trip from Paris to
Saint Moritz cannot be made without passing through Chur. It was at
Chur that Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz, who accompanied her father, met for
the first time Count Abel Larinski. When the decree of Destiny goes
forth, the spider and the fly must inevitably meet.
Abel Larinski had arrived at Chur from Vienna, having taken the route
through Milan and across the Splugen Pass. Although he was very short
of funds, upon reaching the capital of the canton of Grisons he had
put up at the Hotel Steinbock, the best and most expensive in the
place. It was his opinion that he owed this mark of respect to Count
Larinski; such duties he held to be very sacred, and he fulfilled them
religiously. He was in a very melancholy mood, and set out for a
promenade in order to divert his mind. In crossing the Plessur Bridge,
he fixed his troubled eyes on the muddy waters of the stream, and he
felt almost tempted to take the fatal leap; but in such a project
there is considerable distance between the dream and its fulfilment,
and Count Larinski experienced at this juncture that the most
melancholy man in the world may find it difficult to conquer his
passion for living.
He had no reason to feel very cheerful. He had quitted Vienna in order
to betake himself to the Saxon Casino, where /roulette/ and /trente-
et-quarante/ are played. His ill-luck would have it that he stopped
on the way at Milan, and fell in with a circle of ill repute, where
this most imprudent of men played and lost. There remained to him just
enough cash to carry him to Saxon; but what can be accomplished in a
casino when one has empty pockets? Before crossing the Splugen he had
written to a petty Jew banker of his acquaintance for money. He
counted but little on the compliance of this Hebrew, and this was why
he paused five minutes to contemplate the Plessur, after which he
retraced his steps. Twenty minutes later he was crossing a public
square, ornamented with a pretty Gothic fountain, and seeing before
him a cathedral, he hastened to enter it.
The cathedral of Chur possesses, among other curiosities, a painting
by Albert Durer, a St. Lawrence on the gridiron, attributed to
Holbein, a piece of the true cross, and some relics of St. Lucius and
his sister Ernesta. Count Abel only accorded a wandering attention to
either St. Lucius or St. Lawrence. Scarcely had he made his way into
the nave of the building, when he beheld something that appeared to
him far more interesting than paintings or relics. An English poet has
said that at times there is revealed to us a glimpse of paradise in a
woman's face, and it was such a rare blessing that was at this moment
vouchsafed unto Count Larinski. He was not a romantic man, and yet he
remained for some moments motionless, rooted to the spot in
admiration. Was it a premonition of his destiny? The fact is that, in
beholding for the first time Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz, for it was none
other than she who thus riveted his attention, he experienced an
inexplicable surprise, a thrilling of the heart, such as he never
before had experienced. In his first impression of this charming girl
he made one slight mistake. He divined at once that the man by whom
she was accompanied, who had gray hair, a broad, open brow, vivacious
eyes, shaded by beautiful, heavy eye-brows, belonged to some learned
fraternity; but he imagined that this individual with a white cravat,
who had evidently preserved his freshness of heart, although past
sixty years of age, was the fortunate suitor of the beautiful girl by
his side.
There are some women whom it is impossible not to gaze upon. Wherever
Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz appeared she was the object of universal
observation: first, because she was charming; and, then, because she
had a way of her own of dressing and of arranging her hair, a peculiar
movement of the head, a grace of carriage, which inevitably must
attract notice. There were those who made so bold as to assert that
she assumed certain little peculiarities solely for the purpose of
attracting the chance observer. Do not believe a word of it. She was
altogether indifferent to public opinion and consulted her own taste
alone, which was certainly impregnated with a touch of audacity; but
she did not seek to appear audacious--she merely acted according to
her natural bent. Observing her from a distance, people were apt to
fancy her affected, and somewhat inclined to be fantastic; but on
approaching her, their minds were speedily disabused of this fancy.
The purity of her countenance, her air of refinement and thorough
modesty, speedily dispelled any suspicious thoughts, and those who had
for a moment harboured them would say mentally, "Pardon me,
mademoiselle, I mistook." Such, at least, was the mental comment of
Count Abel, as she passed close by him on leaving the church. Her
father was telling her something that made her smile; this smile was
that of a young girl just budding into womanhood, who has nothing yet
to conceal from her guardian angel. Count Larinski left the church
after her, and followed her with his eyes as she crossed the square.
On returning to the hotel he had a curiosity to satisfy. He questioned
one of the /garcons/, who pointed out to him in the hotel register for
travellers the following entry: "M. Moriaz, member of the Institute of
France, and his daughter, from Paris, /en route/ for Saint Moritz."
"And where then?" he asked himself; then dismissed the subject from
his mind.
When he had dined, he repaired to the post-office to inquire for a
letter he was expecting from Vienna. He found it, and returned to shut
himself up in his chamber, where he tore open the envelope with a
feverish hand. This letter, written in a more peculiar than felicitous
French, was the reply of the Jew banker. It read as follows:
"M. LE COMTE:
"Although you both write and understand German very well, you do
not like to read it, and therefore I write to you in French. It
grieves me deeply not to have it in my power to satisfy your
honoured demand. Business is very dull. It is impossible for me to
advance you another florin, or even to renew your note, which
falls due shortly. I am the father of a family; it pains me to be
compelled to remind you of this.
"I wish to tell you quite freely what I think. I did believe in
your gun, but I believe in it no longer, no one believes in it any
more. When strong, it was too heavy; when you made it lighter, it
was no longer strong. What came next? You know it burst. Beware
how you further perfect it, or it will explode whenever it becomes
aware that any one is looking at it. This accursed gun has eaten
up the little you had, and some of my savings besides, although I
have confidence that you will, at least, pay me the interest due
on that. It grieves me to tell you so, M. de Comte, but all
inventors are more or less crack-brained, and end in the hospital.
For the love of God, leave guns as they are, and invent nothing
more, or you will go overboard, and there will be no one to fish
you out."
Abel Larinski paused at this place. He put his letter down on the
table, and, turning round in his arm-chair, with a savage air, his eye
fixed on a distant corner of the room, he fell to thus soliloquizing
in a sepulchral voice:
"Do you hear, idiot? This old knave is right. Accursed be the day when
the genius of invention thrilled your sublime brain! A grand discovery
you have made, forsooth! What have I gained from it? Grand illusions,
grand discomfitures! What hath it availed me that I passed whole
nights discussing with you breech-loaders, screw-plates, tumbrels,
sockets, bridges, ovoid balls, and spring-locks? What fruits have I
gained from these refreshing conversations? You foresaw everything, my
great man, except that one little thing which great men so often fail
to see, that mysterious something, I know not what, which makes
success. When you spoke to me, in your slow, monotonous tones, when
you fixed upon me your melancholy gaze, I should have been able to
read in your eyes that you were only a fool. The devil take thee and
thy gun, thy gun and thee; hollow head, head full of chimeras, true
Pole, true Larinski!"
To whom was Count Abel speaking? To a phantom? To his double? He alone
knew. When he had uttered the last words, he resumed the perusal of
his letter, which ended thus:
"Will you permit me to give you a piece of advice, M. le Comte, a
good little piece of advice? I have known you for three years, and
have taken much interest in your welfare. You invent guns, which,
when they are strong, lack lightness. I beg your pardon, but I do
not comprehend you, M. le Comte. The name you bear is excellent;
the head you carry on your shoulders is superb, and it is the
general opinion that you resemble /Faust/; but neither name nor
head does you any good. Leave the guns as they are, and bestow
your attention upon women; they, and they alone, can draw you out
of the deep waters where you are now floundering. There is no time
to lose. I beg your pardon, but you must be thirty years old, and
perhaps a little more. This /diable/ of a gun has made you lose
three valuable years.
"It pains me, M. le Comte, to be compelled to remind you that the
little note falls due shortly. I have had the value of the
bracelet you left with me as a pledge estimated; it is not worth a
thousand florins, as you believed; it is a piece of antiquity that
has a value to only those who can indulge in a caprice for fancy
articles, and such caprices are rare nowadays, the time for such
is past.
"I am, M. le Comte, with much respect, your humble and obedient
servant,
"MOSES GULDENTHAL."
Abel Larinski turned once more in his chair. He crumpled up between
his fingers the letter of M. Moses Guldenthal, saying to himself as he
did so, that the Guldenthals are often very clear-sighted folks. "Ay,
to be sure," thought he, "this Hebrew is right, I have lost three
valuable years. I have had fever, and my eyes have been clouded; but,
Heaven be praised! The charm is broken, the illusion fled, I am cured
--saved! Farewell, my chimera, I am no longer thy dupe! Many thanks,
my dear friend: I return to you your gun; do with it as it seemeth
best to you."
His eyes suddenly fell on his own reflection in the mirror above the
chimney-piece, and he regarded it fixedly for a few moments.
"The semblance truly of an inventor," he resumed, mournfully smiling.
"This pale, emaciated face; these deep-set eyes, with dark circles
about them; these hollow, cadaverous cheeks! The three years have
indeed left their traces. Bah! a little rest in the Alpine pastures,
and /Faust/ will become rejuvenated."
He seized a pen, and wrote the following reply:
"You are truly kind, my dear Guldenthal: you refuse me the
miserable florins, but you give me in their stead a little piece
of advice that is worth a fortune. Unluckily, I am not capable of
following it. Noble souls like ours comprehend each other with
half a word, and you are a poet whenever it suits you. When in the
course of the day you have transacted a neat little piece of
business, after having rubbed your hands until you have almost
deprived them of skin, you tune your violin, which you play like
an angel, and you draw from it such delightful strains that your
ledger and your cash-box fall to weeping with emotion. I, too, am
a musician, and my music is the fair sex. But, alas! women never
can be for me other than an adorable inutility, a part of the
dream of my life. Your dreams yield you a handsome percentage, as
I have sorrowfully experienced; my dreams yield me nothing, and
therefore it is that they are dear to me.
"I must prohibit--understand me clearly--your disposing of the
trinket I left with you; we have the weakness, we Poles, of
clinging to our family relics. Set your mind at rest; before the
end of the month I shall have returned to Vienna, and will honour
the dear little note. One day you will go down on your knees to
beg of me to loan you a thousand florins, and I will astonish you
with my ingratitude. May the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of
Jacob, have you in his holy keeping, my dear Guldenthal!"
As he finished his letter, he heard the sound of harps and violins.
Some itinerant musicians were giving a concert in the hotel-garden,
which was lit up as bright as day. Abel opened his window, and leaned
on his elbows, looking out. The first object that presented itself to
his eyes was Mlle. Moriaz, promenading one of the long garden-walks,
leaning on her father's arm. Many eyes were fixed on her--we have
already said it was difficult not to gaze upon her--but no one
contemplated her with such close attention as Count Larinski. He never
once lost sight of her.
"Is she beautiful? Is she even pretty?" he queried within himself. "I
cannot quite make up my mind, but I am very sure that she is charming.
Like my bracelet, this is a fancy article. She is a little thin, and
her shoulders are too vigorously fashioned for her waist, which is
slender and supple as a reed; but, such as she is, she has not her
equal. Her walk, her carriage, resemble nothing I ever have seen
before. I can well imagine that when she appears in the streets of
Paris people turn to look after her, but no one would have the
audacity to follow her. How old is she? Twenty-four or twenty-five
years, I should say. Why is she not married? Who is this withered,
pinched-looking fright of a personage who trots at her side like a
poodle-dog? Probably some /demoiselle de compagnie/. And there comes
her /femme de chambre/, a very spruce little lass, bringing her a
shawl, which the /demoiselle de compagnie/ hastens to put over her
shoulders. She allows it to be done with the air of one who is
accustomed to being waited upon. Mlle. Moriaz is an heiress. Why,
then, is she not married?"
Count Larinski pursued his soliloquy as long as Mlle. Moriaz
promenaded in the garden. As soon as she re-entered the hotel, it
appeared to him that the garden had become empty, and that the
musicians were playing out of tune. He closed his window. He gave up
his plan of starting the next day for Saxon. He had decided that he
would set out for Saint Moritz, to pass there at least two or three
days. He said to himself, "It seems absurd; but who can tell?"
Thereupon he proceeded to investigate the state of his finances, and
he weighed and re-weighed his purse, which was very light. Formerly
Count Larinski had possessed a very pretty collection of jewellery. He
had looked upon this as a reserve fund, to which he would have
recourse only in cases of extreme distress. Alas! there remained to
him now only two articles of his once considerable store--the bracelet
that was in the hands of M. Guldenthal, and a diamond ring that he
wore on his finger. He decided that, before quitting Chur, he would
borrow money on this ring, or that he would try to sell it.
He remained some time seated at the foot of his bed, dangling his legs
to and fro, his eyes closed. He had closed them, in order to better
call up a vision of Mlle. Moriaz, and he repeated the words: "It seems
absurd; but who can tell? The fact is, we can know nothing of a
surety, and anything may happen." Then he recalled one of Goethe's
poems, entitled "Vanitas! vanitatum vanitas!" and he recited several
time in German these two lines:
"Nun hab' ich mein' Sach' auf nichts gestellt,
Und mein gehort die ganze Welt!"
This literally signifies, "Now that I no longer count on anything, the
whole world is mine." Abel Larinski recited these lines with a purity
of accent that would have astonished M. Moses Guldenthal.
M. Moriaz, after wishing his daughter good-night, and imprinting a
kiss upon her brow, as was his custom, had retired to his chamber. He
was preparing for bed, when there came a knock at his door. Opening
this, he saw before him a fair-haired youth, who rushed eagerly
towards him, seized both his hands, and pressed them with effusion. M.
Moriaz disengaged his hands, and regarded the intruder with a
bewildered air.
"How?" cried the latter. "You do not know me? So sure as you are one
of the most illustrious chemists of the day, I am Camille Langis, son
of your best friend, a young man of great expectations, who admires
you truly, who has followed you here, and who is now ready to begin
all over again. There, my dear master, do you recognise me?"
"Ay, to be sure I recognise you, my boy," replied M. Moriaz,
"although, to tell the truth, you have greatly changed. When you left
us you were a mere youth."
"And now?"
"And now you have the air of a young man; but, I beg of you, where
have you come from? I thought you were in the heart of Transylvania."
"It is possible to return from there, as you see. Three days ago I
arrived in Paris and flew to Maisons-Lafitte. Mme. De Lorcy, who bears
the double insignia of honour of being my aunt and the godmother of
Antoinette--I beg your pardon, I mean Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz--
informed me that you were in ill-health, and that your physician had
sent you to Switzerland, to Saint Moritz, to recruit. I hastened after
you; this morning I missed you by one hour at Zurich; but I have you
now, and you will listen to me."
"I warn you, my dear child, that I am at this moment a most detestable
auditor. We have done to-day one /hotel de ville/, one episcopal
palace, one cathedral, and some relics of St. Lucius. To speak
plainly, I am overpowered with sleep. Is there any great haste for
what you have to say to me?"
"Is there any great haste? Why, I arrive breathless from Hungary to
demand your daughter in marriage."
M. Moriaz threw up his arms; then, seating himself on the edge of his
bed, he piteously gasped:
"You could not wait until to-morrow? If a judge is desired to take a
favourable view of a case, he surely should not be disturbed in his
first sleep to consider it."
"My dear master, I am truly distressed to be compelled to be
disagreeable to you, but it is absolutely necessary that you should
listen to me. Two years ago, for the first time, I asked of you your
daughter's hand. After having consulted Antoinette--you will permit me
to call her Antoinette, will you not?--after having consulted her, you
told me that I was too young, that she would not listen seriously to
my proposal, and you gave me your permission to try again in two
years. I have employed these two mortal years in constructing a
railroad and a wire bridge in Hungary, and, believe me, I took
infinite pains to forget Antoinette. In vain! She is the romance of my
youth, I never can have another. On July 5, 1873, did you not tell me
to return in two years? We are now at July 5, 1875, and I return. Am I
a punctual man?"
"As punctual as insupportable," rejoined M. Moriaz, casting a
melancholy look at his pillow. "Now, candidly, is it the thing to seek
the presence of the President of the Academy of Sciences between
eleven o'clock and midnight, to pour such silly stuff into his ear?
You are wanting in respect for the Institute. Besides, my dear boy,
people change in two years; you are a proof of it. You have developed
from boyhood almost into manhood, and you have done well to let your
imperial grow; it gives you quite a dashing military air--one would
divine at first sight that you were fresh from Hungary. But, while you
have changed for the better, are you sure that Antoinette has not
changed for the worse? Are you sure that she is still the Antoinette
of your romance?"
"I beg your pardon; I saw her just now, without her seeing me. She was
promenading on your arm in the hotel-garden, which was lit up in her
honour. Formerly she was enchanting, she has become adorable. If you
would have the immense goodness to give her to me, I would be capable
of doing anything agreeable to you. I would relieve you of all your
little troublesome jobs; I would clean your retorts; I would put
labels on your bottles and jars; I would sweep out your laboratory. I
know German very well--I would read all the large German books it
might please you to consult; I would read them, pen in hand; I would
make extracts--written extracts--and such extracts! /Grand Dieu!/ they
would be like copperplate. My dear master, will you give her to me?"
"The absurd creature! He imagines that it only depends upon me to give
him my daughter. I could as easily dispose of the moon. Since she has
had teeth, she had made me desire everything she desires."
"At least you will give me permission to pay my addresses to her
to-morrow?"
"Beware, unlucky youth!" cried M. Moriaz. "You will ruin your case
forever. Since you have been away she has refused two offers, one of
them from a second secretary of legation, Viscount de R---, and at the
present moment she holds in holy horror all suitors. She is
accompanying me to Saint Moritz in order to gather flowers and paint
aquarelle sketches of them. Should you presume to interrupt her in her
favourite occupations, should you present yourself before her like a
creditor on the day of maturity, I swear to you that your note would
be protested, and that you would have nothing better to do than return
to Hungary."
"You are sure of it?"
"As sure as that sulphuric acid will turn litmus red."
"And you have the heart to sent me back to Paris without having spoken
with her?"
"What I have said is for your good, and you know whether I mean you
well or not."
"It is agreed, then, that you will take charge of my interests; that
you will plead my cause?"
"It is understood that I will sound the premises, that I will prepare
the way--"
"And that you will send me tidings shortly, and that these tidings
will be good. I shall await them here, at the Hotel Steinbock."
"As you please; but, for the love of Heaven, let me sleep!"
M. Camille Langis pressed his two arms and said, with much emotion: "I
place myself in your hands; take care how you answer for my life!"
"O youth!" murmured M. Moriaz, actually thrusting Camille from the
room. "One might search in vain for a more beautiful invention."
Ten hours later, a post-chaise bore in the direction of Engadine Mlle.
Antoinette Moriaz, her father, her /demoiselle de compagnie/, and her
/femme de chambre/. They breakfasted tolerably well in a village
situated in the lower portion of a notch, called Tiefenkasten, which
means, literally, /deep chest/, and certainly a deeper never has been
seen. After breakfast they pursued their way farther, and towards four
o'clock in the afternoon they reached the entrance of the savage
defile of Bergunerstein, which deserves to be compared with that of
Via Mala. The road lies between a wall of rocks and a precipice of
nearly two hundred metres, at the bottom of which rush the swift
waters of the Albula. This wild scenery deeply moved Mlle. Moriaz; she
never had seen anything like it at Cormeilles or anywhere about Paris.
She alighted, and, moving towards the parapet, leaned over it,
contemplating at her ease the depths below, which the foaming torrent
beneath filled with its roars.
Her father speedily joined her.
"Do you not find this music charming?" she asked of him.
"Charming, I grant," he replied; "but more charming still are those
brave workmen who, at the risk of their necks, have engineered such a
suspended highway as we see here. I think you admire the torrent too
much, and the road not enough." And after a pause he added, "I wish
that our friend Camille Langis had had fewer dangers to contend with
in constructing his." Antoinette turned quickly and looked at her
father; then she bestowed her attention once more upon the Albula. "To
be sure," resumed M. Moriaz, stroking his whiskers with the head of
his cane, "Camille is just the man to make his way through
difficulties. He has a youthful air that is very deceptive, but he
always has been astonishingly precocious. At twenty years of age he
became head of his class at the Central School; but the best thing
about him is that, although in possession of a fortune, yet he has a
passion for work. The rich man who works accepts voluntary poverty."
There arose from the precipice a damp, chill breeze; Mlle. Moriaz drew
over her head a red hood that she held in her hand, and scraping off
with her finger some of the facing of the parapet, which glittered
with scales of mica, she asked: "What do you call this?"
"It is gneiss, a sort of sheet-granite; but do not you too admire
people who work when they are not compelled to do anything?"
"Then you must admire yourself a great deal."
"Oh, I! In my early youth I worked from necessity, and then I formed a
habit which I cannot now get rid of; while Camille Langis--"
"Once more?" she ejaculated, with a gesture of impatience. "What
prompts you to speak to me of Camille?"
"Nothing. I often think of him."
"Do not let us two play at diplomacy. You have had news of him
lately?"
"You just remind me that I have, through a letter from Mme. De Lorcy."
"Mme de Lorcy, my godmother, would do better to meddle with what
concerns her. That woman is incorrigible."
"Of what would you have her correct herself?"
"Simply of her mania for making my happiness after her own fashion. I
read in your eyes that Camille has returned to Paris. What is his
object?"
"I know nothing about it. How should I know? I only presume--that is,
I suppose----"
"You do not suppose--you know."
"Not at all. At the same time, since hypothesis is the road which
leads to science, a road we /savants/ travel every day, I--"
'You know very well," she again interposed, "that I promised him
nothing."
"Strictly speaking, I admit; but you requested me to tell him that you
found him too young. He has laboured conscientiously since then to
correct that fault." Then playfully pinching her cheeks, he added:
"You are a great girl for objections. Soon you will be twenty-five
years old, and you have refused five eligible offers. Have you taken a
vow to remain unmarried?"
"Ah! you have no mercy," she cried. "What! you cannot even spare me on
the Albula! You know that, of all subjects of conversation, I have
most antipathy for this."
"Come, come; you are slandering me now, my child. I spoke to you of
Camille as I might have spoken of the King of Prussia; and you rose in
arms at once, taking it wholly to yourself."
Antoinette was silent for some moments.
"Decidedly, you are very fond of Camille," she presently said.
"Of all the sons-in-law you could propose to me----"
"But I do not propose any."
"That is precisely what I find fault with."
"Very good; since you think so much of him, this Camille, suppose you
command me to marry him?"
"If I were to command, would you obey?"
"Perhaps, just for the curiosity of the thing," she rejoined,
laughing.
"Naughty girl, to mock at her father!" said he. "If these twenty years
I have been in servitude, I can scarcely emancipate myself in a day.
However, since the great king deigns to hold parley with his
ministers, I am Pomponne--let us argue."
"Ah, well! you know as well as I that I have a real friendship for
Camille, as the playmate of my childhood. I remember him when he was
ever so small, and he remembers me, too, when I was a tiny creature.
We played hide-and-seek together, and he humoured me in my ten
thousand little caprices. Delightful reminiscences these, but
unfortunately I think of them too much when I see him."
"He has passed two years among the Magyars; two years is a good
while."
"Bah! he could never possibly have any authority over me. I intend
that my husband shall be my government."
"So that you may have the pleasure of governing your government?"
"Besides, I know Camille too well. I could only fall in love with a
stranger," said she, heedless of the last sally.
"Was not the Viscount R--- a stranger?"
"At the end of five minutes I knew him by heart. He is precisely like
all other second secretaries of legation in the world. You may be sure
that there is not a single idea in his head that is really his own.
Even his figure does not belong to himself; it is the /chef-d'oeuvre/
of the united efforts of his tailor and his shirt-maker."
"According to this, a prime requisite in the man whom you could love
is to be poorly clad."
"If ever my heart is touched, it will be because I have met a man who
is not like all the other men of my acquaintance. After that I will
not positively forbid him to have decent clothing."
M. Moriaz made a little gesture of impatience, and then set out to
regain the chaise, which was some distance in advance. When he had
proceeded about twenty steps, he paused, and, turning towards
Antoinette, who was engaged in readjusting her hood and rebuttoning
her twelve-button gloves, he said:
"I have drawn an odd number in the great lottery of this world. In our
day there are no romantic girls; the last remaining one is mine."
"That is it; I am a romantic girl!" she cried, tossing her pretty,
curly head with an air of defiance; "and if you are wise you will not
urge me to marry, for I never shall make any but an ineligible match."
"Ah, speak lower!" he exclaimed, casting a hurried glance around him,
and adding: "Thank Heaven! there is no one here but the Albula to hear
you."
M. Moriaz mistook. Had he raised his eyes a little higher he would
have discovered, above the rock cornice bordering the highway, a foot-
path, and in this foot-path a pedestrian tourist, who had paused
beneath a fir-tree. This tourist had set out from Chur in the
diligence. At the entrance of the defile, leaving his luggage to
continue without him to Saint Moritz, he had alighted, and with his
haversack on his back had set forward on foot for Bergun, where he
proposed passing the night, as did also M. Moriaz. Of the conversation
between Antoinette and her father he had caught only one word. This
word, however, sped like an arrow into his ear, and from his ear into
the innermost recesses of his brain, where it long quivered. It was a
treasure, this word; and he did not cease to meditate upon it, to
comment on it, to extract from it all its essence, until he had
reached the first houses of Bergun, like a mendicant who has picked up
in a dusty road a well-filled purse, and who opens it, closes it,
opens it again, counts his prize piece by piece, and adds up its value
twenty times over. Our tourist dined at the /table d'hote/; he was so
preoccupied that he ate the trout caught in the Albula without
suspecting that they possessed a marvellous freshness, an exquisite
flavour and delicacy, and yet it is notorious that the trout of the
Albula are the first trout of the universe.
Mlle. Moiseney, the duties of whose office consisted in serving as
chaperon to Mlle. Moriaz, was not a great genius. This worthy and
excellent personage had, in fact, rather a circumscribed mind, and she
had not the least suspicion of it. Her physiognomy was not pleasing to
M. Moriaz; he had several times besought his daughter to part with
her. In the goodness of her soul Antoinette always refused; she was
not one who could countenance rebuffs to old domestics, old dogs, old
horses, or worn-out governesses. Young Candide arrived at the
conclusion, as the result of his observations, that the first degree
of happiness would be to be Mlle. Gunegonde, and the second to
contemplate her throughout life. Mlle. Moiseney believed that it would
be the first degree of superhuman felicity to be Mlle. Moriaz, the
second to pass one's life near this queen, who, arbitrary and
capricious though she might be, was most thoughtful of the happiness
of her subjects, and to be able to say: "It was I that hatched the egg
whence arose this phoenix; I did something for this marvel; I taught
her English and music." She had boundless admiration for her queen,
amounting actually to idolatry. The English profess that their
sovereigns can do nothing amiss: "The king can do no wrong." Mlle.
Moiseney was convinced that Mlle. Moriaz could neither do wrong nor
make mistakes about anything. She saw everything with her eyes,
espoused her likes and her dislikes, her sentiments, her opinions, her
rights, and her wrongs; she lived, as it were, a reflected existence.
Every morning she said to her idol, "How beautiful we are to-day!"
precisely as the bell-ringer who, puffing out his cheeks, cried: "We
are in voice; we have chanted vespers well to-day!" M. Moriaz excused
her for finding his daughter charming, but could not so readily
approve of her upholding Antoinette's ideas, her decisions, her
prejudices. "This woman is no chaperon," said he; "she is an
admiration-point!" He would have been very glad to have routed her
from the field, and to give her place to a person of good sound sense
and judgment, one who might gain some influence over Antoinette. It
would have greatly surprised Mlle. Moiseney had he represented to her
that she lacked good sense. This good creature flattered herself that
she had an inexhaustible stock of this commodity; she placed the
highest estimate on her own judgment; she believed herself to be well-
nigh infallible. She discoursed in the tone of an oracle on future
contingencies; she prided herself on being able to divine all things,
to foresee all things, to predict all things--in a word, to be in the
secret of the gods. As her Christian name was Joan, M. Moriaz, who set
little store by his calendar, sometimes called her Pope Joan, which
wounded her deeply.
Mlle. Moiseney had two weaknesses; she was a gormand, and she admired
handsome men. Let us understand the case: she knew perfectly well that
they were not created for her; that she had no attractions to offer
them; that they had nothing to give her. She admired them naively and
innocently, as a child might admire a beautiful Epinal engraving; she
would willingly have cut out their likenesses to hang on a nail on her
wall, and contemplate while rereading "Gonzalve de Cordue" and "Le
Dernier des Cavaliers," her two favourite romances. At Bergun, during
the repast, her brain had been working, and she had made two
reflections. The first was, that the trout of Albula were
incomparable, the second that the stranger seated opposite her had a
remarkably handsome head, and was altogether a fine-looking man.
Several times, with fork halfway to mouth, and nose in the air, she
had forgotten herself in her scrutiny of him.
Antoinette, rather weary, had retired early to her chamber. Mlle.
Moiseney repaired thither to see if she needed anything, and, as she
was about leaving her for the night, candle in hand, she suddenly
inquired, "Do not you think, as I do, that this stranger is a
remarkable-looking person?"
"Of whom do you speak?" rejoined Antoinette.
"Why, of the traveller who sat opposite me."
"I confess that I scarcely looked at him."
"Indeed! He has superb eyes, nearly green, with fawn-coloured
tinting."
"Most astonishing! And his hair, is it green also?"
"Chestnut brown, almost hazel."
"Pray be more exact; is it hazel or not?"
"You need not laugh at me--his whole appearance is striking, his
figure singular, but full of character, full of expression, and as
handsome as singular."
"What enthusiasm! It seemed to me, so far as I noticed, that he was
inclined to stoop, and that his head was very badly poised."
"What do you say?" cried Mlle. Moiseney, greatly scandalized. "How
came you to think his head badly poised?"
"There--there! Don't let us quarrel about it; I am ready to retract.
Good-night, mademoiselle. Apropos, did you know that M. Camille Langis
had returned to Paris?"
"I did not know it, but I am not surprised. I had surmised it; in
fact, I was quite sure that he would be back about this time,
perfectly sure. And, of course, you think he has returned with the
intention--"
"I think," interrupted Antoinette, "that it costs me more to pain M.
Langis than any other man in the world. I think, also, that he
possesses most tiresome fidelity; it is always the way, one never
loses one's dog when one wants to lose him; and I think, moreover,
that a woman makes a poor bargain when she marries a man for whom she
feels friendship; for, if she gains a husband, she is very sure to
lose a friend."
"How true your words are!" exclaimed Mlle. Moiseney. "But you are
always right. Has M. Langis forgotten that you thought him too young--
only twenty-three?"
"He has so little forgotten it that he has managed, I don't know how,
to be at present twenty-five. How resist such a mark of affection? I
shall be compelled to marry him."
"That will never do. People do not marry for charity," replied Mlle.
Moiseney, deprecatingly.
"Adieu, my dear," said Antoinette, dismissing her. "Do not dream too
much about your unknown charmer. I assure you he had a decided stoop
in his shoulders. However, that makes small difference; if your heart
speaks, I will see to arranging this affair for you." And she added,
musingly, "How amusing it must be to marry other people!"
The next morning Mlle. Moiseney made the acquaintance of her unknown
charmer. Before leaving Bergun Mlle. Moriaz wished to make a sketch,
and she had gone out early with her father. Mlle. Moiseney descended
to the hotel /salon/, and, espying a piano, she opened it and played a
/fantasia/ by Schumann; she was a tolerably good musician. When she
had finished, Count Abel Larinski, the man with green eyes, who had
entered the /salon/ without her hearing him, approached to thank her
for the pleasure he had had in listening to her; but he begged to take
the liberty to tell her that she failed to properly observe the
movement, and had taken an /andantino/ for an /andante/. At her
solicitation he took her place at the instrument, and executed the
/andantino/ as few but professional artists could do. Mlle. Moiseney,
ever ready with her enthusiasm, declared that he must be a Liszt or a
Chopin, and implored him to play her something else, to which he
consented with good grace. After this they talked about music and many
other things. The man with the green eyes possessed one quality in
common with Socrates, he was master in the art of interrogating, and
Mlle. Moiseney loved to talk. The subject on which she discoursed most
willingly was Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz; when she was started under this
heading she became eloquent. At the end of half an hour Count Abel was
thoroughly /au fait/ on the character and position of Mlle. Moriaz. He
knew that she had a heart of gold, a mind free from all narrow
prejudices, a generous soul, and a love for all that was chivalrous
and heroic; he knew that two days of every week were devoted by her to
visiting the poor, and that she looked upon these as natural creditors
to whom it was her duty to make restitution. He knew also that Mlle.
Moriaz could all the better satisfy her charitable inclinations, as
her mother had left her an income of one hundred thousand livres. He
learned that she danced to perfection, that she drew like an angel,
and that she read Italian and spoke English. This last seemed of
mediocre importance to Count Abel. St. Paul said: "Though I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as
sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." The count was of St. Paul's
opinion, and had Mlle. Moriaz known neither how to speak English, nor
to draw, nor yet to dance, it would not in the least have diminished
the esteem with which he honoured her. The main essential in his eyes
was that she was benevolent to the poor, and that she cherished a
little tenderness for heroes.
When he had learned, with an air of indifference, all that he cared to
learn, he respectfully bowed himself away from Mlle. Moiseney, to whom
he had not mentioned his name, and, buckling his haversack, he put it
on his back, paid his bill, and set out on foot to make a hasty ascent
of the culminating point of the Albula Pass, which leads into the
Engadine Valley. One would have difficulty in finding throughout the
Alps a more completely barren, rugged, desolate spot, than this
portion of the Albula Pass. The highway lies among masses of rocks,
heaped up in terrible disorder. Arrived at the culminating point,
Count Abel felt the necessity of taking breath. He clambered up a
little hillock, where he seated himself. At his feet were wide open
the yawning jaws of a cavern, obstructed by great tufts of aconite
(wolf's-bane), with sombre foliage; one would have said that they kept
guard over some crime in which they had been accomplices. Count Abel
contemplated the awful silence that surrounded him; everywhere
enormous boulders, heaped together, or scattered about in isolated
grandeur; some pitched on their sides, others standing erect, still
others suspended, as it were, in mid-air. It seemed to him that these
boulders had formerly served for the games of bacchanalian Titans,
who, after having used them as skittles or jack-stones, had ended by
hurling them at one another's heads. It is most probable that He who
constructed the Albula Pass, alarmed and confused by the hideous
aspect of his work, did justice to it by breaking it into fragments
with his gigantic hammer.
Count Abel heard a tinkling of bells, and, looking up, he saw
approaching a post-chaise, making its way from Engadine to Bergun. It
was a large, uncovered berlin, and in it sat a woman of about sixty
years of age, accompanied by her attendants and her pug-dog. This
woman had rather a bulky head, a long face, a snub-nose, high cheek-
bones, a keen, bright eye, a large mouth, about which played a smile,
at the same time /spirituel/, imperious, and contemptuous. Abel grew
pale, and became at once convulsed with terror; he could not withdraw
his eyes from this markedly Mongolian physiognomy, which from afar he
had recognised. "Ah, yes," he said, "it is she!" He drew over his face
the cape of his mantle, and disappeared as completely as it is
possible to disappear when one is perched upon a hillock. It was six
years since he had seen this woman, and he had promised himself never
to see her again; but man is the plaything of circumstances, and his
happiness as well as his pride is at the mercy of a chance encounter.
Count Abel was no longer proud; for some moments he had humbled
himself, he had ceased to exist.
Happily he discovered that he had not been recognised; that the woman
of sixty years of age was not looking his way. She had good taste;
discovering the hideous aspect of the country, which is usually known
as the Vallee du Diable, she had opened a volume, bound in morocco,
which her waiting-woman had placed in her hands. This volume was not a
new novel; it was a German book, entitled "The History of
Civilization, viewed in Accordance with the Doctrines of Evolution,
from the most Remote Period to the Present Day." She neither had made
much progress in the pages of the book nor in the history of
civilization; she had not got beyond the age of stone or of bronze;
she was still among primitive animal life, among the protozoa, the
monads, the infusoria, the vibratiles--in the age of albumen, or
gelatinous civilization, as it was called by the author, the sagacity
of whose views charmed her. She only interrupted her reading at
intervals to lightly stroke the nose of her pug, who lay snoring in
her lap, and she was a thousand leagues from suspecting that Count
Abel Larinski was at hand, watching her.
The berlin passed by him without stopping, and soon it had begun the
descent towards Bergun. Then he felt a great weight roll from his
heart, which beat freely once more. The berlin moved rapidly away; the
count followed it with his prayers, smoothing its course, removing
every stone or other obstacle that might retard its progress. It was
just disappearing round one of the curves of the road, when it crossed
another post-chaise, making the ascent in a walk, and in it Count Abel
perceived something red: it was the hood of Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz. A
moment more and the berlin was gone; it seemed to him that the shadow
of his sorrowful youth, emerged suddenly from the realm of shades, had
been plunged back there forever, and that the fay of hope--she who
holds in her keeping the secrets of the future--was ascending toward
him, red-hooded, flowers in her hands, sunshine in her eyes. The
clouds parted, the deep shadow covering the Vallee du Diable cleared
away, and the dismal solitude began to smile. Count Abel arose, picked
up his staff, and shook himself. As he passed before the cavern, he
discovered, among the tufts of aconite which covered it, a mossy
hollow, and he perceived that this hollow was ornamented with
beautiful blue campanulas, whose little bells gracefully waved in the
gentle breeze which was stirring. He gathered one of these campanulas,
carried it to his lips, and found its taste most agreeable. Half an
hour later he turned from the highway into a foot-path which led
through green pastures and forests of larch-trees.
By the time he had reached the heart of the valley it was nightfall.
He traversed the hamlet of Cresta, crossed a bridge, found himself at
the entrance of the village of Cellarina, about twenty-five minutes'
walk form Saint Moritz. After taking counsel with himself, he resolved
to proceed no farther; and so he put up at a neat, pretty inn, which
had just been freshly white-washed.
The air of the Engadine is so keen and bracing that the first nights
passed there are apt to be sleepless ones. Count Larinski scarcely
slept at all in his new quarters. Would he have slept better on the
plains? He became worn out with his thoughts. Of what was he thinking?
Of the cathedral at Chur, of the Vallee du Diable, of the tufts of
aconite, the campanulas, and the meeting of the two post-chaises, one
ascending, the other descending. After that he saw no longer anything
but a red hood, and his eyes were open when the first blush of the
morning penetrated his modest chamber. Eagles sleep little when they
are preparing for the chase.
CHAPTER II
The Baths of Saint Moritz are, according to the verdict of a large
number of people, by no means an enlivening resort, and here tarry
chiefly genuine invalids, who cherish a sincere desire to recover
health and strength. The invigorating atmosphere, the chalybeate
waters, which are unquestionably wholesome, although they do taste
like ink, have wrought more than one actual miracle; nevertheless, it
is said to require no little philosophy to tolerate existence there.
"I am charmed to have had the experience of visiting the Baths," we
once heard an invalid say, "for I know now that I am capable of
enduring anything and everything." But this, let us hasten to assure
the reader, is an exaggeration--the mere babbling of an ingrate.
The Upper Engadine Valley, in which Saint Moritz is situated, has, as
well as the Baths, its detractors and its admirers. This narrow
valley, throughout whose whole length flows the Inn, shut in by
glacier-capped mountains, whose slopes are covered with spruce, pine,
and larch trees, lies at an altitude of some five thousand feet above
the level of the sea. It often snows there in the month of August, but
spring and early summer in the locality are delightful; and dotted
about are numerous little romantic green lakes, glittering like
emeralds in the sunshine. Those who slander these by comparing them to
wash-bowls and cisterns, are simply troubled with the spleen, a malady
which neither iron, iodine, nor yet sulphur, can cure.
One thing these discontented folks cannot deny, and that is that it
would be difficult, not to say impossible, to find anywhere in the
mountains more flowery and highly perfumed mossy banks than those of
the Engadine. We do not make this assertion because of the
rhododendrons that abound on the borders of the lakes: we are not fond
of this showy, pretentious shrub, whose flowers look as if they were
moulded in wax for the decoration of some altar; but is it not
delightful to walk on a greensward, almost black with rich satyrion
and vanilla? And what would you think of a wealth of gentians, large
and small; great yellow arnicas; beautiful Martagon lilies; and
St.-Bruno lilies; of every variety of daphne; of androsace, with its
rose-coloured clusters; of the flame-coloured orchis; of saxifrage; of
great, velvety campanulas; of pretty violet asters, wrapped in little,
cravat-like tufting, to protect them from the cold? Besides, near the
runnels, following whose borders the cattle have tracked out graded
paths, there grows that species of immortelle called /Edelweiss/, an
object of covetousness to every guest at the Baths. Higher up, near
the glacier approach, may be found the white heart's-ease, the
anemone, and the glacial ranunculus (spearwort); higher still, often
buried beneath the snow, flourishes that charming little lilac flower,
delicately cut, sensitive, quivering, as it were, with a cold, known
as the soldanella. To scrape away the snow and find beneath it a
flower! Are there often made such delightful discoveries in life?
Having said thus much, we must admit that the Rue de Saint Moritz does
not resemble the Rue de la Paix of Paris. We must also admit that the
markets of the place are poorly supplied, and that in an atmosphere
well calculated to stimulate the appetite the wherewithal to supply
this cannot always be obtained. We cannot have everything in this
world; but it is by no means our intention to advise any one to take
up his residence for life in the Engadine. There must, however, be
some charm in this valley, since those of its inhabitants who emigrate
from it in their youth are very apt, after they have made some money,
to return to pass their old age in their natal place, where they build
some very pretty houses.
Mlle. Moriaz did not find Saint Moritz disagreeable; the wildness of
the scenery and the rugged pines pleased her. From the terrace of
Hotel Badrutt she loved to gaze upon the green lake, slumbering at her
feet, and it never occurred to her to grumble because it had the form
of a wash-bowl. She loved to see the cows returning at evening from
the pasture. The cowherd in charge marshalled home in the most orderly
manner his little drove, which announced its coming from afar by the
tinkling of the cow-bells. Each one of the creatures stopped of itself
at the entrance to its stall and demanded admittance by its lowing. In
the morning, when they were turned out again, they awaited the arrival
of the entire herd, and fell into rank and file, each in its proper
place. The first time Mlle. Moriaz witnessed this ceremony, she found
it as interesting as a first presentation at the theatre or opera.
There were several rainy days, which she employed in reading,
painting, and making observations on the human animals of both sexes
whom she encountered at the /table d'hote/. She soon gained an
increase of occupation. With her, mind and heart were so constantly on
the alert that it was impossible for her to remain a week in a place
without discovering some work of charity to be performed. A woman to
whom she had taken a fancy, a little shopkeeper of the place,
interested her in her daughter, who was destined to be a governess,
and who desired to learn drawing. Antoinette undertook to give her
drawing-lessons, making her come every day to the hotel, and often
keeping her there several hours. Her pupil was rather dull of
comprehension, and caused her to grow a little cross sometimes; but
she always made amends to the girl by her caresses and sprightly talk.
The weather became fine again. Antoinette availed herself of the
opportunity to take long promenades; she clambered up the mountain-
slopes, over slippery turf, in the hope of carrying home some rare
plant; but her strength was not equal to her valour--she could not
succeed in scaling those heights where flourished the /Edelweiss/. A
week after her arrival she had a surprise, we might even say a
pleasurable emotion, which was not comprised in the programme of
amusements that the proprietor of Hotel Badrutt undertook to procure
for his guests. Returning from an excursion to Lake Silvaplana, she
found in her chamber a basket containing a veritable sheaf of Alpine
flowers, freshly gathered, and among them not only /Edelweiss/ in
profusion, but several very rare plants, and the rarest of all a
certain bell-flower creeper, which smells like the apricot, and which,
except in some districts of the Engadine, is only found now in
Siberia. This splendid bouquet was accompanied by a note, thus
conceived:
"A man who had had enough of life, resolved to hang himself. To
execute his dolorous design, he selected a lonely and dismal spot,
where there grew a solitary oak, whose sap was nearly exhausted.
As he was engaged in securing his cord, a bird alighted on the
half-dead tree and began to sing. The man said to himself: 'Since
there is no spot so miserable that a bird will not deign to sing
in it, I will have the courage to live.' And he lived.
"I arrived in this village disgusted with life, sorrowful and so
weary that I longed to die. I saw you pass by, and I know not what
mysterious virtue entered into me. I will live.
" 'What matters it to me?' you will say, in reading these lines;
and you will be right. My sole excuse for having written them is,
that I will leave here in a few days; that you never will see me
again, never know who I am!"
The first impression of Antoinette was one of profound astonishment.
She would have taken it for granted that there was some mistake had
not her name been written in full on the envelope. Her second impulse
was to laugh at her adventure. She accorded full justice to Mlle.
Moriaz; she knew very well that she did not resemble the first chance
comer; but that her beauty would work miracles, resurrections; that a
hypochondriac, merely from seeing her pass by, was likely to regain
his taste for existence, scarcely appeared admissible to her. So great
was her curiosity, that she took the pains to make inquiries; the
flowers and the letter had been left by a little peasant, who was not
of the place, and who could not be found. Antoinette examined the
hotel-register; she did not see there the handwriting of the letter.
She studied the faces which surrounded her; there was not in Hotel
Badrutt a single romantic-looking person. Very speedily she renounced
her search. The bouquet pleased her; she kept it as a present fallen
from the skies, and preserved the letter as a curiosity, without long
troubling herself to know who had written it. "Do not let us talk
about it any more, it is doubtless some lunatic," she replied one day
to Mlle. Moiseney, who kept constantly recurring to the incident whose
mystery she burned to fathom. The good demoiselle had been tempted to
stop people in the road to ask, "Was it you?" Perchance she might have
suspected her Bergun unknown to have a hand in the affair, had she had
the least idea that he was at Saint Moritz, where she never had met
him. He came there, nevertheless, every day, but at his own time;
besides, the hotels were full to overflowing, and it was very easy to
lose one's self in the crowd.
To tell the truth, when Count Abel Larinski came to Saint Moritz he
was far less occupied with Mlle. Moriaz than with a certain
illustrious chemist. The air of the Engadine and the waters that
tasted like ink had worked marvels: in a week M. Moriaz felt like a
new man. There had come to him a most formidable appetite, and he
could walk for hours at a time without becoming weary. He abused his
growing strength by constantly strolling through the mountains without
a guide, hammer in hand; and every day, in spite of the remonstrances
of his daughter, he increased the length of his excursions. The more
people know, the more inquisitive they become; and, when one is
inquisitive, one can go to great lengths without feeling fatigue; one
only becomes conscious of this after the exertion is over. M. Moriaz
never for a moment suspected that he was accompanied, at a respectful
distance, on these solitary expeditions, by a stranger, who, with eyes
and ears both on the alert, watched over him like a providence. The
most peculiar part of the affair was that this providence would gladly
have caused him to take a misstep, or thrust him into some quagmire,
in order to have the pleasure of drawing him out, and bearing him in
his arms to the Hotel Badrutt. "If only he could fall into a hole and
break his leg!" Such was the daily wish of Count Abel Larinski; but
/savants/ have great license allowed them. Although M. Moriaz was both
corpulent and inclined to be absent-minded, he plunged into more than
one quagmire without sticking fast, more than one marsh without having
his progress impeded.
One morning he conceived the project of climbing up as high as a
certain fortress of mountains whose battlements overhang a forest of
pine and larch trees. He was not yet sufficiently accustomed to the
mountains to realize how deceptive distances become there. After
having drained two glasses of the chalybeate waters, and breakfasted
heartily, he set out, crossed the Inn, and began the ascent to the
forest. The slope grew more and more abrupt, and ere long he
discovered that he had wandered from the foot-path. He was not one to
be easily disheartened; he continued climbing, laying hold of the
brushwood with his hands, planting his feet among perfidious pine-
needles, which form a carpet as smooth as a mirror, making three steps
forward and two backward. Great drops of perspiration started out on
his brow, and he sat down for a moment to wipe them away, hoping that
some wood-cutter might appear and show him the way back to the path,
if there was one. But no human soul came within sight; and plucking up
his courage again he resumed the ascent, until he had nearly reached a
breastwork of rock, in which he vainly sought an opening. He was about
retracing his steps when he remembered that from the gallery of the
hotel he had observed this breastwork of reddish rock, and it seemed
to him that he remembered also that it formed the buttress of the
mountain-stronghold of which he was in quest; and so he concluded that
this would be the last obstacle he would have to overcome. He thought
that it would be actually humiliating to be so near the goal and yet
renounce it. The rock, worn by the frost, presented sundry crevices
and indentures, forming a natural stairway. Arming himself with all
his strength, and making free use of his nails, he undertook to scale
it, and in five minutes had gained a sort of plateau, which, unluckily
for him, he found to be commanded by a smooth granite wall of a
fearful height. The only satisfactory procedure for him now was to
return whence he had come; but in these perilous passages to ascend is
easier than to descend; it being impossible to choose one's steps,
descent might lead to a rather undesirable adventure. M. Moriaz did
not dare to risk this adventure.
He walked the whole length of the plateau where he found himself in
the hope of discovering some outlet; but the sole outlet he could
discover had already been monopolized by a mountain-torrent whose
troubled waters noisily precipitated themselves through it to the
depths below. This torrent was much too wide to wade, and to think of
leaping over it would have been preposterous. All retreat being cut
off, M. Moriaz began to regret his audacity. Seized by a sudden agony
of alarm, he began to ask himself if he was not condemned to end his
days in this eagle's-nest; he thought with envy of the felicity of the
inhabitants of the plains; he cast piteous glances at the implacable
wall whose frowning visage seemed to reproach him with his imprudence.
It seemed to him that the human mind never had devised anything more
beautiful than a great highway; and it would have taken little to make
him exclaim with Panurge, "Oh, thrice--ay, quadruply--happy those who
plant cabbages!"
Although there seemed small chance of his being heard in this
solitude, he called aloud several times; he had great difficulty in
raising his voice above the noise of the cataract. Suddenly he
believed that he heard below him a distant voice replying to his call.
He redoubled his cries, and it seemed to him that the voice drew
nearer, and soon he saw emerging from the thicket bordering the
opposite bank of the torrent a pale face with chestnut beard, which he
remembered having beheld in the cathedral at Chur, and to have seen
again at Bergun.
"You are a prisoner, monsieur," was the salutation of Count Larinski;
for, of course, the newcomer was none other than he. "One moment's
patience, and I am with you." And his face beamed with joy. He had him
at last, this precious game which has caused him so many steps.
He turned away, bounding from rock to rock with the agility of a
chamois. In about twenty minutes he reappeared, bearing on his
shoulder a long plank which he had detached from the inclosure of a
piece of pasture-land. He threw it across the torrent, secured it as
well as he could, crossed this impromptu foot-bridge of his own
device, and joined M. Moriaz, who was quite ready to embrace him.
"Nothing is more perfidious than the mountains," said the count. "They
are haunted by some mysterious sprite, who fairly delights in playing
tricks with venturesome people; but 'all's well that ends well.'
Before setting out from here you need something to revive you. The
rarefied atmosphere of these high regions makes the stomach
frightfully hollow. More prudent than you, I never undertake these
expeditions without providing myself with some refreshment. But how
pale you are!" he added, looking at him with sympathetic, almost
tender, eyes. "Put on, I beg of you, my overcoat, and I will wrap
myself up in my plaid, and then we will both be warm."
With these words he took off his overcoat and handed it to M. Moriaz,
who, feeling almost frozen, offered feeble objections to donning the
garment, although he had some difficulty in getting into the sleeves.
During this time Count Abel had thrown down on the rock the wallet he
carried slung to a leathern strap over his shoulders. He drew forth
from it a loaf of light bread, some hard-boiled eggs, a /pate/ of
venison, and a bottle of excellent burgundy. These provisions he
spread out around him, and then presented to M. Moriaz a cup cut from
a cocoanut-shell, and filled it to the brim, saying, "Here is
something that will entirely restore you." M. Moriaz drained the cup,
and soon felt his weakness disappear. His natural good spirits
returned to him, and he gaily narrated to his Amphitryon his
deplorable Odyssey. In return, Abel recounted to him a similar
adventure he had had in the Carpathian Mountains. It is very easy to
take a liking to a man who helps you out of a scrape, who gives you
drink when you are thirsty, and food when you are hungry; but, even
had not M. Moriaz been under great obligations to Count Larinski, he
could not have avoided the discovery that this amiable stranger was a
man of good address and agreeable conversation.
Nevertheless, so soon as the repast was finished, he said: "We have
forgotten ourselves in our talk. I am the happy father of a charming
daughter who has a vivid imagination. She will believe that I have met
with an untimely end if I do not hasten as speedily as possible to
reassure her."
Count Abel hereupon gave his hand to M. Moriaz to aid him in
preserving his equilibrium as he crossed the plank, which was not
wide. Throughout the descent he overwhelmed him with attentions,
sustaining him with his arm when the descent became too abrupt. So
soon as they had made their way to a foot-path, they resumed their
conversation. Abel was very clear-sighted, and, like Socrates, as we
said before, he was master in the art of interrogating. He turned the
conversation to erratic glaciers and boulders. M. Moriaz was enchanted
with his manner of asking questions; as Professor of the College of
France, he was well pleased to owe his life to an intelligent man.
As they traversed a pine-forest, they heard a voice hailing them, and
they were shortly joined by a guide whom Mlle. Moriaz, mortally
disquieted at the prolonged absence of her father, had sent in quest
of him. Pale with emotion, trembling in every fibre, she had seated
herself on the bank of a stream. She was completely a prey to terror,
and in her imagination plainly saw her father lying half dead at the
bottom of some precipice or rocky crevasse. On perceiving him she
uttered a cry of joy and ran to meet him.
"Ah! truly, my love," said he, "I have been more fortunate than wise.
And I shall have to ask my deliverer his name in order to present him
to you."
Count Abel appeared not to have heard these last words. He stammered
out something about M. Moriaz having exaggerated the worth of the
little service it had been his good fortune to render him, and then
with a cold, formal, dignified air, he bowed to Antoinette and moved
hurriedly away, as a man who cares little to make new acquaintances,
and who longs to get back to his solitude.
He was already at some distance when M. Moriaz, who had been busily
recounting his adventures to his daughter, bethought him that he had
kept his deliverer's overcoat. He searched in the pockets, and there
found a memorandum-book and some visiting-cards bearing the name of
Count Abel Larinski. Before dinner he made the tour of all the hotels
in Saint Moritz without discovering where M. Larinski lodged. He
learned it in the evening from a peasant who came over from Cellarina
for the overcoat.
The good Mlle. Moiseney was quite taken with Count Abel; first,
because he was handsome, and then because he played the piano
bewitchingly. There could be no doubt that Antoinette would feel
grateful to this good-looking musician who had restored to her her
father. Certain of being no longer thwarted in her enthusiasm, she
said to her that evening, with a smile which was meant to be
excessively ironical:
"Well, my dear, do you still think that Count Larinski has a stoop in
his shoulders, and that his head is badly poised?"
"It is a matter of small import, but I do not gainsay it."
"Ah, if you had only heard him play one of Schumann's romances!"
"A talent for music is a noble one. Nevertheless, the man's chief
merit, in my eyes, is that he has a taste for saving life."
"Oh, I was sure from the first, perfectly sure, that this man had a
large heart and a noble soul. I read physiognomies very correctly, and
I never need to see people twice to know how far they can be relied
on." After a pause she added, "I wonder if I dare tell you, my dear,
of an idea that has occurred to me?"
"Tell me, by all means. Your ideas sometimes amuse me."
"Might it not turn out that the author of a certain note, and sender
of a certain thing, was M. le Comte Abel Larinski?"
"Why he rather than any other?" queried Antoinette. "I believe you do
him wrong: he appears to be a gentleman, and gentlemen do not write
anonymous letters."
"Oh! that was a very innocent one, and you may be sure that he wrote
it in perfect good faith."
"You believe, then, mademoiselle, that in good faith a man about to
put a halter about his neck would renounce his project because he had
encountered Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz on a public highway?"
"Why not?" cried Mlle. Moiseney, looking at her with eyes wide open
with admiration. "Besides, you know the Poles are a hot-headed people,
whose hearts are open to all noble enthusiasms. One could pardon in
Count Larinski what could not be overlooked in a Parisian."
"I will pardon him on condition that he will keep his promise and
never make himself known to me, for this is unquestionably the first
duty of a mysterious unknown. Just now he refused to let my father
present him to me, which is a good mark in his favour. If he alters
his mind, he becomes at once a condemned man. I pity you, my dear
Joan," added Antoinette, laughingly. "You are dying with longing to
hear one of those romances without words, which M. Larinski plays so
divinely; and if M. Larinski be the man of the letter, his own avowal
prohibits him from appearing before me again. How can you extricate
yourself from this dilemma? The case is embarrassing."
It was M. Moriaz who undertook the solution of this embarrassing
dilemma. Three days later, some moments before dinner, he was walking
in the hotel-grounds, smoking a cigar. He saw passing along the road
Count Abel, on his way back to Cellarina. A storm was coming up;
already great drops of rain were beginning to fall. M. Moriaz ran
after the count and seized him by the button, saying: "You have saved
my life--permit me, at least, to save you from the rain. Do me the
honour to share our dinner; we will have it served in my apartment."
Abel strongly resisted this proposition, giving reasons that sounded
like mere pretences. A rumbling of thunder was heard. M. Moriaz took
his man by the arm, and led him in by force. He presented him to his
daughter, saying: "Antoinette, let me present to you M. le Comte
Larinski, a most excellent man, but little inclined to sociability. I
was compelled to use violence in bringing him here."
The count acknowledged these remarks with a constrained smile. He wore
the manner of a prisoner; but, as he prided himself on his good-
breeding and on his philosophy, he seemed to be endeavouring to make
the best of his prison. During dinner he was grave. He treated
Antoinette with frigid politeness, paid some attention to Mlle.
Moiseney, but reserved his chief assiduities for Mr. Moriaz. He
addressed his conversation more particularly to him, and listened to
him with profound respect. A professor is always sensible to this kind
of courtesy.
After the coffee was served, the crusting of ice in which Count Abel
had incased himself began to thaw. He had been all over the world; he
knew the United States and Turkey, New Orleans and Bucharest, San
Francisco and Constantinople. His travels had been profitable to him:
he had observed men and things, countries and institutions, customs
and laws, the indigenous races and the settlers, all but the transient
visitors, with whom he seemed to have had no time to occupy himself;
at least they formed no part of his conversation. He related several
anecdotes, with some show of sprightliness; his melancholy began to
melt away, he even indulged in little bursts of gaiety, and Antoinette
could not avoid comparing him and his discourse to some of the more
rigorous passages of the Engadine, where, amid the black shades of the
pines, among frowning rocks, there are to be found lilies, gentians,
and lakes.
He resumed his gravity to reply to a question of M. Moriaz concerning
Poland. "Unhappy Poland!" cried he. "To-day the Jew is its master.
Active, adroit, inventive, little scrupulous, he makes capital out of
our indolence and our improvidence. He has over us one great
advantage, which is simply that, while we live from day to day, he
possesses a notion of a to-morrow; we despise him, and we could not do
without him. We are always thirsty, and he supplies us with drink; we
never have ready money, and he loans it to us at an enormous rate of
interest; we cannot return it to him, and he reimburses himself by
seizing our goods and chattels, our jewels, our land, and our castles.
We take out our revenge in insolence, and from time to time in petty
persecutions, and we gradually arrive at the conclusion that the sole
means of freeing ourselves from the yoke of the Jew would be to
conquer the vices by which he lives." Count Abel added that for his
part he had no prejudice against these children of Abraham, and he
quoted the words of an Austrian publicist who said that each country
had the kind of Jews it deserved. "In fact," he continued, "in
England, as in France, and in every country where they are placed on a
footing of equality, they become one of the most wholesome, most
vigorous elements of the nation, while they are the scourge, the
leeches, of the countries that persecute them."
"And, truly, justice demands that it should be so," cried Mlle.
Moriaz.
For the first time the count addressed himself directly to her,
saying, with a smile: "How is this, mademoiselle? You are a woman, and
you love justice!"
"This astonishes you, monsieur?" she rejoined. "You do not think
justice one of our virtues?"
"A woman of my acquaintance," he replied, "always maintained that it
would be rendering a very bad service to this poor world of ours to
suppress all injustice, because with the same stroke would also be
suppressed all charity."
"That is not my opinion," said she. "When I give, it seems to me that
I make restitution."
"She is somewhat of a socialist," cried M. Moriaz. "I perceive it
every January in making out her accounts, and it is fortunate that she
intrusts this to me, for she never takes the trouble to look at the
memorandum her banker sends her."
"I am proud for Poland that Mlle. Moriaz has a Polish failing," said
Abel Larinski, gallantly.
"Is it a failing?" queried Antoinette.
"Arithmetic is the most beautiful of the sciences and the mother of
certainty," said M. Moriaz. And turning towards the count, he added:
"She is very wrong-headed, this girl of mine; she holds absolutely
revolutionary principles, dangerous to public order and the
preservation of society. Why, she maintains that people who are in
need have a right to the superfluities of others!"
"This appears to me self-evident," said she.
"And, for example," further continued M. Moriaz, "she has among her
/proteges/ a certain Mlle. Galard--"
"Galet," said Mlle. Moiseney, bridling up, for she had been
impatiently awaiting an opportunity to put in a word.
"This Mlle. Leontine Galet, who lives at No. 25 Rue Mouffetard--"
"No. 27," again interposed Mlle. Moiseney, in a magisterial tone.
"As usual, you are sure of it, perfectly sure. Very good! This Mlle.
Galard or Galet, residing at No. 25 or No. 27 Rue Mouffetard, was
formerly a florist by trade, and now she has not a sou. I do not wish
to fathom the mysteries of her past--it is very apt to be 'lightly
come, lightly go' with the money of these people--but certain it is
that Mlle. Galard--"
"Galet," put in Mlle. Moiseney, sharply.
"Is to-day an infirm old woman, a worthy object of the compassion of
charitable people," continued M. Moriaz, heedless of this last
interruption. "Mlle. Moriaz allows her a pension, with which I find no
fault; but Mlle. Galet--I mistake, Mlle. Galard--has retained from her
former calling her passion for flowers, and during the winter Mlle.
Moriaz sends her every week a bouquet costing from ten to twelve
francs, which shows, according to my opinion, a lack of common-sense.
In the month of January last, she sent for Parma violets for this
/protégé/ of hers. Now, I appeal to M. Larinski--is this reasonable,
or is it absurd?"
"It is admirably absurd and foolishly admirable," replied the count.
"The flowers I give her are never so beautiful as some that were sent
me the other day," exclaimed Mlle. Moriaz.
She went then into the next room, and returned, carrying the vase of
water containing the mysterious bouquet. "What do you think of these?"
she asked the count. "They are already much faded, and yet I think
they are beautiful still."
He admired the bouquet; but, although Antoinette regarded him fixedly,
she detected neither blush nor confusion on his face. "It was not he,"
she said to herself.
There was a piano in the room where they had dined. As Count Abel was
taking leave, Mlle. Moiseney begged him to give Mlle. Moriaz proof of
his talent. He slightly knit his brows at this request, and resumed
that sombre, almost savage, air he had worn when he met Antoinette at
the foot of the mountain. He urged in excuse the lateness of the hour,
but he allowed the promise to be wrested from him that he would be
more complaisant the next day.
When he was gone, accompanied by M. Moriaz, who said he would walk a
little distance with him, Antoinette exclaimed: "You see, my dear--it
was not he."
"Suppose I was wrong," replied Mlle. Moiseney, in a piqued tone--"you
will at least grant that he is handsome?"
"As handsome as you please. Do you know what I think of when I look at
him? A haunted castle. And I feel curious to make the acquaintance of
the goblins that visit it."
Notwithstanding his promise, Count Larinski did not reappear before
the lapse of three days; but this time he gave all the music that was
asked of him. His memory was surprising, and his whole soul seemed to
be at the ends of his fingers; and he drew marvellous strains from an
instrument which, in itself, was far from being a marvel. He sang,
too; he had a barytone voice, mellow and resonant. After having hummed
in a low tone some Roumanic melodies, he struck up one of his own
national songs. This he failed to finish; tears started in his eyes,
emotion overpowered his voice. He broke off abruptly, asking pardon
for the weakness that had caused him to make himself ridiculous; but
one glance at Mlle. Moriaz convinced him that she did not find him
ridiculous.
A most invaluable resource, indeed, in a mountain-country where the
evenings are long, is a Pole who knows how to talk and to sing. M.
Moriaz liked music; but he liked something else besides. When he could
not go into society and was forbidden to work, he grew sleepy after
dinner; in order to rouse himself he was glad to play a hand of
/bezique/ or /ecarte/. For want of some one better, he played with
Mlle. Moiseney; but this make-shift was little to his taste; he
disliked immensely coming into too close proximity with the pinched
visage and yellow ribbons of Pope Joan. He proposed to Count Larinski
to take a hand with him, and his proposal was accepted with the best
grace in the world. "Decidedly this man is good for everything,"
thought M. Moriaz, and he conceived a great liking for him. The result
was, that during an entire week Count Abel passed every evening at the
Hotel Badrutt.
"Your father is a most peculiar man," said Mlle. Moiseney,
indignantly, to Antoinette. "He is shockingly egotistical. He has
confiscated M. Larinski. The idea of employing such a man as that to
play /bezique/! He will stop coming."
But the count's former savageness seemed wholly subdued. He did not
stop coming.
One evening M. Moriaz committed an imprudence. In making an odd trick,
he carelessly asked M. Larinski who had been his piano professor.
"One whose portrait I always carry about me," was the reply.
And, drawing from his vest-pocket a medallion, he presented it to M.
Moriaz, who, after having looked at it, passed it over to his
daughter. The medallion contained the portrait of a woman with blond
hair, blue eyes, a refined, lovely mouth, a fragile, delicate being
with countenance at the same time sweet and sad, the face of an angel,
but an angel who had lived and suffered.
"What an exquisite face!" cried Mlle. Moriaz.
Truly it was exquisite. Some one has asserted that a Polish woman is
like punch made with holy-water. One may like neither the punch nor
the holy-water, and yet be very fond of Polish women. They form one of
the best chapters in the great book of the Creator.
"It is the portrait of my mother," said Count Larinski.
"Are you so fortunate as to still possess her?" asked Antoinette.
"She was a tender flower," he replied; "and tender flowers never live
long."
"Her portrait shows it plainly; one can see that she suffered much,
but was resigned to live."
For the first time the count departed from the reserve he had shown
towards Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz. "I have no words to tell you," he
exclaimed, "how happy I am that my mother pleases you!"
Othello was accused of having employed secret philters to win
Desdemona's love. Brabantio had only himself to blame; he had taken a
liking to Othello, and often invited him to come to him; he did not
make him play /bezique/, but he questioned him on his past. The Moor
recounted his life, his sufferings, his adventures, and Desdemona
wept. The fathers question, the heroes or adventurers recount, and the
daughters weep. Such are the outlines of a history as old as the
world. Abel Larinski had left the card-table. He had taken his seat in
an arm-chair, facing Mlle. Moiseney. He was questioned; he replied.
His destiny had been neither light nor easy. He was quite young when
his father, Count Witold Larinski, implicated in a conspiracy, had
been compelled to flee from Warsaw. His property was confiscated, but
luckily he had some investments away from home, which prevented him
from being left wholly penniless. He was a man of projects. He
emigrated to America with his wife and his son; he dreamed of making a
name and a fortune by cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.
He repaired to New Granada, there to make his studies and his charts.
He made them so thoroughly that he died of yellow fever before having
begun his work, having come to the end of his money and leaving his
widow in the most cruel destitution. Countess Larinski said to her
son: "We have nothing more to live on; but, then, is it so necessary
to live?" She uttered these words with an angelic smile about her
lips. Abel set out for California. He undertook the most menial
services; he swept the streets, acted as porter; what cared he, so
long as his mother did not die of hunger? All that he earned he sent
to her, enduring himself the most terrible privations, making her
think that he denied himself nothing. In the course of time Fortune
favoured him; he had acquired a certain competency. The countess came
to rejoin him in San Francisco; but angels cannot live in the rude,
exciting atmosphere of the gold-seekers; they suffer, spread their
wings, and fly away. Some weeks after having lost his mother--it was
in 1863--Count Abel learned from a journal that fell into his hands
that Poland had risen again. He was twenty-one years of age. He
thought he heard a voice calling him, and another voice from the skies
whispered: "She calls thee. Go; it is thy duty." And he went. Two
months later he crossed the frontier of Galicia to join the bands of
Langiewicz.
Othello spoke to Desdemona of caverns, deserts, quarries, rocks, and
hills whose heads touch heaven; of cannibals, the anthropophagi, and
men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. Count Abel spoke to
Mlle. Moriaz of the fortunes and vicissitudes of partisan warfare, of
vain exploits, of obscure glories, of bloody encounters that never are
decisive, of defeats from which survive hope, hunger, thirst, cold,
snow stained with blood, and long captivities in forests, tracked by
the enemy; then disasters, discouragements, the vanishing of the last
hope, punishment, the gallows, and finally a mute, feverish
resignation, swallowed up in that vast solitude with which silence
surrounds misfortune. After the dispersion of the band whose destinies
he had followed, he had gone over to Roumania.
This narration, exact and precise, bore the impress of truth. Count
Abel made it in a simple, modest tone, keeping himself as much as
possible in the background, and growing persuasive without apparent
effort. There were moments when his face would flame up with
enthusiasm, when his voice would become husky and broken, when he
would seek for a word, become impatient because he could not find it,
find it at last, and this effort added to the energy of his spasmodic
and disjointed eloquence. In conclusion, he said: "In his youth man
believes himself born to roll; the day comes when he experiences the
necessity of being seated. I am seated; my seat is a little hard, but
when I am tempted to murmur, I think of my mother and refrain."
"What did you do in Roumania?" inquired M. Moriaz, who liked to have
stories circumstantially detailed.
"Ah! I beg of you to excuse me from recounting to you the worst
employed years of my life. I am my father's own son. He dreamed of
cutting through an isthmus, I of inventing a gun. I spent four years
of my life in fabricating it, and the first time it was used it
burst."
And thereupon he plunged into a somewhat humorous description of his
invention, his hopes, his golden dreams, his disappointments, and his
chagrin. "The only admirable thing in the whole affair," he concluded,
"and something that I believe never has happened to any other
inventor, is that I am cured entirely of my chimera; I defy it to take
possession of me again. I propose to put myself under discipline in
order to expiate my extravagance. So soon as my cure is entirely
finished I will set out for Paris, where I will do penance."
"What kind of penance?" asked M. Moriaz. "Paris is not a hermitage."
"Nor is it my intention to live there as a hermit," was the reply,
given with perfect simplicity. "I go to give lessons in music and in
the languages."
"Indeed!" exclaimed M. Moriaz. "Do you see no other career open to
you, my dear count?"
"I am no longer a count," he replied, with an heroic smile. "Counts do
not run about giving private lessons." And a strange light flashed in
his eyes as he spoke. "I shall run about giving private lessons until
I hear anew the voice that spoke to me in California. It will find me
ever ready; my reply will be: 'I belong to thee; dispose of me at thy
pleasure.' Ah! this chimera is one that I never will renounce!"
Then suddenly he started as one just awakening from a dream; he drew
his hand over his brow, looked confusedly around him, and said:
"/Grand Dieu!/ here I have been talking to you of myself for two
hours! It is the most stupid way of passing one's time, and I promise
you it shall not happen again."
With these words he rose, took up his hat, and left.
M. Moriaz paced the floor for some moments, his hands behind his back;
presently he said: "This /diable/ of a man has strangely moved me. One
thing alone spoils his story for me--that is the gun. A man who once
has drunk will drink again; one who has invented will invent again. No
man in the world ever remained satisfied with his first gun."
"I beg of you, monsieur," cried Mlle. Moiseney, "could you not speak
to the Minister of War about adopting the Larinski musket?"
"Are you your country's enemy?" he asked. "Do you wish its
destruction? Have you sworn that after Alsace we must lose Champagne?"
"I am perfectly sure," she replied, mounting on her high horse, "that
the Larinski musket is a /chef-d'oeuvre/, and I would pledge my life
that he who invented it is a man of genius."
"If you would pledge your word of honour to that, mademoiselle," he
replied, making her a profound bow, "you may well feel assured that
the French Government would not hesitate a moment."
Mlle. Moriaz took no part in this conversation. Her face slightly
contracted, buried in her thoughts as in a solitude inaccessible to
earthly sounds, her cheek resting in the palm of her left hand, she
held in her right hand a paper-cutter, and she kept pricking the point
into one of the grooves of the table on which her elbow rested, while
her half-closed eyes were fixed on a knot of the mahogany. She saw in
this knot the Isthmus of Panama, San Francisco, the angelic
countenance of the beautiful Polish woman who had given birth to Count
Abel Larinski; she saw there also fields of snow, ambuscades, retreats
more glorious than victories, and, beyond all else, the bursting of a
gun and of a man's heart.
She arose, and saluted her father without a word. In crossing the
/salon/ she perceived that M. Larinski had forgotten a book he had
left on the piano when he came in. She opened the volume; he had
written his name on the top of the first page, and Antoinette
recognised the handwriting of the note.
Shut up in her own room, while taking down and combing her hair, her
imagination long wandered through California and Poland. She compared
M. Larinski with all the other men she ever had known, and she
concluded that he resembled none of them. And it was he who had
written: "I arrived in this village disgusted with life, sorrowful and
so weary that I longed to die. I saw you pass by, and I know not what
mysterious virtue entered into me. I will live."
It seemed to her that for long years she had been seeking some one,
and that she had done well to come to the Engadine, because here she
had found the object of her search.
CHAPTER III
Two, three, four days passed without Count Larinski reappearing at the
Hotel Badrutt, where every evening he was expected. This prolonged
absence keenly affected Mlle. Moriaz. She sought an explanation
thereof; the search occupied part of her days, and troubled her sleep.
She had too much character not to conceal her trouble and anxiety.
Those about her had not the least suspicion that she asked herself a
hundred times in the twenty-four hours: "Why does he not come? will he
never come again? is it a fixed resolution? Does he blame us for
drawing out, by our questions, the secret of his life? or does he
suspect that I have discovered him to be the writer of the anonymous
letter? Will he leave Engadine without bidding us good-bye? Perhaps he
has already gone, and we shall never see him again." This thought
caused Mlle. Moriaz a heart-burn that she had never before
experienced. Her day had come; her heart was no longer free: the bird
had allowed itself to be caught.
Mlle. Moiseney said to her one evening: "It seems certain to me that
we never shall see Count Larinski again."
She replied in an almost indifferent tone, "No doubt he has found
people at Cellarina, or elsewhere, who are more entertaining than we."
"You mean to say," said Mlle. Moiseney, "that M. Moriaz and the
/bezique/ has frightened him away. I would not for worlds speak ill of
your father; he has all the good qualities imaginable, except a
certain delicacy of sentiment, which is not to be learned in dealing
with acids. Think of condemning a Count Larinski to play /bezique/!
There are some things that your father does not and never will
understand."
M. Moriaz had entered meanwhile. "Please oblige me by explaining what
it is that I do not understand," said he to Mlle. Moiseney.
She replied with some embarrassment, "You do not understand, monsieur,
that certain visits were a charming diversion to us, and that now we
miss them."
"And do you think that I do not miss them? It has been four days since
I have had a game of cards. But how can it be helped? Poles are fickle
--more fools they who trust them."
"It may be simply that M. Larinski has been ill," interrupted
Antoinette, with perfect tranquility. "I think, father, that it would
be right for us to make inquiries."
The following day M. Moriaz went to Cellarina. He brought back word
that M. Larinski had gone on a walking-excursion through the
mountains; that he had started out with the intention of climbing to
the summit of Piz-Morteratsch, and of attempting the still more
difficult ascent of Piz-Roseg. Mlle. Moriaz found it hard to decide
whether this news was good or bad news. All depended on what point of
view was taken, and she changed hers every hour.
Since his mishap, M. Moriaz had become less rash than formerly.
Experience had taught him that there are treacherous rocks that can be
climbed without much difficulty, but from which it is impossible to
descend--rocks exposing one to the danger of ending one's days in
their midst, if there is no Pole near at hand. Certain truths stamp
themselves indelibly on the mind; so M. Moriaz never ventured again on
the mountains without being attended by a guide, who received orders
from Antoinette not to leave him, and not to let him expose himself.
One day he came in later than usual, and his daughter reproached him,
with some vivacity, for the continual anxiety he caused her. "The
glaciers and precipices will end by giving me the nightmare," she said
to him.
"Pray on whose account, my dear?" he playfully rejoined. "I assure you
the ascent that I have just made was neither more difficult nor more
dangerous than that of Montmartre, nor of the Sannois Hill, and as to
glaciers, I have firmly resolved to keep shy of them. I have passed
the age of prowess. My guide has been making me tremble by relating
the dangers to which he was exposed in 1864 on Morteratsch, where he
had accompanied Professor Tyndall and another English tourist. They
were all swept away by an avalanche. Attached to the same rope, they
went down with the snow. A fall of three hundred metres! They would
have been lost, if, through the presence of mind of one of the guides,
they had not succeeded in stopping themselves two feet from a
frightful precipice, which was about to swallow them up. I am a
father, and I do not despise life. Let him ascend Morteratsch who
likes! I wish our friend Larinski had made the descent safe and sound.
If he has met an avalanche on the way, he will invent no more guns."
Antoinette was no longer mistress of her nerves: during the entire
evening she was so preoccupied that M. Moriaz could not fail to notice
it; but he had no suspicion of the cause. He was profoundly versed in
qualitative and quantitative analysis, but less skilled in the
analysis of his daughter's heart. "How pale you are!" he said to her.
"Are you not well? You are cold.--Pray, Mlle. Moiseney, make yourself
useful and prepare her a mulled egg; you know I do not permit her to
be sick."
It was not the mulled egg that restored Mlle. Moriaz's color. The next
morning as she was giving a drawing lesson to her /protegee/, Count
Abel was announced. She trembled; the blood rose in her cheeks, and
she could not conceal her agitation from the penetrating gaze of the
audacious charmer. It might easily be seen that he had just descended
from where the eagles themselves seldom ascend. His face was weather-
beaten by the ice and snow. He had successfully accomplished the
double ascent, of which he was compelled to give an account. In
descending from Morteratsch he had been overtaken by a storm, and had
come very near never again seeing the valley or Mlle. Moriaz. He owed
his life to the presence of mind and courage of his guide, on whom he
could not bestow sufficient praise.
While he modestly narrated his exploits, Antoinette had dismissed her
pupil. He seemed embarrassed by the /tete-a-tete/ which, nevertheless,
he had sought. He rose, saying: "I regret not being able to see M.
Moriaz; I came to bid him farewell. I leave this evening."
She summoned courage and replied: "You did well to come; you left a
volume of Shakespeare--here it is." Then drawing from her notebook a
paper--"I have still another restitution to make to you. I have had
the misfortune to discover that it was you who wrote this letter."
With these words she handed him the anonymous note. He changed
countenance, and it was now his turn to grow red. "Who can prove to
you," he demanded, "that I am the author of this offence, or rather
crime?"
"Every bad case may be denied, but do not you deny."
After a moment's silence, he replied: "I will not lie, I am not
capable of lying. Yes, I am the guilty one; I confess it with sorrow,
because you are offended by my audacity."
"I never liked madrigals, either in prose or verse, signed or
anonymous," she returned, rather dryly.
He exclaimed, "You took this letter for a madrigal?" Then, having
reread it, he deliberately tore it up, throwing the pieces into the
fireplace, and added, smiling: "It certainly lacked common-sense; he
who wrote it is a fool, and I have nothing to say in his defence."
Crossing her hands on her breast, and uplifting to him her brown eyes,
that were as proud as gentle, she softly murmured, "What more?"
"I came to Chur," he replied, "I entered a church, I there saw a fair
unknown, and I forgot myself in gazing at her. That evening I saw her
again; she was walking in a garden where there was music, and this
music of harps and violins was grateful to me. I said within myself:
'What a thing is the heart of man! The woman who has passed me by
without seeing me does not know me, will never know of my existence; I
am ignorant of even her name, and I wish to remain so, but I am
conscious that she exists, and I am glad, content, almost happy. She
will be for me the fair unknown; she cannot prevent me from
remembering her. I will think sometimes of the fair unknown of
Chur.' "
"Very good," said she, "but this does not explain the letter."
"We are coming to that," he continued. "I was seated in a copse, by
the roadside. I had the blues--was profoundly weary; there are times
when life weighs on me like a torturing burden. I thought of
disappointed expectations, of dissipated illusions, of the bitterness
of my youth and of my future. You passed by on the road, and I said to
myself, 'There is good in life, because of such encounters, in which
we catch renewed glimpses of what was once pleasant for us to see.' "
"And the note?" she asked again, in a dreamy tone.
He went on: "I never was a philosopher; wisdom consists in performing
only useful actions, and I was born with a taste for the useless. That
evening I saw you climb a hill, in order to gather some flowers; the
hill was steep and you could not reach the flowers. I gathered them
for you, and, in sending my bouquet, I could not resist the temptation
of adding a word. 'Before doing penance,' I said to myself, 'let me
commit this one folly; it shall be the last.' We always flatter
ourselves that each folly will be our last. The unfortunate note had
scarcely gone, when I regretted having sent it; I would have given
much to have had it back; I felt all its impropriety; I have dealt
justly by it in tearing it to pieces. My only excuse was my firm
resolution not to meet you, not to make your acquaintance. Chance
ordered otherwise: I was presented to you, you know by whom, and how;
I ended by coming here every evening, but I rebelled against my own
weakness, I condemned myself to absence for a few days, so as to break
a dangerous habit, and, thank God! I have broken my chain."
She lightly tapped the floor with the tip of her foot, and demanded
with the air of a queen recalling a subject to his allegiance, "Are
you to be believed?"
He had spoken in a half-serious, half-jesting tone, tinged with the
playful melancholy that was natural to him. He changed countenance,
his face flushed, and he cried out abruptly, "I regained my strength
and will on the summit of Morteratsch, and I only return to bid you
farewell, and to give you the assurance that I never will see you
again."
"It is a strange case," she replied; "but I pardon you, on condition
that you do not execute your threat. You are resolved to be wise; the
wise avoid extremes. You will remember that you have friends in Paris.
My father has many connections; if we can be of service to you in any
way--"
He did not permit her to finish, and responded proudly: "I thank you,
with all my heart. I have sworn to be under obligations to none but
myself."
"Very well," she replied, "you will visit us for our pleasure. In a
month we shall be at Cormeilles."
He shook his head in sign of refusal. She looked fixedly at him, and
said, "It must be so."
This look, these words, sent to Count Abel's brain such a thrill of
joy and of hope that for a moment he thought he had betrayed himself.
He nearly fell on his knees before Mlle. Moriaz, but, speedily
mastering his emotions, he bowed gravely, casting down his eyes. She
herself immediately resumed her usual voice and manner, and questioned
him on his journey. He told her, in reply, that he proposed to go by
the route of Soleure, and to stay there a day in order to visit in
Gurzelengasse the house where Kosciuszko, the greatest of Poles, had
died. He had thought of this pilgrimage for a long time. He added:
"Still another useless action. Ah! when shall I improve?"
"Don't improve too much," she said, smiling. And then he went away.
M. Moriaz returned to the hotel about noon: his guide being engaged
elsewhere, he had taken only a short ramble. After breakfast his
daughter proposed to him that he should go down with her to the banks
of the lake. They made the descent, which is not difficult. This
pretty piece of water, that has been falsely accused of resembling a
shaving-dish, is said to be not less than a mile in length. When the
father and daughter reached the entrance of the woods that pedestrians
pass through in going to Pontresina, they seated themselves on the
grass at the foot of a larch. They remained some time silent.
Antoinette watched the cows grazing, and stroked the smooth, glossy
leaves of a yellow gentian with the end of her parasol. M. Moriaz
busied himself with neither the cows nor the yellow gentian--he
thought of M. Camille Langis, and felt more than a little guilty in
that quarter; he had not written to him, having nothing satisfactory
to tell him. He could see the young man waiting in vain, at the Hotel
Steinbock. To pass a fortnight at Chur is a torture that the most
robust constitution scarcely can endure, and it is an increased
torture to watch every evening and every morning for a letter that
never comes. M. Moriaz resolved to open hostilities, to begin a new
assault on the impregnable place. He was seeking in his mind for a
beginning for his first phrase. He had just found it, when suddenly
Antoinette said to him, in a low, agitated, but distinct voice: "I
have a question for you. What would you think if I should some day
marry M. Abel Larinski?"
M. Moriaz started up, and his cane, slipping from his hand, rolled to
the bottom of the declivity. He looked at his daughter, and said to
her: "I beg of you to repeat what you just said to me. I fear I have
misunderstood you."
She answered in a firmer voice, "I am curious to know what you would
think if I should marry, some day or other, Count Larinski."
He was startled, thunderstruck. He never had foreseen that such a
catastrophe could occur, nor had the least suspicion that anything had
passed between his daughter and M. Larinski. Of all the ideas that had
suggested themselves to him, this seemed the least admissible, the
most improbable and ridiculous. After a long silence, he said to
Antoinette, "You want to frighten me--this is not serious."
"Do you dislike M. Larinski?" she asked.
"Certainly not; I by no means dislike him. He has good manners, he
speaks well, and I must acknowledge that he had a very graceful way of
taking me from off my rock, where I should still be had it not been
for him. I am grateful to him for it; but, from that to giving him my
daughter, there is a wide margin. If he wanted me to give him a medal
he should have it."
"Let us talk seriously," said she. "What objections have you to make?"
"First, M. Larinski is a stranger, and I mistrust strangers. Then, I
know him but slightly. I naturally demand additional information.
Finally, I own that the state of his affairs--"
"Ah! that is the main point," she interrupted. "He is poor; that is
his crime, which he has not disguised. How differently we think! I
have some fortune; its only advantage that I can see is that it makes
me free to marry the man I esteem, though he be poor."
"And perhaps a little because of that very reason," interrupted M.
Moriaz, in his turn. "Come, I entreat you, let me explain the
anxieties arising from my miserable good sense. M. Larinski has
related his history to us. Frankly, do you not think that it is rather
that--what shall I say--of an adventurer? The word shocks you--I take
it back--but you must admit that this Pole belongs to the--ambulatory
family."
"Or family of heroes," she replied.
"That is it, of wandering heroes. I wish all manner of good to heroes,
although I never have clearly discovered their use. At all events, I
am not sure that they are the best qualified men in the world to make
a wife happy, and I intend that my daughter shall be happy."
"You are not convinced as I am that M. Larinski has a superior mind,
and a heart of gold?"
"A heart of gold! I should be glad to believe it. I have no reason to
doubt it; but many very skilful persons are deceived by false
jewellery. Ah! my dear, if you were better versed in chemistry, you
would know how easy it is to manufacture a false trinket. Formerly,
after having cleaned the piece to be gilded, a gold amalgam was
applied. Now, the brass or copper trinket is steeped in a solution of
perchloride of gold and bicarbonate of potash, and in less than a
minute the thing is accomplished. It is called gilding by immersion.
There is another process in which galvanism-- But let us admit that M.
Larinski's heart is real gold. In the purest gold there is usually
some alloy, to dispense with which resort must be had to the cupel. Do
you not know what a cupel is? It is a small capsule or cup of a porous
substance, used in the refining process, and possessing the property
of absorbing the fused oxides and retaining the refined metal. What is
the proportion of lead or of gold ore in M. Larinski's heart? Neither
you nor I know."
She was no longer listening; her chin in her hand, her glances
wandered over the glade. He touched her arm gently to rouse her, and
said: "It is all over? You love him?"
"Why will you make me say so?" she replied, blushing.
"And he has declared himself? He has dared----"
"He has dared nothing. Ah! how little you know him! If you were to
offer me to him, his pride would say no, and I would have to go down
on my knees to get the better of his refusal."
"We will say, at once, that he is unique, that he is a marvel, that
there is not a second Pole like him; the mould has been broken. And
yet are you sure that he loves you?"
She replied by a motion of the head.
"I should confess," he resumed, "that the passion that is called the
grand passion is for me a sealed letter, the mystery of mysteries. I
am completely ignorant of it. Yet that did not prevent my marrying,
and making a choice that brought me great happiness. Your method is
different, and I must believe that you have yielded to an irresistible
force. It seems to me, however, that resistance can always be made.
You have will, character--"
She interrupted him, murmuring, "It is either he or no one."
"Oh! if it comes to that," he continued, "you are of age, and mistress
of your actions; there is nothing for me but to submit. Still, it will
be painful to you, I like to believe, to marry in opposition to my
wishes."
"Do you doubt it? I am willing not to marry."
"Bad solution! It is worse than the other. Let us come to terms. The
positive has its place only in science. It is absolutely true that
borax is a salt composed of boracic acid and soda. Beyond such facts
all is uncertain. Does this happy man surmise the sentiments he has
inspired?"
"I tell you that you do not know him? Do you take him for a coxcomb?
When he came this morning to announce his departure, his serious
intention was to bid us an eternal farewell, and never to see me
again."
"A most excellent idea that," sighed M. Moriaz. "Unfortunately, you
represented to him that it took but two hours to go from Paris to
Cormeilles."
"I had trouble to persuade him of it."
"Well, since the matter stands thus, nothing is yet lost. You know, my
dear, that my physician advised me to beware of abrupt transitions,
and not to change too suddenly from the keen air of Engadine to the
heavy atmosphere of the plains. On leaving Saint Moritz, we will
descend five hundred metres lower, and remain three weeks at
Churwalden; consequently, we will not be in Paris for a month. You
will employ this month in somewhat calming your imagination. It is
very easy for it to become excited in these mountain-holes, without
taking into account the wearisomeness of hotel-life. From the very day
after our arrival you took a dislike to the paper in our little
/salon/, and its squares, I confess, are very ugly. In every square, a
thrush stretching out its neck to peck a currant. Two hundred thrushes
and two hundred currants--it was enough to weary you to death.
Suddenly there appears a Pole--"
"The thrushes had nothing to do with it," she replied, smiling. "A
month hence I shall say as I do to-day. 'It is either he or no one.'
And you shall choose."
"Do not repeat that formula, I beg. Fixed resolves are the prison-
house of the will. Promise me to reflect; reflection is an excellent
thing. One thing more--grant me in advance what I am going to ask
you."
"It is granted."
"You have a godmother--"
"Ah! now we are coming to the point," she added.
"You cannot deny that Mme. De Lorcy is a woman of the world, a woman
of good sense, a woman of experience, who is deeply interested in your
welfare--"
"And who has decided from time immemorial, that I can only be happy on
condition that I marry her nephew, M. Camille Langis."
"Well, I admit that she is partial. That is no reason why we should
not send her our Pole. She will inspect him, she will tell us her
opinion; it will be a new element in the argument."
"Ah! I know her opinion without asking it. This woman of experience
and good sense is incapable of recognising merit in a man who is
sufficiently impertinent to make Mlle. Moriaz love him, without having
at least fifty thousand livres a year to offer her."
"What does that matter? We will let her speak--we need not question
her, an oracle; but she knows false jewellery. If she discover--"
"I would require proofs," she interrupted, quickly.
"And if she furnish them?"
She was silent an instant, then she said: "Let it be so; do as you
please."
With these words they ended the conversation; then arose, and retook
the road to Saint Moritz. M. Moriaz scarcely had reached there, when
he entered a carriage to drive to Cellarina, provided with a portfolio
given him by Antoinette. He found M. Larinski busy strapping his
trunks, and waiting for the mail-coach that made the journey between
Samaden and Chur by the Col du Julier.
M. Moriaz expressed his regret at having missed his visit, and asked
if he would consent to charge himself with a commission for his
daughter, who desired to send to her godmother, Mme. De Lorcy, a
sketch of Saint Moritz.
"Cheerfully," coldly replied Count Abel, and he promised, so soon as
he reached Paris, to send the portfolio to Maisons Lafitte.
"Do better than that," rejoined M. Moriaz, "and carry your good-nature
so far as to take it yourself to its address. Mme. de Lorcy is an
amiable woman, who will be charmed to make your acquaintance, and hear
from you of us."
The count bowed with a submissive air. There was so little ardour in
this submission that M. Moriaz queried if his daughter had not been
dreaming, if M. Larinski was as much in love with her as she fancied.
He had not read the anonymous letter; Antoinette had refrained from
even mentioning it to him.
He was returning to Saint Moritz, when he met midway a pedestrian,
who, lost in thought, neither looked at him nor recognised him. M.
Moriaz ordered the coachman to stop, sprang out of the carriage, went
up to the traveller whom he seized by both shoulders, exclaiming:
"What, you! you again! I can go nowhere in Grisons without meeting
you. I ask as I did at Chur, 'Where do you come from?' "
"Did you think I would stay there forever?" rejoined M. Camille
Langis, reproachfully. "You have not kept your word, you have
forgotten me; you did not write to me. I am tired of waiting, so here
I am."
"And where are you going?"
"To the Hotel Badrutt, to plead my own cause, because my advocate has
failed me."
"Ah! you have chosen an excellent time," cried M. Moriaz; "you have a
real genius for arriving in season. Go, hurry, plead, moan, weep,
entreat; you will be well received; you can come and tell me all about
it."
"What do you mean?" asked Camille; "is it all over? Have you spoken,
and did she silence you?"
"Not at all; she listened to me, without enthusiasm, it is true, but
with attention and deference, when suddenly--Ah! my poor friend, how
can it be helped? This sad world is full of accidents and Poles."
M. Langis looked at him in amazement, as if to ask for an explanation.
M. Moriaz continued: "Do yourself justice. You are the most honest
fellow upon earth, I grant; you are a charming man, and an engineer of
the highest merit. But, unfortunately, there is no mystery of blood
and tears in your existence; you are perfectly unpretending, frank,
unaffected, and as transparent as crystal; in short, you are not a
stranger. Had you a delicate, blond, and romantic mother, and do you
wear her portrait on your heart? have you unfathomable green eyes?
have you adventures to relate? have you visited California? have you
swept the streets of San Francisco? have you exchanged bullets with
the Cossacks? have you been killed in three combats and in ten
skirmishes? I fear you have not even thought of dying once. Have you
tried all professions, without succeeding in one? have you invented a
gun which burst? and, above all, are you as poor as a church-mouse?
What! is it possible that you possess none of these fine advantages,
and yet are audacious enough to ask me for my daughter's hand?"
M. Moriaz ended this harangue as the Samaden mail-coach passed. Count
Abel, seated on the outside, bowed and waved his hand to them.
"Look well at that man," said M. Moriaz to Camille, "for he is the
enemy."
And then, instead of giving him the remaining information that the
youth desired, he said:
"Go away and forget; it is the best thing that you can do."
"You do not know me yet," replied Camille. "I am obstinate, I fire to
the last cartridge. I will follow your steps. Oh! don't be afraid, I
will lie--deceive Antoinette; let her think that I have relinquished
my claims. I shall pay her only a friendly visit; but my eyes hunger
to see her, and I will see her."
The morning of the following day the enemy arrived at Chur, whence he
proceeded to Berne. Deponent saith not why he failed to turn aside at
Soleure, as he had expressed his intention of doing in order to pay
tribute there to the memory of the great Kosciuszko. The facts of the
case are, that from Berne he went direct to Lausanne, and that
immediately on reaching there he hastened to the Saxon Casino. When he
seated himself at the gaming-table, he experienced a violent
palpitation of the heart. His ears tingled, his brain was on fire, and
the cold sweat started out on his forehead. He cast fierce glances
right and left; he seemed to see in his partner's eyes his past, his
future, and Mlle. Moriaz life-size. Fortune made amends for the
harshness she had shown him at Milan. After a night of anguish and
many vicissitudes, at daybreak Count Abel had twenty thousand francs
in his pocket. It was sufficient to pay his debts, which he was
anxious to do, and to enable him to await without too much impatience
the moment for executing his projects.
He left the casino, his face flushed and radiant; he was so joyful
that he became tender and affectionate, and, had M. Guldenthal himself
come in his way, he could have embraced him.
CHAPTER IV
Although he had said nothing about it to Mlle. Moriaz in narrating to
her his voyages and Odysseys, Count Abel was already acquainted with
Paris, having made several long sojourns there. This may seem
improbable. Gone in his early youth to America, he had not recrossed
the ocean until he returned to fight in Poland; since then he had
lived in Roumania and Vienna. Where, then, had he found time to visit
France? Certain it is, however, that he was at home on the boulevard,
and that he knew well the streets that led to the places where Paris
amuses itself; but he had no thoughts now for amusements.
Notwithstanding the fact that his purse was full, he proposed to live
a retired and austere life. He found suitable apartments in one of the
lodging-houses of Rue Mont-Thabor. These apartments, on the fifth
floor, were pleasant but modest; they consisted of two rooms having a
view of the chestnut-trees in the garden of the Tuileries. The
portress was a nice woman, whose good-will Count Abel gained on the
very first day. He considered it useful, in the affairs of this world,
to be at peace with both conscience and portress.
After getting installed in his garret his first care was to write to
M. Moses Guldenthal. He informed him that he was ready to refund
interest and capital, and he commissioned him to pay off some trifling
debts that he had left in Vienna; he also desired him to send him the
bracelet, which he hoped to make use of. He felt a genuine relief in
the thought that he owed no man anything, that his condition was clear
and transparent. When a man is proud he likes to be out of debt, and
when he is clever he foresees all possible contingencies. His second
care was to go to the Passage de l'Opera and buy a bouquet for sixty
francs, which he carried to No. 27 Rue Mouffetard. He had one of those
memories that retain everything and let nothing escape them. This
bouquet--the most beautiful Mlle. Galet ever had received--caused her
great astonishment. She did not know to whom to attribute it, the
modest donor having escaped from the effusions of her gratitude by not
making himself known. She supposed that Mlle. Moriaz had sent it to
her, and, as she had taste for composition, she wrote to her a four
page letter of thanks.
Count Abel had not forgotten that he was the bearer of a commission
from Mlle Moriaz. A few days after his arrival, he decided to go to
Maisons, but to take the longest route there; he wanted to see
Cormeilles in passing, and a certain villa in which he was
particularly interested. He went in the Argenteuil cars, got out at
Sannois, climbed that pretty hill that commands the loveliest of
views, and stopped at the inn of Trouillet mills in order to breakfast
there. The morning was charming--it was in the middle of August--and
the approach of autumn was already felt, which enhances the beauty of
all things. The sky was flecked with small gray clouds; a light,
silvery mist hung on the brow of the hills; in two places the Seine
appeared glittering in the sunshine. Abel breakfasted in the open air;
while eating he gazed on the sky and on the great garden-plain
extending at his feet, covered with vegetables, grape-vines, and
asparagus, interspersed with fruit-trees. The wooded hills bordering
it formed an admirable frame. In his present mood Count Larinski was
charmed with the landscape, which was at once grand and smiling. Then
he questioned himself as to how much a bed of asparagus would yield at
the gates of Paris, and, having finished his calculation, he surveyed
with the eye of a poet the heather and broom that surrounded him. He
decided that the Sannois Hill is more beautiful than Koseg; and indeed
it is not necessary to be in love with Mlle. Moriaz to hold that
opinion.
After having had a good breakfast, he again set out, following the
crest of the hill and going through the woods. As he approached
Cormeilles, he saw in the distance, beyond a grove of oaks, the white
walls of a pretty villa. His heart beat faster, and by a sort of
divination he said within himself, "That must be it." He inquired; he
had made no mistake. Five minutes later he stood before a railing,
through which he saw a green lawn. At the entrance of the porter's
lodge a woman sat knitting.
"Can you tell me where M. Moriaz lives?" asked Count Larinski.
"Here, monsieur," she replied; "but M. Moriaz is absent; he will not
return for a month. If you come from a distance, monsieur," she added,
graciously, "perhaps you would like to rest awhile on the terrace. The
view is beautiful."
This hospitable reception seemed a good omen, for, sensible as he was,
he believed in presentiments and prognostics. He entered without
waiting to be urged. When he had crossed the lawn he stood facing two
detached buildings, separated by a mass of verdure: to the right, an
old summer-house, used from time immemorial for M. Moriaz's
collections, laboratory, and library; to the left, a new two-story
house, part stone, part brick, built in an elegant but unobtrusive
style, without ornament or pretension, and flanked by a turret covered
with ivy and clematis, which served for a dove-cote. The house was not
a palace, but there was an air about it of well-being, comfort, and
happiness. In looking at it you felt like saying, "The inmates here
ought to be happy!" This was about what Count Abel said to himself; in
fact, he could hardly refrain from exclaiming, "Dieu! how happy I
shall be here!" The situation, the terrace, the garden, everything
pleased him infinitely. It seemed to him that the air here was
fresher, more delightful than elsewhere, that it was exhilarating in
the extreme; it seemed to him that the grass on the lawn was greener
than any grass he ever had seen before, that the flowers in the
carefully tended borders exhaled an unusually delicious perfume. He
espied an open window on the ground-floor. He drew near it; the room
into which he gazed, full of /bric-a-brac/ of exquisite choice, was
Mlle. Moriaz's study. There was in the appearance of this little
sanctuary, hung with white silken drapery, and as elegant as the
divinity whose favourite tarrying-place it was, something of purity,
chastity, and maidenliness. It opened its windows to the fresh breezes
and to the perfume of the flowers; but it seemed as if nothing could
penetrate there that was coarse or suspicious; that the entrance was
forbidden to all doubtful or malignant beings who might have a secret
crime to hide, to all pilgrims through life who had travelled its
highways and had brought hence dust and mud on the soles of their
shoes. Strange to say, Count Abel experienced an attack of timidity
and embarrassment. He felt that he was indiscreet; he averted his eyes
and went away.
This impression was soon dispelled. He regained his assurance, and
walked around the terrace twice, treading the gravel with the step of
a conqueror, making it feel the full weight of his foot. He finally
seated himself on a bench; he had the nonchalant attitude of a man who
is at home. Five or six doves were billing and cooing on the ledge of
the roof; he could readily understand that they were talking of him,
and that they were saying, "Here he is--we have been waiting for him."
A beautiful Angora cat, white as snow, with delicate nose and silky
hair, came, arching her back and waving her bushy tail, from out a
grove, and advanced towards him. She examined him curiously an
instant, rubbed herself against the bench, and then sat coquettishly
at the feet of the intruder. He caressed her, saying: "You are as
white and graceful as your mistress; you are an intelligent animal;
you understand, my dear, that I come from her. Shall I tell you a
secret? She loves Count Abel Larinski."
With these words he rose and left, after thanking the portress, who
would have been extremely astonished had she been aware of the
reflections that had just been occupying his mind. He went a short
distance on the highway, then finding, to the right, a road that led
to Cormeilles, he took it, but soon struck into a path that wound
through the woods. He was sorry to leave a spot that spoke vividly to
his heart, and even more so to his imagination. He seated himself on
the turf, in the midst of a grove of oaks; around him stretched a
blooming heath. Through an opening in the grove, he could see Saint-
Germain, its forests, and the Seine glittering in the sunshine, with
the two bridges of Maisons Lafitte spanning it with their arches.
Through another opening he caught a glimpse, to his left, of the proud
bastions of Mont-Valerien, and, in the distance, Paris, the Arc de
l'Etoile, the gilt dome of the Invalides, and the smoke of the
factories rising slowly in the air, then by turns remaining stiff and
motionless, or being swept away by the wind.
The place was retired, solitary, very still. No sound was to be heard
save the singing of a lark, and at intervals the melancholy cry of a
peacock. Abel Larinski was overcome by a mysterious emotion; he felt a
voluptuous languor steal through his veins. He watched the smoke over
Paris, and he saw floating in it an ethereal form whose face was
partly concealed by a red hood. It smiled on him, and he read in this
smile a promise of all the joys of the land of Canaan.
He turned away his eyes, partially closing them, and there appeared
another form to him--in truth, very different from the first. It was
that of a man whom he had known intimately, of a man whom he had
deeply loved. In vain the lark sang aloud, in vain the peacock wailed
--Abel Larinski no longer heard them. He was thinking of a certain
Samuel Brohl; he was reviewing in his mind all the history of this
Samuel, a man who never had had a secret from him. This history was
quite as sad a one as that of Abel Larinski, but much less brilliant,
much less heroic. Samuel Brohl prided himself neither on being a
patriot nor a paladin; his mother had not been a noble woman with the
smile of an angel, and the thought never had occurred to him of
fighting for any cause or any person. He was not a Pole, although born
in a Polish province of the Austrian Empire. His father was a Jew, of
German extraction, as indicated by his name, which signifies a place
where one sinks in the mire, a bog, swamp, or something of that
nature; and he kept a tavern in a wretched little market-town near the
eastern frontier of Galicia--a forlorn tavern, a forlorn tavern-
keeper. Although always on the alert to sell adulterated brandy to his
neighbour, and to seize the opportunity to lend him money on usury, he
did not thrive: he was a coward of whose timidity every one took
advantage to make him disgorge his ill-gotten gains. His creed
consisted in three doctrines: he firmly believed that the arts of
lying well, of stealing well, and of receiving a blow in the face
without apparently noticing it, were the most useful arts to human
life; but, of the three, the last was the only one that he practised
successfully. His intentions were good, but his intellect deficient.
This arrant rogue was only a petty knave that any one could dupe.
Abel Larinski transported himself, in thought, to the tavern in which
Samuel Brohl had spent his first youth, and which was as familiar to
him as though he had lived there himself. The smoky hovel rose before
him: he could smell the odour of garlic and tallow; he could see the
drunken guests--some seated round the long table, others lying under
it--the damp and dripping walls, and the rough, dirty ceiling. He
remembered a panel in the wainscoting against which a bottle had been
broken, in the heat of some dispute; it had left a great stain of wine
that resembled a human face. He remembered, too, the tavern-keeper, a
little man with a dirty, red beard, whose demeanour was at once timid
and impudent. He saw him as he went and came, then saw him suddenly
turn, lift the end of his caftan and wipe his cheek on it. What had
happened? An insolvent debtor had spit in his face; he bore it
smilingly. This smile was more repulsive to Count Abel than the great
stain that resembled a human face.
"Children should be permitted to choose their fathers," he thought.
And yet this poor Samuel Brohl came very near living as happy and
contented in the paternal mire as a fish in water. Habit and practice
reconcile one even to dirt; and there are people who eat and digest
it. What made Samuel Brohl think of reading Shakespeare? Poets are
corrupters.
The way it happened was this. Samuel had picked up, somewhere, a
volume which had dropped from a traveller's pocket. It was a German
translation of /The Merchant of Venice/. He read it, and did not
understand it; he reread it, and ended by understanding it. It
produced a wild confusion of ideas in his mind; he thought that he was
becoming insane. Little by little, the chaos became less tumultuous;
order began to reign, light to dawn. Samuel Brohl felt that he had had
a film over his eyes, and that it was now removed. He saw things that
he never had seen before, and he felt joy mingled with terror. He
learned /The Merchant of Venice/ by heart. He shut himself up in the
barn, so that he might cry out with Shylock: "Hath not a Jew eyes?
hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
passions? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we
not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall
we not revenge?" He repeated, too, with Lorenzo:
"Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."
Samuel sometimes rose at night to watch the heavens, and he fancied he
heard the voices of the "young-eyed cherubins." He dreamed of a world
where Jessicas and Portias were to be met, of a world where Jews were
as proud as Shylock, as vindictive as Shylock, and, as Shylock, ate
the hearts of their enemies for revenge. He also dreamed, poor fool,
that there was in Samuel Brohl's mind or bosom an immortal soul, and
that in this soul there was music, but that he could not hear it
because the muddy vesture of decay too grossly closed it in. Then he
experienced a feeling of disgust for Galicia, for the tavern, for the
tavern-keeper, and for Samuel Brohl himself. An old schoolmaster, who
owned a harpsichord, taught him to play on it, and, believing he was
doing good, lent him books. One day, Samuel modestly expressed to his
father a desire to go to the gymnasium at Lemberg to learn various
things that seemed good to him to know. It was then that he received
from the paternal hand a great blow, which made him see all the stars
of heaven in broad daylight. Old Jeremiah Brohl had taken a dislike to
his son Samuel Brohl, because he thought he saw something in his eyes
that seemed to say that Samuel despised his father.
"Poor devil!" murmured Count Abel, picking up a pebble and tossing it
into the air. "Fate owes him compensation, it has dealt so roughly
with him thus far. He fell from the frying-pan into the fire; he
exchanged his servitude for a still worse slavery. When he left the
land of Egypt, he fancied he saw the palms of the promised land. Alas!
it was not long before he regretted Egypt and Pharaoh! Why was not
this woman Portia? why was she neither young nor beautiful?" And he
added: "Ah! old fairy, you made him suffer!"
It seemed to Count Larinski that this woman, this ugly fairy who had
made Samuel Brohl suffer so much, stood there, before him, and that
she scanned him from head to foot, as a fairy, whether old or young,
might scan a worm. She had an imperious, contemptuous smile on her
lips, the smile of a czarina; so Catharine II smiled, when she was
dissatisfied with Potemkin, and said to herself, "I made him what he
is, and to-morrow I can ruin him." "Yes, it was she, it was surely
she," thought Count Larinski. "I cannot mistake. I saw her five weeks
ago, in the Vallee du Diable; she made me tremble!"
This woman who had taken Samuel Brohl from out of the land of Egypt,
and had showered attentions upon him, was a Russian princess. She
owned an estate of Podolia, and chance would have it that one day, in
passing, she stopped at the tavern where young Samuel was growing up
in the shadow of the tabernacle. He was then sixteen. In spite of his
squalid rags, she was struck by his figure. She was a woman of
intelligence, and had no prejudices. "When he is well washed and cared
for," she thought, "when he is divested of his native impurities, when
he has seen the world and had communication with honest people, he
certainly will be a noble fellow." She made him talk, and found him
intelligent; she liked intelligent men. She made him sing, assured
herself that he had a voice; she adored music. She questioned him; he
told her all his misery, and while he talked she said to herself: "No,
I do not mistake; he has a future before him; in two or three years he
will be superb. Three years is not long: the gardener who grafts a
young tree is often condemned to wait longer than that." When he had
ended his narrative, she told him that she was in want of a secretary,
that she had had several, but that she had soon tired of them, on
account of their not having the desired qualifications; she asked him
if he would like to accept the position. He replied only by pointing
his finger to his father, who was smoking his pipe on the door-step. A
moment later she was closeted with Jeremiah Brohl.
She at once proposed to him to buy his son; he dropped his arms in
astonishment, then felt delighted and charmed. He declared, at first,
that his son was not for sale; and then he insinuated that if ever he
did sell him he would sell him dear; he was, according to his opinion,
merchandise of the best quality, a rich and rare article. He raised
his demands ridiculously; she exclaimed; he affirmed he could not put
them lower, that he had his terms, and that he always sold at a fixed
price. They disputed a long time; she was about to give up; he
yielded, and they ended by making the transaction. She sent for Samuel
and said to him: "My boy, you belong to me--I have bought you for
cash. You are satisfied with the bargain, are you not?"
He was stupefied to learn that he had a commercial value; he never had
suspected it. He wanted very much to know what he was worth; but the
princess was discreet upon the subject, and desired that he should
believe that he had cost her a fabulous sum. After reflection, he made
his conditions; he stipulated that he should belong to himself for
three years, which time he would employ in study and in satisfying a
multitude of curious longings.
She readily consented, as that had been her own intention: it would
take fully three years before the fruit was ripe and ready to be
served at the princely table. She gave him instructions and advice,
all bearing the stamp of a superior mind; she understood the world,
the state of public affairs, and physiology, all that can be learned,
and all that cannot be learned. Thus Samuel Brohl set out, his pocket
well filled, for the University of Prague, which he soon left to
settle at Heidelberg, whence he went to Bonn, then to Berlin, then to
Paris. He was restless, he did not know what he wanted, but wherever
he went he studied semiquavers, naturals, and flats; it was part of
the conditions.
The princess was herself a great traveller; two or three times a year
Samuel Brohl received a visit from her. She questioned him, examined
him, felt him, as we feel a peach to be certain it is ripe. Samuel was
very happy; he was free, he enjoyed his life, he did as he pleased.
One single thing spoiled his happiness; when he looked in the glass,
he would sometimes say within himself: "These are the features of a
man who is sold, and the woman who bought him is neither young nor
beautiful." Several times he determined to learn a trade, so that he
might be in a position to refund the debt and break the bargain. But
he never did. He was both ambitious and idle. He wanted to fly at
once; he had a horror of beginnings of apprenticeships. His early
education had been so neglected that in order to recover lost time he
would have been compelled to study hard--all the more so because,
although he was quick-witted, and had a marvellous facility for
entering into the thoughts of others, his own stock was poor; he had
no ideas of his own, nor individuality of mind. He possessed a
collection of half-talents; even in music, he was incapable of
originating; when he attempted to compose, his inspirations proved
mere reminiscences. He did himself justice; he felt that, strive as he
might, his half-talents never would aid him to secure the first
position, and he disdained the second. In fact, what he most needed
was will, which, after all, makes the man. He tried to fling himself
from his horse, which carried him where he did not desire to go; but
he felt that his feet held firm in the stirrup; he had not strength to
disengage them, and he remained in the saddle. Not being able to be a
great man, he abandoned himself to his fate, which condemned him to be
only a knave. At the expiration of his term of freedom, he declared
himself solvent, and the princess took possession of her merchandise.
"Yes, poets are corrupters," thought Count Abel Larinski. "If Samuel
Brohl never had read /The Merchant of Venice/, or /Egmont/, a tragedy
in five acts, or Schiller's ballads, he would have been resigned to
his new position; he would have seen its good sides, and would have
eaten and drunk his shame in peace, without experiencing any
uncomfortable sensations; but he had read the poets, and he grew
disgusted, nauseated. He was dying with desire to get away, and the
princess suspected it. She kept him always in sight, she held him
close, she paid him quarterly, shilling by shilling, his meagre
allowance. She said to herself: 'So long as he has nothing, he cannot
escape.' She mistook; he did escape, and he was so afraid of being
retaken that for some time he hid like a criminal, pursued by the
police. He fancied that this woman was always on his track. It was
then, for the first time, that he felt hunger, for they eat in the
land of Egypt. He lived by all sorts of expedients, and cursed the
poets. One day he learned that his father was dead; he hastened to the
old tavern in order to succeed to the inheritance. He was not aware
that for two years old Jeremiah Brohl had been in his dotage, and that
his debtors mocked him while devouring his substance. A fine
inheritance! it was diminished to two or three rickety chairs, four
cracked walls that scarcely could stand upright, and some jewellery
concealed in a hiding-place that Samuel knew of. Old Jeremiah never
had been able to dispose of it for the price he required, and he
preferred to keep it rather than lower his charge. He had principles,
which was well for Samuel, as the jewellery was useful to him. He sold
a necklace, and set out for Bucharest, some one having told him that
he certainly would make his fortune there. He gave music-lessons; this
wearisome profession did not suit him, he could not endure the
constraint and the regular hours. The boys plagued him--he would
willingly have wrung their necks; the girls treated him like a dog--
they never thought of his being handsome, because they suspected him
of being a Jew. Why had he gone to Bucharest--a city where all Germans
are Jews, and where Jews are not considered men? Although he had
earned a little money, he grew melancholy, and he began to think
seriously of killing himself."
Count Abel Larinski leaned forward, plucked a spray of heather,
tickled his lips with it, and began to laugh; then, striking his
breast, he said, in an undertone, "Thank God, Samuel Brohl is not
dead, for he is here!"
He spoke the truth: Samuel Brohl was not dead, and life was of value
to him, since he had met Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz in the cathedral in
Chur. It was Samuel Brohl who had come to Cormeilles, and who was
seated, at this moment, in the midst of a grove of oaks. Perhaps the
lark that he had heard singing a quarter of an hour before had
recognised him, for it had ceased singing. The peacock continued its
screaming, and its doleful cries sounded like a warning. Yes, the man
seated among the heather, employed in narrating his own history to
himself, was indeed Samuel Brohl, and the proof of this was that he
had laughed, while Count Abel Larinski never laughed; moreover, for
four years the latter had been out of the world. The second reason is,
perhaps, the better.
He whom, with or without his consent, we shall call henceforth Samuel
Brohl, reproached himself for this access of levity, as he would have
reproached himself for a false note that had escaped him in executing
a Mozart sonata. He resumed his grave, dignified air, in order to
salute with a wave of his hand the phantom that had just appeared
before him. It was the same that he had summoned one evening at the
Hotel Steinbock, and treated there as an addle-brain, as a visionary,
and even as an imbecile; but this time he gave him a more indulgent
and gracious reception. He bore him no ill-will, he wished him well,
he was under essential obligations to him, and Samuel Brohl was no
ingrate.
"Ah! well, my poor friend, I am here," he said, in that mute language
that phantoms understand. "I have taken your place, and almost your
form; I play your part in the great fair of this world, and, although
your noble body has rested for four years, six feet underground,
thanks to me you still live. I always have had a most sincere
admiration for you. I considered you a phenomenon, a prodigy. You were
courageous, devoted, generosity itself; you esteemed honour above all
the gold deposits in California; you detested all coarse thoughts and
doubtful actions; your mother had nourished you in all sublime
follies. You were a true chevalier, a true Pole, the last Don Quixote
in this age of sceptics, plunderers, and interlopers. Blessed be the
chance that made us acquainted! You lived retired, solitary, unknown,
in a miserable hovel just outside of Bucharest. So goes the world! You
were in hiding--you who had nothing to hide from either God or man--
you who deserved a crown. Alas! the Russian Government had the poor
taste not to appreciate your exploits, and you feared that it would
claim and obtain your extradition. At our first meeting I pleased you,
and you took me into your friendship; I spoke Polish, and you loved
music. I became your intimate friend, your sole companion, your
confidant. You must grant that you owe to me the last happy moments of
your short existence. I soon knew your origin, the history of your
youth, of your enterprises, and of your misfortunes. You initiated me
into the secret of the great invention that you had just made; you
explained to me in detail the mechanism of your famous gun. I was
intelligent; I understood, or thought I understood. This gun, you
said, would one day make my fortune, for, on your own account, you had
renounced all hope; you had heart-disease, and you knew that you were
condemned to a speedy end. My imagination was kindled. Through my
entreaty you decided to leave with me for Vienna. This expedition was
fatal to you, but I swear to you I did not foresee it."
Samuel crossed his hands on his knee; then he continued: "May my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, may my blood cease to flow in
my veins, may the marrow dry up in my bones, if ever I forget to be
grateful for what I owe to you, Abel Larinski, or cease to remember
the forlorn hovel in which we passed the first night of our journey!
You were attacked by suffocation. You had only time to call and wake
me. I hastened to you. You gave me, in a dying voice, your last
instructions. You delivered into my hands your last fifty florins,
which were as acceptable as an orange would have been to the
shipwrecked passengers of the Medusa. Then you pointed with your
finger to a box, in which were inclosed family relics, letters, your
journal, and papers. You said: 'Destroy all that; Poland is dead, let
no one remember that I have lived!' After that you breathed your last.
Well! I confess that I did not fulfil your orders. I kept your
mother's portrait, the papers, all; and, in announcing your decease to
the police, I made them believe that the man who was dead was named
Samuel Brohl, and that Count Larinski still lived. What would you have
me do? The temptation was too great. Samuel Brohl had disgraceful
antecedents, he was base-born, he had been sold; there was a stain on
his past that never could be wiped away, and, as he had had the
misfortune to read the poets, it had come about that he often despised
himself. It was, indeed, time that he should be thrown into the shade,
and my joy was extreme to know that he was dead, and to feel that I
was alive. As soon as I succeeded in persuading myself that I was
indeed Count Abel Larinski, I was as happy as a child whose parents
have dressed him in new clothes, and who struts about to show them.
With your name I acquired a noble past; in thought, I roamed through
it with delight; I visited its every nook and corner, as a poor devil
would make the circuit of a park that he has just come to inherit. You
bequeathed me your relations, your adventures, your exploits. When you
fought for your country, I was there; when you received a gun-shot-
wound near Dubrod, it was into my flesh that the bullet penetrated. Of
what do you complain? Between friends is not everything in common? I
left my own skin, I entered yours; I was satisfied there, and desired
to remain. To-day I resemble you in everything; I assure you that if
we were seen together it would be difficult to tell us apart. I have
assumed your habits, your manners, your language, the poise of your
head, your playful melancholy, your pride, your opinions, all, even to
the colour of your hair and your handwriting. Abel Larinski, I have
become you: I mistake, I am more Pole, more Larinski, than you were
yourself."
At this moment Samuel Brohl had a singular expression of countenance;
his gaze was fixed. He was no longer of this world--he conversed with
a spirit; but he was neither terrified nor awed, as was Hamlet in
talking to the shade of his father. He treated familiarly the shade of
the true Abel Larinski; it was precisely as we treat a partner that
has transacted business with us in the same firm.
"It is very true, my dear Abel," he continued, "that the principle of
partnership accomplishes wonders; one man alone is a small affair.
But, of all partnerships, the most useful and convenient is the one
that we have made together. The living and the dead can render each
other important services, and they never quarrel. You should be
satisfied; you play a fine role; you are the signature of the house.
We will not speak of your gun; that was a poor speculation, for which
I scarcely can pardon you. It was the fault of your disordered brain
that we wandered off on that bypath, but, thanks be to Heaven! we have
at last gained the highway. Five weeks ago we met a woman, and what a
woman! She has velvety-brown eyes, whence glances well forth like
fresh and living waters. To praise her grace properly, I must borrow
the language of the 'Song of Solomon': 'Thy lips, O my spouse! drop as
the honey-comb; honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of
thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. This thy stature is like to
a palm-tree. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. A
garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse: a spring shut up--a fountain
sealed.' Some day she will cry out, with the Shulamite, 'Let my
beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.' She
belongs to us, my dear Larinski--my dear partner; she had yielded, and
you and I share the honour of the victory. I presented myself before
her, and my presence did not displease her. I related to her your
history, as you would have related it yourself, with delicacy and
simplicity, neither adding nor omitting. Her heart was touched; her
heart was taken captive. You will wed her--she will bear your name;
but you will marry her by proxy, and I shall be your proctor. I
promise to consider myself your mandatory, or, to express it better,
you will own the property and I will have the usufruct. Never fear
that I shall forget what I owe to you, or the modesty proper to my
estate."
At these words, he made a grand gesture, as if to banish the phantom
that he had conjured up, and that fled away trembling with sorrow,
shame, and indignation. The peacock cried anew a mournful shriek.
"Stupid bird!" thought Samuel Brohl, quaking with sudden dread.
He looked at his watch, and reflected that the hour was advancing--
that he was losing time with the spirits. He rose hastily, and wended
his way toward Cormeilles; thence he wished to come upon a sunny path
that led to the banks of the Seine, and Sartrouville, the belfry of
which was plainly visible. When he reached the foot of the declivity,
he turned his head and saw, on the summit of the hill, through the
space left by the crooked branches of two plantains, a white wall,
that seemed to laugh amid the verdure, and a little higher the pointed
roof of the dove-cote, where Mlle. Moriaz's doves had their nests. He
did not need to look long at this roof to recognise it. He threw a
burning kiss in the air--a kiss that was sent to the doves as well as
to the dove-cote--to the house as well as to the woman--to the woman
as well as the house. For the first time in his life, Samuel Brohl was
in love; but Samuel Brohl's love differed from Abel Larinski's. When
they adore a woman, be she as beautiful as a picture, the frame, if it
is a rich one, pleases them as much as the painting; and they propose
to possess their mistress with all her appendages and appurtenances.
CHAPTER V
Mme. de Lorcy was a woman of about fifty years of age, who still
possessed remains of beauty. She had been a widow for long years, and
never had thought of marrying again. Although her wedded life had been
a happy one, she considered that liberty is to be prized above all
else; she employed hers in a most irreproachable manner. She was self-
possessed, even better acquainted with numbers than with dress, and
managed her property herself, which was by no means a trifling thing
to do. Liking to make good use of her time, she thought to do it by
busying herself in the affairs of others. She had a real vocation for
the profession of a consulting lawyer. Usually her advice was sensible
and judicious--nothing better could be done than to follow it; only
her clients complained that she pronounced her sentences with too
little tenderness, without granting any appeal. She was good,
charitable, but lacked unction, and she had no sympathy with the
illusions of others. A German poet, in making his New-Year offerings,
wishes that the rich may be kind-hearted, that the poor may have
bread, that the ladies may have pretty dresses, that the men may have
patience, that the foolish may get a little reason, and that sensible
people may grow poetic. Mme. de Lorcy was kind-hearted, she had pretty
dresses and a great deal of reason; but her reason was wanting in
poetry, and poetic people to whom she gave advice required a good deal
of patience to listen to the end. Those who permitted themselves to
despise her counsel, and who were happy after their own fashion,
incurred her lasting displeasure. She obstinately asserted to them
that their seeming happiness was all a deceit; that they had fastened
a stone about their necks; and that, without appearing to do so, at
the bottom of their hearts they bitterly repented. She added, "It is
not my fault; I told you, but you would not believe me."
Mme. de Lorcy had an almost maternal affection for her nephew, M.
Camille Langis. Confident that he could not be otherwise than
successful in a love-affair, she promised him that he should marry
Mlle. Moriaz. To be sure, he was rather young; but she had decided
that the question of age made no difference, and that in all else
there was a perfect fitness between the parties. M. Langis hesitated a
long time about declaring himself. He said to Mme. de Lorcy: "If she
refuse me, I shall no longer be able to see her; and so long as I can
see her, I am only half-wretched." It was Mme. de Lorcy who forced him
to draw his sword and open the campaign, in which she was to act as
second. This campaign had not been a successful one. Deeply wounded at
the refusal, which she had in vain attempted to prevent, she was ready
to force Mlle. Moriaz into compliance. They made her believe, to
pacify her, that the sentence was not definite, or at least that a
period of grace would be granted to the condemned. M. Langis set out
for Hungary, and he had now returned. In the mean time, Antoinette had
refused two offers. Mme. de Lorcy had inferred this to be a favourable
omen for her projects. Thus she felt annoyance mingled with anger on
receiving the following letter from M. Moriaz:
"DEAR MADAME:
"You will be charmed to learn that I am extremely well. My cheeks
are full, my complexion florid, my legs as nimble as a chamois, my
appetite like that of an ogre. If ever you become anemic, which
God forbid, you should set out forthwith for Saint Moritz, and I
shall soon have good news from you. Saint Moritz is a place where
you find what you want, but you find, besides, what you do not
want. I do not speak of bears; I have not seen any, and should I
meet one, I am strong enough to strangle it. Besides, bears are
taciturn animals, they never relate their histories, and the only
animals I fear are those that have the gift of narrating, and that
one is not allowed to strangle. I will say no more. Have I made
myself intelligible? You are so intelligent.
"Apropos, Antoinette sends you a sketch or a painting, I do not
know which, that will be handed to you by Count Abel Larinski. He
is a Pole, of that there can be no doubt; you will perceive it at
once. I wish him well; he was obliging enough to extricate me from
a breakneck position into which I had foolishly thrust myself.
That I have a pair of legs to walk on, and a hand to write with, I
owe to him. I recommend him to your kind reception, and I beg you
to get him to relate his history. He is one of those who narrate,
not every day, it is true, but when you touch the right spring, he
starts, and cannot be stopped. Seriously, M. Larinski is no
ordinary man; you will find pleasure in his acquaintance. I have
discovered that he is in rather embarrassed circumstances. He is
the son of an emigrant, whose property has been confiscated. His
father was a half fool, who made great attempts to cut a channel
through the Isthmus of Panama, and never succeeded in cutting his
way through anything. He was himself beginning to earn money in
San Francisco, when, in 1863, he gave everything up to go and
fight against the Russians. This enthusiastic patriot has since
adopted the calling of an inventor, in which he has been
unsuccessful; he is now in search of a livelihood. Do not think he
will ask for anything; he is an hidalgo; he wraps himself proudly
in his poverty, as a Castilian does in his cloak. I am interested
in him,; I want to assist him, give him a lift; but, first, I wish
to feel sure that he is worthy of my sympathy. Examine him
closely, sift him well; I trust your eyes rather than my own; I
have the greatest faith in your skill in this kind of valuation.
"Antoinette sends you her most affectionate greetings. She adores
Saint Moritz; you would think that she had found something here
which has wrought a charm over her. For my own part, I am
delighted to have recovered my appetite, my sleep, and all the
rest, and yet I regret having come; can you reconcile that? Let me
know as soon as possible what you think of my Pole; but, pray do
not condemn him unheard. No hasty decision, I entreat; an expert
is bound not to be influenced by his prejudices, but to weigh his
judgments as his words. Adieu, dear madame; pity me in spite of my
full cheeks."
Madame de Lorcy replied in these words, by return mail:
"You are indeed innocent, my dear professor, and your finesse is
but too apparent; I could not help understanding. Is she, indeed
so foolish. I did not think her overwise; but here she astonishes
me more than I would have believed. You can tell her, for me--or
rather don't say anything to her; I will only speak to you, I am
too angry to reason with her. I will see your Pole, I await him
resolutely; but, in truth, I have seen him already. I am well
acquainted with him, I know him by heart; I have no doubt that he
is some impostor. I will examine him without prejudice, with
religious impartiality. You are so good as to remind me that an
expert suspends his judgment. I will hold my police force in
reserve, and I will let you know before long what I think of your
adventurer. Ah! yes, I do pity you, poor man. After all, however,
you alone are to blame; is it my fault that you did not know how
to act? God bless you!"
At the time when Samuel Brohl, seated amid the heather, in an oak-
grove, was conversing with phantoms, Mme. de Lorcy, alone in her
/salon/, was occupied with her needlework, and her thoughts, which
revolved in a circle, like a horse in a riding-school. She had for
several days been expecting Count Abel Larinski's visit; she wondered
at his want of promptness, and suspected that he was afraid of her.
This suspicion pleased her. Several times she fancied she heard a
man's step in the antechamber, at which she started nervously, and the
rose-coloured strings of her cap fluttered on her shoulders.
Suddenly, while she was counting her stitches, with head bent down,
some one entered without her perceiving it, seized her hand, and,
devoutly kissing it, threw his hat on the table, and then dropped into
a chair, where he remained motionless, with his legs stretched out,
and his eyes riveted on the floor.
"Oh! It is you, Camille," exclaimed Mme. de Lorcy. "You come apropos.
Well?"
"Well! yes, madame, that is it," replied M. Langis; "and you see
before you the most unhappy of men. Why is your pond dry? I want to
fling myself into it head foremost."
Mme. de Lorcy laid down her embroidery, and crossed her arms. "So you
have returned?" said she.
"Would to God I never had gone there! It is a land where poison is
sold, and I have drunk of it."
"Don't abuse metaphors. You have seen her? What did you say to her?"
"Nothing, madame--nothing of what is in my heart. I made her believe
that I had reflected, and changed my views; that I was entirely cured
of my foolish passion for her; that I was simply making her a friendly
visit. Yes, madame, I remained half a day with her, and during the
half day I never once betrayed myself. I convinced her that the mask
was a face. Tell me, conscientiously, have you ever read of a more
heroic act in Plutarch's /Lives of Great Men/?"
"She herself, what did she say to you?"
"She was so enchanted, so delighted with the change, that she was
dying to embrace me."
"She shall pay for it. And he, did you see him?"
"Just caught a glimpse of him, looked up to him as was befitting the
humility of my position. This fortunate man, this glorious mortal, was
enthroned on the top of the mail-coach."
"Is he really so fascinating?"
"He has, I assure you, a certain look of deep profundity, and he bears
his exploits inscribed on his brow. What am I, to contend against him!
You must allow that I have the appearance of a school-boy. And yet, if
I were to boast. This road in Transylvania for which I had the
contract was by no means easy to construct. We had to cut through the
solid rock, working in the air, suspended by ropes. This perilous
labour so disheartened our workmen that some of them left us; to
encourage the rest, I was slung up like them, and like them handled
the pickaxe. One day, in the explosion of a charge a piece of stone
struck the rope of one of my men with such violence that it cut it as
clean in two as the edge of a razor would have done. The man fell--I
believed him to be lost; by a miracle, his clothes caught in some
brushwood, to which he succeeded in clinging. It was I who went to his
assistance, and I swear to you that in this rescue I proved the
strength of my muscles, and ran the risk twenty times of breaking my
neck. The workmen had mistrusted me on account of my youth; from that
day, I can assure you, they held me in respect."
"Did you relate this incident to Antoinette?"
"What would have been the use? With women it does not suffice to be a
great man; you must have the look of one too." And Camille Langis
cried out, clinching his hands: "Ah! madame, I entreat you, do you
know where I can procure a Polish head, a Polish mustache, a Polish
smile? Pray, where are these articles to be had, and what is their
market price? I will not haggle! O women! what a set you are--plague
on you!"
"And are aunts the same?" gravely asked Mme. de Lorcy.
He answered more calmly: "No, madame, you are a woman without an
equal, and I name you every day in my prayers. You are my only
resource, my consolation, my counsel. Do not refuse me your precious
instructions! What ought I to do?"
Mme. de Lorcy gazed up at the ceiling for an instant, and then said:
"Love elsewhere, my dear; abandon this foolish girl to her fate and
her Pole."
He started and replied: "You demand what is impossible. I am no longer
my own master; she has taken possession of me--she holds me. Love
elsewhere? Can you think of it? I detest her--I curse her--but I adore
her!"
She rejoined: "You should not use hyperbole any more than metaphors.
Both are unsolid food. When you decide not to love, you will love no
more."
"That supposes that I have several hearts to choose from. I never had
but one, and that no longer belongs to me. So you refuse me your
advice?"
"What advice would you have me give you before having seen M. Larinski
--before having taken the measure of this hero?"
"What! you expect to see him?"
"I am waiting for him to call, and I am sorry he keeps me waiting."
"Seriously, will you receive this man?"
"I have been asked to examine him."
"I am lost, if you feel the need of hearing before condemning him. Our
most sacred duty is to be resolutely unjust towards the enemies of our
friends."
"Nonsense! I shall not be indulgent towards him."
"Do as you like; I have my plan."
"What is it?"
"I shall seek some groundless quarrel with this contraband, this
poacher, and I will blow his brains out."
"A fine scheme, my dear Camille! And afterward, when you have killed
him, you will have gained a great deal. Have you confidence in me? I
have already begun to work for you. The Abbe Miollens, as you know, is
well acquainted in the society of Polish emigrants; I have sent to him
for information. I have also written to Vienna for intelligence
concerning him. Antoinette is foolish in forming such an acquaintance,
it must be admitted; but, in matters of honour, she is as delicate as
an ermine in tending the whiteness of her robe; if there be in M.
Larinski's past a stain no larger than a ten-sou piece, she will
forever discard him. Let me act; be wise, do not blow out any one's
brains. /Grand Dieu!/ what would become of us, if the only way to get
rid of people was by killing them?"
As she pronounced these words a servant entered, bearing a card on a
silver salver. She took the card and exclaimed: "When you speak of the
wolf-- Here is our man!" She begged M. Langis to retire; he implored
permission to remain, promising to be a model of discretion. She was
insisting on his leaving when Count Abel Larinski appeared.
Samuel Brohl had scarcely taken three steps in Mme. de Lorcy's /salon/
before he conjectured why M. Moriaz had asked him to go there, and
what was the significance of the commission with which he was charged.
Notwithstanding the /salon/ had a southern exposure, and that it was
then the middle of the month of August, it seemed to him to be cold
there. He thought that he felt a draught of chilly air, an icy wind,
which pierced him through and through, and caused him an unpleasant
shiver. He did not need to look very attentively at Mme. de Lorcy to
be convinced that he was before his judge, and that this judge was not
a friendly one; and, as soon as his gaze met that of M. Camille
Langis, something warned him that this young man was his enemy. Samuel
Brohl had the gift of observation.
He delivered his message, and handed Mme. de Lorcy the little
portfolio that contained Mlle. Moriaz's painting, expressing his
regret that business had prevented his coming sooner. Mme. de Lorcy
thanked him for his kindness, with rather a cool politeness, and asked
him for news of her goddaughter. He did not expatiate on this topic.
"The valley of Saint Moritz is a dreary country," she next said.
"Rather say, madame, that it is a dreary country possessing a great
charm for those who love it."
"It appears that Mlle. Moriaz is almost wearied to death there. I
should think she would die of ennui."
"Do you think her capable of yielding to ennui in any place?"
"Certainly, do not doubt it; but she has recourse to her imagination
to dispel the tedium. She has a marvellous talent for procuring
herself diversion and for varying her pleasures. Hers is an
imagination having many relays: no sooner is one horse exhausted than
there is another to take its place."
"That is a precious gift," he replied, briefly. "I assure you,
however, that you calumniate the Engadine. The trees there are not so
well grown as those in your park; but the Alpine fir and pine have
their beauty."
"You went to this hole for your health, monsieur?"
"Yes, and no, madame. I was not ill, but any physician contended that
I should be still better if I breathed the air of the Alps for three
weeks. It was taking a cure as a preventive."
"M. Larinski made the ascent of the Morteratsch," said Camille, who,
seated on a divan with his arms extended on his knees, never had
ceased to look at Samuel Brohl with a hard and hostile glance. "That
is an exploit that can be performed only by well people."
"It is no exploit," replied Samuel; "it is a work of patience, easy
for those who are not subject to vertigo."
"You are too modest," rejoined the young man. "Had I done as much, I
would sound a trumpet."
"Have you attempted the ascent?" asked Samuel.
"Not at all. I do not care about having feats of prowess to relate,"
he replied, in an almost challenging tone.
Mme. de Lorcy hastened to interrupt the conversation by saying, "Is
this the first time you have been in Paris, monsieur?"
"Yes, madame," replied Samuel, who withdrew more and more into his
shell.
"And does Paris please you as much as a pine-grove?"
"Much more, madame."
"Have you any acquaintances?"
"None; and the truth is, I have no desire to make any."
"Why?"
"Shall I tell you my reason? I am not fond of breaking ice, and Poles
complain that there is nothing in the world so icy as Parisian
coldness."
"That explains itself," cried Camille. "Paris, that is Paris proper,
is a small city of a hundred thousand souls, and this small city is
invaded more and more, by strangers who come here to seek pleasure or
fortune. It is but natural that Paris should protect itself."
"Parisians pride themselves on their penetration," replied Samuel. "It
does not require much of it to distinguish an honest man from an
adventurer."
"Ah! permit me," returned M. Langis, "that depends a good deal on
practice. The most skillful are deceived."
Samuel Brohl rose and made a movement to leave. Mme. de Lorcy insisted
on his sitting down again. She saw that she had made a bad beginning
in the fulfilment of her office of examining magistrate, and of
gaining the prisoner's confidence. Fearing that Camille, in spite of
his promise, would spoil everything by some insult, she found a
pretext to send him away; she begged that he would go and examine a
pair of horses that were a recent acquisition.
As soon as he was gone, she changed her manner; she grew amiable, she
endeavoured to remove the ill impression of her first welcome; she put
Count Abel at his ease, who felt that the air lost its chilliness
about him. Without appearing to do so, she made him undergo an
examination- she asked him many questions; he replied promptly.
Visitors came in; it was an hour before he took leave, after having
promised Mme. de Lorcy to dine with her the next day.
She did not wait until then to write to M. Moriaz. Her letter was thus
conceived:
"August 16, 1875.
"You recommend me to be impartial, my dear friend. Why should I not
be? It is true that I have dreamed of a certain marriage: one of
the parties would not listen to my propositions, and the other had
abandoned the idea. My project has come to nothing. Camille has
enjoined me never to speak of it to him again. You see I am no
longer interested in the question, or, rather, I have in the
matter no other interest than that which I feel for Antoinette,
whose happiness is as dear to me as it is to you. Apropos, do not
give her my letters; read to her the passages that you judge
suitable to communicate to her--I leave that to your discretion.
"First of all, let me unfold to you my humble opinions. I am
charged with having prejudices; it is a shocking calumny. I will
make you a profession of faith, and you shall judge. I am at war
with more than one point of our French morals; I deplore the habit
that we have formed of considering marriage as a business
transaction, of esteeming it as a financial or commercial
partnership, and making everything subordinate to the equality of
the personal estates. This principle is revolting to me, my dear
friend. We are accused in foreign countries of being an immoral
people. Heavens! it seems to me that we understand and practise
virtue quite as much as the English or Germans, and, to speak the
whole truth, I am not afraid to advance the opinion that this, of
all the countries of the universe, is the one where there is the
most virtue. It is not at that point that we sin. Our misfortune
is, that we are too rational in our habits of life, too
circumspect, too prudent; we lack boldness in our undertakings; we
wish, as it is said, to have one foot on firm land and the other
not far off. We must have security; we do not like risk; doubtful
affairs do not please us; we are too prone to look ahead, and to
look ahead is to fear. That is one reason why we send out no
colonies, and that is the reason we have no more children. Are you
satisfied with me?
"Napoleon I was in the habit of saying that, in fighting a battle,
he so ordered matters as to have seventy chances out of a hundred
in his favour; he left the rest to Fate. Ah! brave people, life is
a battle, but the French of to-day will not risk anything. They
are the most honest, the least romantic of men, and I regret it.
Read Antoinette this passage of my letter. Our young people think
that they have a right to the paternal fortune; they consider that
their father is wanting in his duty if he does not leave them a
settled position, a certain future. Their second preconceived
notion is that they must find a wife who will bring them as much
at least as they have to offer her. I have so much, you have so
much--we are evidently created for each other; let us marry. All
this is deplorable. I like better to hear of the young American
who only expects from his parents the education necessary for a
man to make his way; he has his tools given to him and the method
of using them, but not a sou. You have learned to swim, my friend
--swim. After that he marries, most frequently a woman who has
nothing, and who loves to spend money. May the God Dollar protect
him! he will gaily make an opening for himself in life, and his
wife will give him ten children, who will follow the same course
as their father. Where it is customary for hunger to marry thirst,
there are happy marriages, and a hardy race of people. In all
conscience, am I not romantic enough?
"Let me consider another case. Take a man who has fortune: he
profits thereby to consult his heart only, and offer his name and
revenues to the woman he loves and who has no dower. I clap my
hands, I think it the best of examples, and I regret that it is so
seldom practised among us. In France princes never are seen
marrying shepherdesses; on the contrary, one too often sees
penniless sons-in-law carrying off heiresses, and that is
precisely the most objectionable case. In a romance, or at the
theatre, the poor young man who marries a million is a very noble
person; in life it is different. Not if the poor young man had a
profession or a trade, if he could procure by his own work a
sufficient income to render him independent of his wife; but if he
submit to be dependent on her, if he expect from her his daily
bread, to roll in her carriage, to ask her for the expenses of his
toilet, for his pocket-money, and perhaps for sundry questionable
outlays--frankly, this young man lacks pride; and what is a man
who has no pride? Besides, what surety is there that in marrying
it is, indeed, the woman he is in love with and not the dower? Who
assures me that Count Abel Larinski?--I name no one, personalities
are odious, and I own there are exceptions. /Dieu/, how rare they
are! If I were Antoinette, I would love the poor, but in their own
interest. I would not marry them. The interest of the whole human
race is at stake. Beggars are inventive; let them have their own
way to make, and they will be sure to invent some means of
livelihood; give them the key of a cash-box, and they will cease
to strive, you have destroyed their genius. My dear professor, in
fifteen years I have brought about a great many marriages. Three
times I have married hunger to thirst, and, thank God, I once
decided a millionaire to marry a poor girl who had not a sou, but
I never aided a beggar to marry a rich girl. Now you have my
principles and ideas--Are you listening to me still? You fall
asleep sometimes while listening to a sermon. Good! you open your
eyes--I proceed:
"I have seen your man. Well, sincerely, he only half pleases me. I
do not deny that he has a handsome head; a sculptor might use it
as a model. I will add that his eyes are very interesting, by
turns grave, gentle, gay, or melancholy. I have nothing to say
against his manners or his language; his address is excellent, and
he is no booby--far from it. With all this there is something
about him that shocks me--I scarcely know what--a mingling of two
natures that I cannot explain. He might be said to resemble,
according to circumstances, a lion or a fox; I believe that the
fox-nature predominates, that the lion is supplementary. I simply
give you my impressions, which I am perfectly willing to be
induced to change. I am inclined to fancy that M. Larinski passed
his first youth amid vulgar surroundings, that later he came into
contact with good society, and being intelligent soon shook off
the force of early influences; but there still remain some traces
of these. While he was in my /salon/ his eyes twice took an
inventory of its contents, and that with a rapidity which would
have done credit to a practised appraiser. It was then,
especially, that he had the air of a fox.
"Nor is this all. I read the other day the story of a princess who
was travelling over the world, and asked hospitality, one evening,
at the door of a palace. Was she a real princess or an
adventuress? The queen who received her judged it well to
ascertain. For this purpose she prepared for her, with her own
hands, a soft bed, composed of two mattresses, on which she piled
five feather-beds; between the two mattresses she slipped three
peas. The next day the traveller was asked how she had slept.
'Very badly,' she replied. 'I do not know what was in my bed, but
my whole body is bruised; I am black and blue, and I never closed
my eyes until dawn!' 'She is a true princess,' cried the queen. Is
M. Larinski a true prince? I made him undergo the test of the
three peas. I allowed myself to question him with indiscreet,
urgent, improper curiosity; he did not appear to feel the
indiscretion. He replied promptly and submissively; he endeavoured
to satisfy me, and I was not satisfied. I shall see him again
to-morrow--he comes to dine at Maisons. I only wish to be able to
prove to myself that he is a true prince.
"My dear professor, you are the most imprudent of men, and,
whatever happens, you have only yourself to blame. People do not
open their doors so easily to strangers. You tell me that, thanks
to M. Larinski's kindness, you did not break your leg. Mercy on
me! a father would better break his leg in three places than
expose his daughter to the risk of marrying an adventurer; his leg
could be easily set. There is nothing so frightful in that.
"/Postscriptum/.--I open my letter. I want to prove to you how much
I desire to be just, and how far my impartiality goes. You know
that my neighbour, Abbe Miollens, lived a long time in Poland, and
has correspondents there. I begged him to get me information
concerning the count--of course, without explaining anything to
him. He reports that Count Abel Larinski is a true count. His
father, the confiscation of the property, the emigration to
America, the Isthmus of Panama--all is true; the history is
authentic. Countess Larinski was a saint. Concerning the son,
nothing is known; he must have been three or four years old when
he landed in New York. No one ever saw him; no one seems to know
anything about his taking part in the insurrection of 1863. Having
spoken the truth about his parents, it is to be presumed that he
told the truth about himself. Very well, but one can fight for
one's country, and have a saint for one's mother, and yet possess
none of the qualities that go towards making a happy household. I
take back the word adventurer, but I still hold to all I have said
about him. Why did he take an inventory of my furniture with his
eyes? Why did he sleep so soundly in a bed where there were three
peas? This requires an explanation.
"Kiss Antoinette for me. Give my regards to Mlle. Moiseney, without
telling her that I think her a simpleton; it is a conviction in
which I shall die. Was it, indeed, very difficult to descend from
that terrible rock of yours?"
Three days later, Mme. de Lorcy wrote a second letter:
"August 19th.
"I have received this very moment, my dear monsieur, the reply from
Vienna that I have been expecting, and which I hasten to share
with you. I had applied to our friend Baron B---, first secretary
of the embassy from France to Vienna, in order to try to learn
what reputation Count Larinski had left there. He is esteemed
there as a most worthy man; as an inventor who was more daring
than wise; as a devoted patriot; as one of those Poles whose only
thought is of Poland and of their Utopia, and who would set fire
to the four corners of the earth without wincing, for the sole
purpose of procuring embers at which to roast their chestnuts. I
will not return to the subject of the gun; you know all about it.
It seems that there was some good in this explosive gun, and that
he who invented it united a sort of genius with ingenuousness,
inexperience, and ignorance enough to make one weep. Nothing can
be said against the private character of the man. He had a few
debts, and his tradespeople felt considerable anxiety when he left
Vienna one morning on foot. He had no sooner reached Switzerland
than he sent back money to settle everything. Here we have an
admirable trait. However, his tastes were simple, and he led a
steady life; it was the gun that brought his finances into
disorder. I will add that M. Larinski visited in Vienna at several
of the most distinguished houses, where he is remembered most
kindly. He was sought everywhere on account of his talents as a
musician, which were far more to be relied on than his talent as a
gunsmith. He plays the piano to perfection, and has a very
beautiful voice. Had he employed these talents, he could have made
his way to the opera, but his dignity held him back. Now you know
what has been communicated to me by Baron B---. On the faith of an
honest woman, I have neither added nor omitted anything.
"I am going to astonish you. Would you believe that I am beginning
to be reconciled to Count Larinski? What shocked me in him is
explained and excused by his long residence in America. He is a
mixed breed of Yankee and Pole. Far from having prejudices against
him, I now have them in his favour. Do you know, I am by no means
sure that he cherishes in his heart any serious sentiment for your
daughter? As a man of taste he admires her. I should like to know
who would not admire her! I suspect Antoinette of allowing her
imagination to become excited about nothing. He talks of her on
all occasions in as free and tranquil a fashion as he would talk
of a work of art. I find it impossible to believe that he is in
love. I have in vain watched his green eyes. I never have seen a
suspicious look.
"As I announced to you, he came to Maisons yesterday to dine. I had
invited Abbe Miollens, and Camille had invited himself, promising
that he would act like a philosopher; he only half kept his
promise: for I must inform you that my nephew has conceived, I do
not know why, an insurmountable antipathy to M. Larinski; he is
subject to taking dislikes to people. During dinner, Abbe
Miollens, who is a great linguist and a great traveller, and who
has at the ends of his fingers everything concerning Poland and
the Poles, led the conversation to the insurrection of 1863. M.
Larinski, at first, refrained from discussing this sad subject;
little by little the flood-gates were opened: he related his
adventures or campaigns without boasting, praising others rather
than himself; when suddenly his voice grew husky and his eyes dim,
he interrupted himself, and begged we would speak of other things.
Fortunately, at this moment, he did not see Camille, whose lips
were a sinister smile. Young Frenchmen have become such sceptics!
I made eyes at the bad boy, and on leaving the table I sent him to
smoke a cigar in the park.
"I should confess to you that M. Larinski has made a conquest of
Abbe Miollens, who of all men is the most difficult to please, and
who disputes with Providence the privilege of fathoming the depths
of the human heart. You are aware that the abbe is a remarkable
violinist: he sent for his instrument; M. Larinski seated himself
at the piano, and the two gentlemen played a concert by Mozart--
divine music performed by two angels of the first class. The
conversation that followed charmed me more than the concerto. I do
not know by what fatality we came to speak of marriage. I did not
miss the opportunity to disclose with a most innocent air, my
little theories, with which you are acquainted. Would you believe
that the count concurred, more than concurred, with my views? He
is more royalist than the king; he does not admit that a good rule
allows of any exception. According to him, a poor man who marries
a rich woman forfeits his honour, debases himself, sells himself;
he is a man in bondage. He developed this theme with sombre
eloquence. I assure you that the lion no longer bore resemblance
to the fox.
"After the departure of this fine musician and great orator, Abbe
Miollens, remaining alone with me, told me how much he was charmed
with his conversation and manners; he could not cease to sing his
praises. I think he went a little too far. However, I joined with
him in regretting that a man of his merit should be reduced to
live by expedients. The abbe's arm reaches a long way; he promised
me that he would busy himself, at the expense of all other
business, to find some employment for M. Larinski. He remembered
that there was some talk of establishing in London an
international school for the living languages. One of the founders
of this institute had applied to him to learn if he could
recommend some professor of the Slavonian languages. It would be
exactly the thing, and I should be delighted to procure for your
/protégé/ an occupation that would insure all the happiness that
it is possible to enjoy on the other side of the Channel. After
this, will you still accuse me of being prejudiced against him?
"Adieu, my dear monsieur. Give my tender love to my amiable
goddaughter. I rely on you to read my letters to her with care and
discretion. Little girls should have only a part of the truth."
Eight days afterward Mme. de Lorcy wrote a third letter, which was
thus expressed:
"August 27th.
"I am more and more content with M. Larinski. I blame myself for
the suspicions with which he inspired me. The Viennese were right
to consider him a worthy man, and Abbe Miollens has not valued him
too highly. You write, on your part, my dear friend, that you are
not dissatisfied with Antoinette. She is gay, tranquil; she walks,
paints, never speaks of Count Abel Larinski, and, when you speak
to her of him, she smiles and does not reply. You claim that she
has reflected; that time and absence have wrought their effect.
'Out of sight, out of mind,' you say. Take care! I am more
mistrustful than you. Are you very sure that Antoinette may not be
a slyboots?
"What is certain is, that I received a charming epistle from her,
in which there is no more mention of M. Larinski than if Poland
and the Pole did not exist. She praises Engadine; she pretends
that she would ask for nothing better than to end her days in a
pine-forest. I can read between the lines that it would be a pine-
forest after her own heart, where there would be reunions, balls,
guests to dinner, small parties, a conservatory of music, and the
opera. The last paragraph of her letter is devoted to the
insurrection in Herzegovina, and it is hardly worth while to say
that all her sympathies are with the insurgents. 'If I were a
man,' she writes, 'I would go and fight for them.' That is very
well; she always took the part of thieves against the police. I
remember long ago--she was ten years old--I told her the story of
an unfortunate traveller besieged in a forest by an army of
wolves. He made a barricade about himself, and around it he
lighted great fires. The wolves fell into the flames, where they
roasted, one after the other. Antoinette began to weep bitterly,
and I imagined that she was lamenting the terror of the
unfortunate man. 'Not at all,' she cried: 'the poor beasts!' She
was made so; we cannot remake her. She will always side with the
wolves, especially with the lean ones who scarcely can make two
ends meet.
"I told you that Count Larinski was a worthy man. He came to see me
the day before yesterday. We have become very good friends. I
asked him if Paris still pleased him, and he replied, with the
most gracious smile, 'What I like best in Paris is Maisons
Lafitte.' Thereupon he said some exceedingly pretty things, which
I will not repeat. We walked /tete-a- tete/ around the park.
Heaven be praised that I returned heart-whole! We talked politics;
he bears the reputation of being hot-headed, but he is not wanting
in good sense. I wished to know if he was in favour of the Turks
or of the Bosnians. He replied:
" 'As a Christian, as a Catholic, I am interested in the Christians
of the East, and I am for the Cross against the Crescent.' He
pronounced these words, Christian, Catholic, and cross, in a tone
full of unction. I surmise that he is a devotee. He added, 'As a
Pole, I am for Turkey.'
" 'I believed,' said I, 'that the Poles had sympathy with all the
oppressed.'
" 'Poles,' he replied, 'cannot like those who like their
oppressors, and they cannot forget that the Osmanlis are their
natural allies, and, on occasions, their refuge.'
"I gave him Antoinette's letter to read. I was very glad, at any
hazard, to prove to him that she could write four pages without
asking about him. He read it with extreme attention: but when he
came to the famous passage--'If I were a man, I would go and fight
for them!'--he smiled, and returned me the letter, saying, in a
disdainful and rather a dry tone:
" 'Write for me to Mlle. Moriaz that I believe I am a man, yet that
I will not fight for the Bosnians, and that the Turks are my
greatest friends.'
" 'She is foolish,' I said. 'Fortunately, she changes her folly
with every new moon!'
" 'What would you have?' he replied; 'in order not to be insipid,
it is well to be a little foolish. My poor mother used often to
say: "My son, youth should be employed in laying by a great store
of extravagant enthusiasm; otherwise, at the end of life's journey
the heart will be void, for much is left on the road." '
"Calm, /seigneur/, your excited fears, no one has designs on your
daughter; we evidently find her charming, but are by no means in
love with her. With much precaution and circumlocution I gently
proceeded to question Count Larinski on the state of his affairs,
about which he never has opened his mouth. He frowned. I did not
lose courage. I offered him this place of professor of the
Slavonian languages of which the abbe had again spoken. I saw in
an instant that his sensitive pride had taken alarm. However, upon
reflection, he softened, thanked me, declined my kind offer, and
announced--guess what! How much is my news worth? what will you
give for it? He announced, I tell you, that in two weeks--you
understand me--he will return to Vienna, where he has been
promised a post in the archives of the Minister of War. I did not
dare to ask what was the salary; after all, if he is satisfied, it
is not for us to be harder to please than he. When I affirm that
Count Larinski is a good, worthy man!--In two weeks! you
understand me perfectly.
"My dear friend, I am enchanted to know that the water of Saint
Moritz and the air of the Engadine have entirely re-established
your health; but do not be imprudent. Half-cures are fatal. Be
careful not to leave Churwalden too soon, for the descent into the
heavy atmosphere of the plains. Your physician, whom I have just
seen, declares that, if you hasten your return he will not answer
for the consequences. Antoinette, I am sure, will join her
entreaties to ours. Do not let us see you before the end of three
weeks! Follow my orders, my dear professor, and all will go well.
Camille is about to leave; he has become insupportable. He had the
audacity to assert to me that I was a good woman, but very
credulous, which in my estimation is not very polite. He no longer
acts as a nephew, and respect is dead."
Ten days later M. Moriaz received at Churwalden a fourth and last
letter:
"September 6th.
"Decidedly my dear friend, Count Larinski is a delightful man, and
I never will pardon myself for having judged ill of him. The day
before yesterday I did not know the extent of his merit and of his
virtues. His beautiful soul is like a country where one passes
from one pleasing discovery to another, and at each step a new
scene is revealed. Between ourselves, Antoinette is a dreamer:
where has she got the idea that this man is in love with her?
These Counts Larinski have artists' enthusiasm, tender and
sensitive hearts, and poetic imaginations; they love everything,
and they love nothing; they admire a pretty woman as they admire a
beautiful flower, a humming-bird, a picture of Titian's. Did I
tell you that the other day, as I was showing him through my park,
he almost fainted before my purple beech--which assuredly is a
marvel? He was in ecstasy; I truly believe there were tears in his
eyes. I might have supposed he was in love with my beech; yet he
has not asked my permission to marry it.
"Moreover, if he were up to his eyes in love with your daughter,
have no fear; he will not marry her, and this is the reason-- Wait
a little, I must go further back.
"Abbe Miollens came to see me yesterday afternoon; he was
distressed that M. Larinski had not approved of his proposition.
" 'The evil is not so great,' I said; 'let him go back to Vienna,
where all his acquaintances are; he will be happier there.'
" 'The evil that I see in it,' he replied, 'is that he will be lost
to us forever. Vienna is so far away! Professor in London, only
ten hours' journey from Paris, he could cross the Channel
sometimes, and we could have our music together.'
"You can understand that this reasoning did not touch me in the
least; whatever it cost me I will bear it, and resign myself to
lose M. Larinski forever; but the abbe is obstinate.
" 'I fear,' he said, 'that the Austrians pay their archivists
badly; the English manage matters better, and Lord C--- gave me
/carte blanche/.'
" 'Oh! but that,' rejoined I, 'is a delicate point to touch. As
soon as you approach the bread-and-butter question, our man
assumes a rigid, formal manner, as if an attack had been made on
his dignity.'
" 'I truly believe,' he replied, 'that there is a fundamental basis
of incomparable nobility of sentiment in his character; he is not
proud, he is pride itself.'
"The abbe is passionately fond of Horace; he assets that it is to
this great poet that he owes that profound knowledge of men for
which he is distinguished. He quoted a Latin verse that he was
kind enough to translate for me, and that signified something
equivalent to the statement that certain horses rear and kick when
you touch the sensitive spot. 'That is like the Poles,' he said.
"Meanwhile, M. Larinski entered, and I retained the two gentlemen
to dinner. In the evening they again gave me a concert. Why was
Antoinette not there? I fancied I was at the Conservatoire. Then
we conversed, and the abbe, who never can let go his idea, said,
without any reserve, to the count:
" 'My dear count, have you reflected? If you go to London, we could
hope to see you often; and, besides, the salary--well, as this
terrible word has been spoken, listen to me; I will do all in my
power to obtain conditions for you in every way worthy of your
merit, your learning, your character, your position.'
"He was not permitted to finish the list; the count reared like the
horse in Horace, exclaiming, 'O Mozart! what a horrid subject of
conversation!' Then he added, gravely: 'M. l'Abbe, you are a
thousand times too good, but the place offered to me in Vienna
seems to me better adapted to my kind of ability; I would make, I
fear, a detestable professor, and the salary, were it double,
would in my opinion have but little weight.'
"The abbe still insisted. 'In our century,' said he, 'less than any
other, can one live on air.'
" 'I have lived on it sometimes,' replied the count, gaily, 'and I
did not find it bad. My health is proof against accidents. Ah!
where money is concerned, you have no idea how far my indifference
goes. It is not a virtue with me, it is an infirmity; it is
because of my nationality, because I am my father's son. I feel
myself incapable of thinking of the future, of practising
thoroughly French habits of economy. If my purse is full, I soon
empty it; after which I condemn myself to privations--no, that
does not express it--I enjoy them. According to me, there is no
true happiness into which a little suffering does not enter.
Besides, I have a taste for contrasts. At times I believe myself a
millionaire, I have the pretensions of a nabob; I give full scope
to my fancies; the next day, my bed is hard and I live on bread-
and-water, and am perfectly happy. In short, I am a fool once in
the year, and a philosopher the rest of the time.'
" 'The trouble is,' returned the abbe, 'that one day of folly will
sometimes suffice to compromise forever the future of a
philosopher.'
" 'Oh, reassure yourself,' replied he; 'my extravagances never are
very dangerous. There was method in Hamlet's madness, and there is
always a little reason in mine.'
"While making this declaration of principles, he had seated himself
at the piano, and idly began running his fingers over the keys.
Suddenly he began to sing a German song, which I got Abbe Miollens
to translate for me, and which is not long. The hero of the song
is an amorous pine, standing on the summit of a barren mountain of
the north. He is alone; he is weary; the snow and ice wrap him in
a white mantle, and he spends his dreary hours of leisure in
dreaming of a palm, which in days of yore he met, it seems, in his
travels.
"M. Larinski sang this little melody with so much pathos that the
good abbe was touched, and I became anxious. Anxiety, once felt,
is apt to be constantly returning. I asked myself if he had met
his palm in the Engadine, and added aloud, rather dryly: 'Is the
day of your departure definitely fixed? will you not do us the
favour of granting us a reprieve?'
"He executed the most pearly chromatic scale, and replied: 'Alas!
madame, I am only deferring my departure on account of a letter
that cannot be much longer delayed; in less than a week, I shall
have the distress of bidding you farewell.'
" 'You shall not leave,' said Abbe Miollens, 'without letting us
hear once again the poem of the pine. You sang it with so much
soul that it seemed to me you must be relating an episode of your
own history. My dear count, did you ever chance to dream of a
palm?'
"He answered: 'I have no longer the right to dream; I am no longer
free.'
"The abbe started and cried out, in his simple-hearted way, 'Ah!
what, are you married?'
" 'I thought I had told you so,' replied he with a melancholy
smile, and he hastened to speak of a ballet that he had seen the
evening before at the opera, and with which he was only half
pleased.
"You can readily believe that when he pronounced the words, 'I
thought I had told you so,' I was on the point of falling on his
neck; I was so happy, that I was afraid he would read in my eyes
my joy, astonishment, and profound gratitude. I think that he is
very keen, and that he has conjectured for some time the mistrust
with which he inspired me. If he wanted to mock me a little, I
will pardon him; a good man unjustly suspected has a perfect right
to revenge himself by a little irony. I ordered the horses to be
put to my carriage to take him over to the railroad, and the abbe
and I accompanied him as far as the station. There cannot be too
much regard shown to honest people who have been abused by
fortune.
"Well! what do you say, my dear friend? Was I wrong in claiming
that M. Larinski is a delightful man? He will leave before the end
of a week, and he is married, unhappily married, I fear, for his
smile was melancholy. You see he may have married out of gratitude
some /grisette/, some little working-woman, who nursed him through
illness, one of those women who are not presentable; that would be
thoroughly in character. Happily, in law there are no good or bad
marriages; this one I hold to be unimpeachable.
"The reaction was violent: I am so rejoiced that I feel tempted to
illuminate Cormeilles and Maisons Lafitte. In what way will your
undeceive our dreamer? In your place I would use some precautions.
Be prudent; go bridle in hand; and in the future, believe me,
climb no more among the rocks; you see what it may lead to.
"Once more, do not hasten your departure. We have had for some days
stifling heat; we literally suffocate. You need to spend a
fortnight longer amid the shade of the pine-trees, and four
thousand feet above the level of the sea.
"Adieu, my dear professor! I am interrupted in my writing by the
incredulous, the sceptical, the suspicious, the absurd, the
ridiculous Camille, who respectfully recommends himself to your
indulgent friendship."
CHAPTER VI
In reading the fourth letter of Mme. de Lorcy, M. Moriaz experienced a
feeling of satisfaction and deliverance, over which he was not master.
His daughter had gone to pay a visit in the neighbourhood, and he was
alone with Mlle. Moiseney, who said to him, "You have received good
news, monsieur?"
"It is excellent," he replied; then, promptly correcting himself, he
added: "Excellent, or to be regretted, or vexatious; I leave that to
our powers of discernment."
When he had finished reading the letter, and replaced it in the
envelope, he remained thoughtful for some moments; he was wondering
how he should proceed to announce the excellent news. For three weeks
his daughter had been a mystery to him. She never once had pronounced
the name of Count Larinski. Churwalden pleased her as much as Saint
Moritz; apparently, she was gay, tranquil, perfectly happy. Had her
delusion passed away? Had she changed her mind? M. Moriaz did not
know; but he surmised that still waters should be mistrusted, and that
a young girl's imagination is like an abyss. One thoroughly good
warning is worth two indifferent ones; henceforth, he feared
everything. "If I speak to her," thought he, "I shall not be able to
dissimulate my joy, and perhaps she will go into hysterics." He had a
horror of hysterics; he resolved to have recourse to Mlle. Moiseney,
and he said to her, abruptly:
"I suppose, mademoiselle, that you are acquainted with all that has
passed, and that Antoinette has given you her confidence?"
She opened her eyes wide, and was on the point of answering that she
knew nothing; but she restrained herself, and setting her little
pointed head erect on her thin shoulders, she said, proudly, "Can you
imagine that Antoinette would keep any secrets from me?"
"Heaven forbid!" replied he. "And do you approve, do you encourage her
sentiments for M. Larinski?"
Mlle. Moiseney started; she had been far from suspecting that Count
Larinski had specially impressed Mlle. Moriaz, and, as on certain
occasions her mind worked rapidly, she understood immediately all the
consequences of this prodigious event. There was a cloud before her
eyes, and in this cloud she beheld all manner of things, both pleasing
and displeasing to her; her mouth open, she strove to clear her ideas.
She said to herself: "It is an imprudent act; not only that, it cannot
be;" but she also said: "Mlle. Antoinette can no more make a mistake
than the Queen of England can; because she wishes it, she is right in
wishing it." Mlle. Moiseney ended by regaining her self-possession;
her lips formed the most pleasant smile, as she exclaimed:
"He has no fortune, but he has a beautiful name. Mme. la Comtesse
Larinski! it sounds well to the ear."
"Like music; I grant, it is perfect," rejoined M. Moriaz.
"Unfortunately, music is not everything in the affairs of this world."
She was not listening to him. Full of her own idea, without taking
time to breathe: "You jest, monsieur," she continued, with
extraordinary volubility. "Believe me or not, I have foreseen this
marriage for some time. I have presentiments that never deceive me. I
was sure that it would be thus. What a handsome couple! Fancy them
driving in an open carriage through the park, or entering a
proscenium-box at the opera! They will make a sensation. And truly,
without boasting, I think I may call your attention to the fact that I
have been of some account in the affair. The first time I saw Count
Larinski, you know, at the /table d'hote/ in Bergun, I recognised at
once that he was beyond comparison--"
"By-the-way, he ate trout?" interrupted M. Moriaz; "it does honour to
your discernment."
"You had better ask Antoinette," replied she, "if that very evening I
did not praise the handsome stranger. She maintained that he stooped,
and that his head was badly poised; would you believe it?--his head
badly poised! Ah! I was sure it would end so. Do you wish to prove my
discernment? Shall I tell you where your letter comes from that
contains such excellent news? The count wrote it; he has at last
proposed. I guessed it at once. Ah! monsieur, I sympathize in your
joy. He is, indeed, the son-in-law that I have dreamed of for you. A
superior man, so open-hearted, so unaffected and frank!"
"Do you really think so?" asked M. Moriaz, fanning himself with the
letter.
"He related to us his whole life," rejoined she, in a pedantic tone.
"How many people could do as much?"
"A delightful narration. I only regret that he was silent concerning
one detail which was of a nature to interest us."
"An unpleasant detail?" she asked, raising her gooseberry-coloured
eyes to him.
"On the contrary, a circumstance that does him honour, and for which I
am obliged to him. Believe me, my dear demoiselle, I should be charmed
to receive a son-in-law from your hands, and to give my daughter to a
man whose genius and noble sentiments you divined from merely seeing
him eat. Unfortunately, I fear this marriage will not come about;
there is one little difficulty."
"What?"
"Count Larinski forgot to apprise us that he was already married."
Mlle. Moiseney sent forth a doleful cry. M. Moriaz handed her Mme. de
Lorcy's letter; after reading it, she remained in a state of deep
dejection; a pitiless finger had burst the iris bubble that she had
just blown, and that she saw resplendent at the end of her pipe.
"Do not give way to your despair," said M. Moriaz; "take courage,
follow the example I set you, imitate my resignation. But tell me, how
do you think Antoinette will take the matter?"
"It will be a terrible blow to her," replied Mlle. Moiseney; "she
loves him so much!"
"How do you know, since she has not judged it best to tell you?"
"I know from circumstances. Poor dear Antoinette! The greatest
consideration must be used in announcing to her this intelligence; and
I alone, I believe--"
"I agree with you," M. Moriaz hastened to interpose; "you alone are
capable of operating on our patient without causing her suffering. You
are so skilful! your hand is so light! Make the best of the situation,
mademoiselle--I leave it to you."
With these words he took up his hat and cane, and hastened to get
away, rather anxious about what had passed, yet feeling too happy, too
much rejoiced, to be a good consoler.
It was not long before Mlle. Moriaz returned from her walk. She came
humming a ballad; she was joyous, her complexion brilliant, her eyes
sparkling, and she carried an armful of heather and ferns. Mlle.
Moiseney went to meet her, her face mournful, her head bent down, her
glance tearful.
"Why! what is the matter, my dear Joan?" she said; "you look like a
funeral."
"Alas!" sighed Mlle. Moiseney, "I have sad news to communicate."
"What! have they written to you from Cormeilles that your parrot is
dead?"
"Ah, my dear child, be reasonable, be strong; summon up all your
courage."
"For the love of God, what is the matter?"
"Ah! would that I could spare you this trouble! Your father has just
received a letter from Mme. de Lorcy."
Antoinette grew more attentive, her breath came quickly. "And what was
there in this letter that is so terrible, so heart-rending?" she
asked, forcing a smile.
"Fortunately, I am here," replied Mlle. Moiseney. "You know that your
joys and your sorrows are mine. All the consolation that I can lavish
upon you, the tenderest sympathy--"
"My dear Joan, in the name of Heaven, explain first, and then
console!"
"You told me nothing, my child--I have a right to complain; but I have
divined all. I can read your heart. I am sure that you love him."
"Of whom do you speak?" replied Antoinette, whose colour rose in her
cheeks.
"Of a most charming man, who, either through inconceivable stupidity,
or through most criminal calculation, neglected to tell us that he was
married."
And with these words, Mlle. Moiseney extended both arms, that she
might receive into them Mlle. Moriaz, whom she believed to be already
swooning.
Mlle. Moriaz did not swoon. She flushed crimson, then grew very pale;
but she remained standing, her head proudly erect, and she said, in a
tone of well-feigned indifference: "Oh! M. Larinski is married? My
very sincere compliments to the Countess Larinski."
After which she busied herself arranging in a vase the heather and
ferns she had brought back with her. Mlle. Moiseney stood lost in
astonishment at her calm; she gazed in a stupor at her, and suddenly
exclaimed: "Thank God! you do not love him! Your father has mistaken,
he often mistakes; he sometimes gets the strangest ideas into his
mind; he was persuaded that this would be a death-blow to you; he does
not know you at all. Ah! unquestionably, M. Larinski is far from being
disagreeable; I do not dispute his having some merit; but I always
thought that there was something suspicious about him; his manners
were a little equivocal; I suspected him of hiding something from us.
As it appears, he has made a /mesalliance/ that he did not care to
acknowledge. It is deplorable that a man of such excellent address
should have low tastes and doubtful morality. His duty was to tell us
all; he was neither loyal nor delicate."
"You dream, my dear," replied Antoinette. "What law, human or divine,
obliged M. Larinski to tell us everything? Did you expect him to
render an account of his deeds and misdeeds to us as to a tribunal of
penance?"
In speaking thus, she took off her hat and mantilla, seated herself in
the embrasure of a window, and opened a book which she began to read
with great attention.
"God be praised! she does not love him," thought Mlle. Moiseney, who
was not aware that Mlle. Moriaz was turning two or three pages at a
time with perceiving it.
Deeply absorbed as she was, she still recognised her father's step as
he came upstairs to his room. She hurried out to meet him. He noticed
with pleasure that her face was not wan, nor were her eyes red. He was
less satisfied when she said, in a calm, clear voice:
"Please show me the letter that you have received from Mme. de Lorcy."
"What is the use?" he rejoined. "I know it by heart. I am ready to
recite it to you."
"Is it a letter that cannot be shown?"
"No, indeed; but as I tell you that I am ready to give you an account
of it--"
"I would prefer to read it with my own eyes."
"After all, you have a right. There! take it. But I beg of you do not
be offended by unfortunate expressions."
"Mme. de Lorcy always knows how to choose the proper word to express
her thought," she responded.
When she had run her eye rapidly over Mme. de Lorcy's eight closely
written pages, she looked at her father and smiled.
"You must own that you found a very useful and a very zealous ally in
Mme. de Lorcy; do her this justice, she has worked hard, and you owe
her many thanks for having busied herself so actively in ridding you
of 'this worthy man, this good man, this delightful man'; those are
her own words, if you remember."
M. Moriaz exclaimed: "I hope you do not imagine that it was a matter
arranged between us. Do you really suspect me of having some dark plot
with Mme. de Lorcy! Do you believe me capable of being implicated in
an act of perfidy?"
"God forbid! I only accuse you of being too joyous, and of not knowing
how to conceal it."
"Is that a crime?"
"Perhaps it is an indiscretion."
"I swear to you, my dear child, that I only consider your happiness,
and Mme. de Lorcy herself-- Since M. Langis no longer thinks of you,
what reason could she have--"
"I do not know," interrupted Antoinette; "but her prejudice would take
the place of reason."
"So you will not believe that Count Larinski is married?"
"I believe it, without being certain, and I wish to be assured of it.
Have I not acted in good faith through all this matter? was I not
ready to comply with your conditions? I consented to refer to the
judgment of Mme. de Lorcy. She has deigned to be gracious to the
accused. She has admitted that M. Larinski is a perfectly honourable
and even a delightful man; but she has discovered, at intervals of
several days, first, that he does not love me, and then, that he has
deceived me by letting me believe that he was still free. I wish to
satisfy my own mind, and convince myself that I am not being played
with."
"And you have concluded----"
"I have concluded that, with your permission, we shall leave to-morrow
morning for Cormeilles."
This conclusion was by no means agreeable to M. Moriaz, whose face
grew sensibly longer.
"Of what are you afraid? You know that I have character, and you ought
to know, no matter what Mme. de Lorcy says, that I am not wanting in
good sense. When it is proved to me that I have deceived myself, I
will make the sign of the cross over my romance; it will be dead and
buried, and I promise you not to wear mourning for it."
"So be it," said he; "I believe in your good sense, I have faith in
your reason: we shall leave to-morrow for Cormeilles."
Four days later, Mme. de Lorcy was walking in an alley in her park.
She was joined there by M. Langis, to whom she said, in a good-
humoured tone: "Always grave and melancholy, my dear Camille! When
will you cease your drooping airs? I cannot understand you. I do my
best to be agreeable to you, to settle matters satisfactorily. Nothing
seems to cheer you. You make me think of the hare in La Fontaine:
" 'Cet animal est triste, et la Crainte le ronge.' "
"Fear and hate, madame," replied he. "I hate this man; he is
insupportable to me. I will give up coming to Maisons if I always must
meet him here. Has he paid you his adieux for the last time?"
"Not yet; a little patience--we shall not count the minutes. Besides,
what harm can this man do you? The lion has lost his claws--what do I
say?--he has carried his good-nature to the point of muzzling himself.
It is not generous to pursue with hate a disarmed enemy."
"Very well, madame, if he is not gone in three days, I return to my
first idea; it was the best."
"You will cut his throat?"
"With all my heart."
"For the love of art?"
"I am not a very bloodthirsty individual, but I would take a singular
delight in slashing at the skin of this gloomy personage."
Mme. de Lorcy shrugged her shoulders. "What makes you think him
gloomy, my dear? You are perfectly reasonable. You ought to adore M.
Larinski; you are under the greatest obligations to him. He has been
the first to succeed in touching the heart of our dear, hitherto
insensible girl; he has broken the charm. She was the Sleeping Beauty;
he has awakened her, and, through the favour of Heaven, he cannot
marry her. I can see her in Churwalden, a prey to the gloomiest ennui,
weeping over her illusions, furious at having been deceived. Do you
not divine all the advantage that can be derived from a woman's
anger?"
"You know that I love her, and yet I do not wish to owe anything to
her spite."
"You are a child: be guided. The moment is come for you to propose. In
a few days you will start for Churwalden, and you will say to this
angry woman, 'I have lied--I love you.' In short, you will talk to her
of your amorous flame; and you may, freely, under these circumstances,
exhaust all your treasure-store of hyperbole. She will listen to you,
I can promise you, and she will say to herself, 'I seek vengeance--
here it is.' "
"I would like to believe you, madame," he replied, "but are you very
certain that Mlle. Moriaz is still at Churwalden?"
And, pointing with his finger, he showed her at the end of the avenue
a figure coming towards them clad in a pretty nut-brown dress with a
long train sweeping the gravel.
"Truly, I believe that it is she," cried Mme. de Lorcy. "M. Moriaz is
the most unskilful person; but, after all, not much harm is done."
Mlle. Moriaz had arrived the evening previous at Cormeilles. After
resting somewhat from the fatigues of the journey, she had nothing
more urgent to do than to order the horses put to her coupe and to
come and pay her respects to her godmother, who could not fail to be
touched by this attention.
Mme. de Lorcy ran to Antoinette and embraced her several times,
saying: "You are here at last! How charmed I am to see you again! You
made us wait long enough; I began to fear that you had taken root in
the Grisons. Is it indeed an enchanted land? I rather believe that
your father is a cruel egotist, that he shamefully sacrificed you to
his own convenience in prolonging his cure; but here you are--I will
pardon him. Your poor, your /proteges/, are clamorous for you. Who do
you think asked after you, the other day? Mlle. Galet, whom, according
to your orders, I supplied with her quarter's allowance. How you spoil
her! I found on her table a bouquet fit for a duchess; she insisted
that you had sent it to her from where you were, and I had all the
trouble in the world to make her understand that double camellias are
not gathered among the glaciers of Roseg. Strew with flowers, if you
will, Mlle. Galet's existence and garret; but do not fling at her head
a bushel of double camellias, streaked with white; it is madness. I
seriously propose to have you put under restraint. Never mind, I am
very happy to see you again. You are looking very well.--Don't you
think, Camille, that she appears extremely well?"
Mlle. Moriaz coldly received Mme. de Lorcy's embraces; but she smiled
graciously on M. Langis, and pressed his hand affectionately. Mme. de
Lorcy led them into her /salon/, where they talked on indifferent
subjects. Antoinette was waiting for M. Langis's departure to broach
the subject that she had at heart. At the end of twenty minutes, he
rose, but immediately reseated himself. A door had just opened, giving
admittance to Count Abel Larinski.
At the unexpected apparition of Samuel Brohl, the two women changed
colour; the one flushed from the effort that she made to dissimulate
her vexation, the other turned pale from emotion. Samuel Brohl crossed
the /salon/ with deliberate step, without appearing to recognise the
person who was with Mme. de Lorcy. Suddenly he trembled, as if he had
been touched by a torpedo, and, profoundly agitated, almost lost
countenance. Was he as much astonished as he seemed? For some time the
Sannois Hill had become his favourite promenade, and he never went
there without going as far as a certain spot whence he could see the
front of a certain house, the window-shutters of which had remained
during two months as though hermetically sealed. It might be that the
evening before he had found them open. Induction is a scientific
process with which Samuel Brohls are familiar.
He had abundant will and self-control. He was not long in recovering
himself; he raised his head like one who feels himself strong enough
to defy all dangers. After greeting Mme. de Lorcy, he drew near
Antoinette, and asked how she was, in a grave, almost ceremonious
tone.
"Your visit distresses me, my dear count," said Mme. de Lorcy to him;
"I fear it is the last. Have you come to bid us farewell?"
"Alas! yes, madame," he replied. "The letter for which I have been
waiting has not yet arrived; but this delay will not alter my plans:
in three days I shall leave Paris."
"Without a desire to return, without regret?" she asked.
"I shall only regret Maisons, and the kind reception I have received
there. Paris is too large; little people like myself feel their
smallness more here than elsewhere; it does not require an excess of
pride for one to dislike being reduced to the state of an atom.
Residing in Vienna suits me better; I breathe freer there; it is a
city better adapted to my size and taste. Birds do wrong to change
their nests."
Thereupon, he began to describe and warmly extol the Prater and its
fine walks, Schonbrunn, its botanical gardens and the Gloriette, the
church of St. Stephen's, and the limpid waters of the Danube;
sometimes addressing himself to Antoinette, who listened without a
word, and sometimes to Mme. de Lorcy, whose eyes were turned at
intervals towards M. Langis, seeming to say to him: "Was I not right?
Confess that your apprehensions lacked common-sense. Do you hear him?
he has only half an hour to spend with her, and he describes the
Prater. Are you still thinking of cutting his throat? Please say one
polite and civil word to him. It is not he, it is you who are gloomy.
Throw off your sinister air. How long will this taciturn reverie last
in which you are sunk? You make yourself a laughing-stock--you act
like a fool. You resemble a sphinx of the desert engaged in meditating
upon a serpent, and who mistakes an innocent adder for a viper." M.
Langis understood what she wished to say to him, but he did not throw
off his sinister air.
After praising Vienna and its environs, Samuel Brohl eulogized the
easy, careless character of the Viennese. He told, in a sprightly way,
several anecdotes. His gaiety was rather feverish--somewhat forced
studied, and abrupt; but, nevertheless, it was gaiety. Mme. de Lorcy
responded to him, Mlle. Moriaz continued silent; she crumpled between
her fingers the guipure lace of her Marie-Antoinette fichu, and, with
fixed eye, she seemed to be counting the stitches. Samuel Brohl
interrupted himself in the midst of a sentence, and rose suddenly. He
turned towards Antoinette; in a hollow voice he begged her to tell M.
Moriaz how much he regretted that his early departure would deprive
him of the honour and pleasure of visiting him at Cormeilles; then he
bowed to Mme. de Lorcy, thanked her for the happy moments that he had
spent with her, and charged her to commend him to the kind remembrance
of Abbe Miollens.
"We shall meet again, my dear count," she said to him, in a clear
voice, emphasizing her words; "and I hope that, before long, we shall
make the acquaintance of the Countess Larinski."
He looked at her in astonishment, and murmured, "I lost my mother ten
years ago."
Immediately, without giving Mme. de Lorcy time to explain herself, he
directed his steps hastily towards the door, followed by three
glances, all three of which spoke, although they did not all say the
same thing. The room was large; during the thirty seconds that it took
him to cross it, the angel of silence hovered in the air.
He was about passing through the door, when, as fatality ordained,
there occurred to him an unfortunate and disastrous thought. He could
not resist the desire to see Mlle. Moriaz once more, to impress
forever on his memory her adored image. He turned, and their eyes met.
He paid dearly for this weakness of the will. Apparently the violent
restraint that he had exercised over himself for an hour had exhausted
his strength. It seemed to him that his heart ceased to beat; he felt
his legs stiffen, and refuse to serve him; his teeth clinched, his
pupils dilated, consciousness forsook him. Suddenly, heavily as a mass
of lead, he fell prone upon the floor, where he remained in a
senseless condition.
Mlle. Moriaz could not suppress a cry, and seemed for a moment on the
point of fainting herself. Mme. de Lorcy drew her arm around her
waist, and hurried her into the next room, throwing to M. Langis a
bottle of salts as she did so, and saying, "Take care of Count
Larinski."
The first thing that M. Langis did was to set the bottle on the table,
after which he went close up to Samuel Brohl, who, fainting and
inanimate, bore almost the appearance of death. He examined him an
instant, bent over him, then, folding his arms and shrugging his
shoulders, he said to him, "Monsieur, Mlle. Moriaz is no longer here."
Samuel Brohl did not stir. "You did not hear me," continued Camille.
"You are superb, M. le Comte; you are very handsome; your attitude is
irreproachable, and you might well be taken for a dead person. You
fell admirably; I swear I never saw at the theatre a more successful
fainting-fit; but spare yourself further trouble for the performance.
I repeat, Mlle. Moriaz is no longer here."
Samuel Brohl remained inert and rigid.
"Perhaps you want to try the strength of my wrists," continued
Camille. "Very well, I will give you that satisfaction."
And, with these words, he seized him round his waist, summoned all his
strength in order to lift him, and deposited him at full length on the
sofa.
He examined him again, and said: "Will this tragi-comedy last much
longer? Shall I not find a secret to resuscitate you? Listen to me,
monsieur. I love with all my soul the woman that you pretend to love.
Does that not suffice? Monsieur, you are a Polish adventurer, and I
have as much admiration for your social talents as I have little
esteem for yourself. Does that not suffice yet? I would not, however,
lift my hand to you. I entreat you to consider the affront received."
It seemed as if the dead man trembled slightly, and Camille exclaimed:
"Thank God! this time you have given sign of life, and the insult
found the way to your heart. I would be charmed to restore you to your
senses. I await your commands. The day, the place, and the weapons, I
leave to your choice. And, stay! You can count on my absolute
discretion. No one, I give you my word, shall learn from me that your
fainting-fit had ears, and resented insults. Here is my address,
monsieur."
And, drawing from his pocket a visiting-card, he tried to slip it into
the cold, listless, pendent hand, which let it fall to the ground.
"What obstinacy!" he said. "As you will, M. le Comte; I am at the end
of my eloquence."
He turned his back, seated himself in a chair, and taking a paper, he
unfolded it. Meanwhile the door opened, and Mme. de Lorcy appeared.
"What are you doing here, Camille?" she exclaimed.
"You see, madame," he answered, "I am waiting until this great
comedian has finished playing his piece."
He was not aware that Mlle. Moriaz also had just entered the /salon/.
She cast him an angry, indignant, threatening glance, in which he read
his condemnation. He tried to find some word of excuse or explanation
to disarm her anger, but his voice failed him. He bowed low, took his
hat, and went away.
Mme. de Lorcy, very much agitated, opened a window; then she threw
water into Samuel Brohl's face, rubbed his temples with a vivacity
that was not altogether exempt from roughness, and made him smell
English salts.
"Ah, my dear! pray go away," she said to Antoinette; "this is no place
for you."
Antoinette did not go away; her face contracted, her lips trembling,
she seated herself aside at some distance from the sofa.
Mme. de Lorcy's energetic exertions at last produced their effect.
Samuel Brohl was not dead; a quiver ran through his frame, his limbs
relaxed, and at the end of a few instants he reopened his eyes, then
his mouth; he sat up, and stammered: "Where am I? What has happened?
Ah, my God! it was but a moment ago that she was here!"
Mme. de Lorcy laid her hand on his mouth, and, bending over his ears,
she said, in a severe, imperious tone, "She is here still!"
She did not succeed in making herself understood. One only recovers by
degrees from such a fainting-fit. Samuel Brohl was again overcome by
weakness; his eyes closed once more, and he let his head sink between
his hands. After a silence of a few moments he said, in a choked
voice: "Ah! pardon me, madame. I am ashamed of myself. My courage
failed me; my strength betrayed me. I love her madly, and I had sworn
never to see her again. It was in order to fly from her that I was
going away."
He raised his head; he saw Antoinette; he looked wildly at her, as
though he did not recognise her.
He recognised her at last, made a gesture of alarm, rose
precipitately, and fled.
Mlle. Moriaz drew near Mme. de Lorcy, and said to her, "Well, what do
you think of it?"
"I think, my dear," she replied, "that Mme. de Lorcy is a fool, and
that Count Larinski is a powerful man."
Antoinette looked at her with a bitter smile, and touched her arm
lightly. "Admit, madame," she said, "that if he had a hundred thousand
livres' income, you would not think of doubting his sincerity."
Mme. de Lorcy did not reply; she could not say "No," and she was
enraged to feel that she was both right and wrong. It is an accident
that happens sometimes to women of the world.
CHAPTER VII
On her entering her coupe to return to Cormeilles, Mlle. Moriaz was
the prey of an agitation that did not calm down during the entire
drive. Her whole soul was stirred by a tender, passionate sentiment
for the man who had swooned away in taking farewell of her; she was
filled with anger against the foolish prejudices and the petty finesse
of the people of the world; filled with joy at having baffled a
monstrous conspiracy against her happiness; filled with pride because
she had seen clearly, because she had not mistaken in her choice, and
because the man whom she loved was worthy of being loved. During
several days she had suffered cruelly from anxiety, from actual agony
of mind, and over and over again she had said to herself, "Perhaps
they are right." A woman's heart believes itself to be at the mercy of
error, and it is torture to it to be obliged to doubt itself and its
own clairvoyance. When it is unmistakably demonstrated to it that its
god is only an idol of wood or of stone, that what was once adored
must henceforth be despised, it feels ready to die, and imagines that
some spring must give way in the vast machine of the universe, that
the sky must fall, the earth crumble away; and yet a woman's error of
judgment is not a matter of such very grave import. The sun continues
to shine, the earth to revolve upon its axis, as though it had not
occurred. The machine of the universe would be subject to quite too
many accidents should it become unsettled every time a woman made a
mistake.
"It was I who was right; they were incapable of comprehending him,"
though Mlle. Moriaz, as she crossed the Seine, and she contemplated
with a delighted eye the lovely blue sky, the tranquil waters, the
verdant banks of the river, with their long range of poplar-trees. It
seemed to her that all was going well, that order reigned everywhere,
that the Great Mechanician was at his post, that the world was in good
hands, and that travellers therein had no cause to fear untoward
mischance.
When she arrived at Cormeilles, M. Moriaz was shut up in his
laboratory, which he had been overjoyed to find just as he had left
it. A velvet skull-cap perched on one side of his head, his sleeves
turned up, a brown holland apron tied round his neck and his waist, a
feather brush in his hand, he had proceeded at once to examine his
precious stock in detail--his furnaces, his long-necked, big-bellied
matrasses, the curved necks and the tubulures of his retorts, his
cucurbits, and his alembics. Balloons, tubes, pipettes, pneumatic
vats, receivers, cupels, lamps, bell-glasses, blow-pipes, and mortars,
he passed in review to assure himself that during his absence nothing
had been damaged. He carefully dusted his jars, examined the labels,
made sure that none of his treasures were cracked, that his gauges
were not out of order. He was as happy as a king who has his troops
pass in review before him, and feels convinced that they bear
themselves well; that they will stand fire and do honour to their
master.
Agreeable as was the occupation to which for two hours he had devoted
himself, M. Moriaz had not forgotten the existence of his daughter and
of M. Larinski. He knew that Antoinette had repaired to Maisons
Lafitte to have an explanation with Mme. de Lorcy, and this thought
cast a shadow over his felicity. He hoped, however, that this
interview might turn out according to his wishes; that the Pole star,
which had caused him so much disquietude, might disappear forever from
his horizon.
Some one knocked at the door of his laboratory. "Come in!" he cried,
and turning he saw Antoinette standing upon the threshold. He gazed at
her fixedly. Her eye was so animated, her countenance so beaming, so
luminous, that involuntarily he dropped his arms and let fall, as he
did so, a little vial he held in his hands.
"Naughty girl, to cause such havoc in her father's laboratory!" she
cried, gaily.
"The harm done is not very great," he replied; and he began diligently
brushing up the fragments of the vial. It was his way of gaining time,
but he did it so awkwardly that she snatched the brush from his hands:
"This is the way to sweep," said she.
He watched her, saying to himself: "This is the reverse of the scene
at Churwalden. It is now I who wear a long face, and she cannot
dissemble her joy. Just requital of things here below."
So soon as she had finished her brushing she looked around and
remarked: "Well, here you are once more in your paradise--this
enchanted spot, where you taste such ineffable delights."
"Oh, yes, I am happy here--happy enough that is," he replied, with
modesty.
"Fastidious creature! It is altogether charming in your laboratory."
"Yes, it is suitable. Nevertheless, I often reflect that there is
something wanting. Do you know what my dream is? I should like to have
over in yonder corner a transparent /chapelle/. You, perhaps, are
unacquainted with a /chapelle/. It is a framework or basket-funnel
above a chimney, for facilitating the release of volatiles and
pernicious vapours, and having one side of glass. It enables the
chemist to watch the process taking place within. German chemists have
nearly always transparent /chapelles/ in their laboratories."
"How can any one accuse you of lack of imagination?" she exclaimed.
"You are a very romantic man, and your romance is a transparent
/chapelle/. Now I know why you are so indulgent to the romances of
others."
Then carelessly drawing the brush in her hand over an arm-chair, she
seated herself in it, placed another seat facing her, and said: "Come,
sit down here near me on this stool; I will put a cushion on it to
make you more comfortable. Come, I must talk with you."
He drew near, seated himself, and put his ear towards her. "Must I
take off my apron?" he asked.
"Why so?"
"I foresee that our conversation will revolve about matters pertaining
to the height of romance. I wish to make a suitable appearance."
"Nonsense! your apron is very becoming. All that I desire and
stipulate is, that you will accord me most religious attention."
She then proceeded to recount to him, point by point, all that had
occurred at Mme. de Lorcy's. She began her recital in a tranquil tone;
she grew animated; she warmed up by degrees; her eyes sparkled. He
listened to her with deep chagrin; but he gazed on her with pride as
he did so, thinking, "/Mon Dieu/, how beautiful she is, and what a
lucky rascal is this Pole!"
When she had ended, there was a moment's pause, during which she left
him to his reflections. As he maintained an ominous silence, she grew
impatient. "Speak," she exclaimed. "I wish to know your innermost
thoughts."
"I think you are adorable."
"Oh! please, do for once be serious."
"Seriously," he rejoined, "I am not certain that you are wrong, nor
has it been proved to me that you are right; there remain some
doubts."
She cried out eagerly: "According to this, the sole realities of this
world are things that can be seen, touched, felt--a retort and its
contents. Beyond this all is null and void, a lie, a cheat. Ah! your
wretched retorts and crucibles! If I followed out this thought, I
should be ready to break every one of them."
She cast about her as she spoke so ferocious and threatening a look,
that M. Moriaz trembled for his laboratory, "I beg of you," he
protested, "have mercy on my poor crucibles, my honest retorts, my
innocent jars! They have nothing to do with this affair. Is it their
fault that the stories you narrate to me so disturb my usual train of
thoughts that I find it wholly impossible to make adroit replies?"
"You do not, then, believe in the extraordinary?"
"The extraordinary! Every time I encounter it, I salute it," replied
he, drawing off his cap and bowing low; "but at the same time I demand
its papers."
"Ah! there we are. I really imagined that the investigation had been
made."
"It was not conclusive, since it failed to convince Mme. de Lorcy."
"Ah! who could convince Mme. de Lorcy? Do you forget how people of the
world are constituted, and how they detest all that astonishes, all
that exceeds their limits, all that they cannot weight with their
small balances, measure with their tiny compasses?"
"/Peste!/ you are severe on the world; I always fancied that you were
fond of it."
"I do not know whether I am fond of it or not; it is certain that I
scarcely should know how to live without it; but I surely may be
permitted to pass an opinion on it, and I often tell myself that if
Christ should reappear among us with his train of publicans and
fisherman--are you listening?--that if the meek and the lowly Jesus
should come to preach his Sermon on the Mount in the Boulevard des
Italiens--"
"To make a show of probability," he interrupted, "suppose you were to
place the scene at Montmartre. Frankly, I cannot see what possible
connection there can be between the Christ and your Count Larinski;
and, pray, do not let us enter into a theological discussion; you know
it is wholly out of my line. Religion seems to me an excellent thing,
a most useful thing, and I freely accept Christianity, minus the
romantic side, with which I have no time to occupy myself. You will at
least grant me that, if there are true miracles, there are also false
ones. How distinguish them?"
"It is the heart that must decide," said she.
"Oh! the infallibility of the heart!" exclaimed he. "There never was
council yet that voted that."
There was a pause, after which M. Moriaz resumed: "And so, my dear,
you are persuaded that M. Larinski is still free, and that Mme. de
Lorcy lied?"
"Not at all; if she had lied, she would not have betrayed herself so
naively just now. I accuse her of deceiving herself, or rather of
having wished to deceive herself. Do you know what you are going to
do--I mean this evening--after dinner? You are going to order up the
carriage, and you are going--"
"To Paris, Rue Mont-Thabor!" he exclaimed, bounding up in his seat.
"Very good, I will put on a dress-coat, and I will say to Count
Larinski: 'My dear monsieur, I come to demand your hand for my
daughter, who adores you. Certain malicious tongues assert that you
are no longer free; I do not believe them; besides, this would be a
mere bagatelle.' On the whole, I believe you would do better to put it
down in writing for me; left to myself I never will get through with
it; out of my professor's chair I have considerable difficulty in
finding words!"
"Dear me, how hasty you are! Who suggests such a thing? Abbe Miollens
is our friend; he is a worthy man, whose testimony would be reliable."
"Now this is something like! I see what you mean. At this rate you
will not need to prepare my harangue. Here we have an acceptable idea,
a possible interview. This evening, after my dinner, I shall go see
Abbe Miollens; but it is clearly understood, I presume, that if he
confirms the sentence--"
"I shall not ask for its repeal, and I promise you that I will be
courageous beyond anything that you can imagine; you shall not so much
as suspect that I even regret my chimera. But, as a fair exchange, you
on your side must make me a promise. If Abbe Miollens--"
"You know as well as I that you are of age."
"I know as well as you that I never will be content without your
consent. Here once more as in the Engadine, I say, 'Either he or no
one.' "
"Did I not warn you that when once a formula has been pronounced, one
is apt to keep on repeating it forever?"
"Either he or no one: that is my last word. Would you not rather that
it should be he? Are you willing to accept him?"
"I will submit."
"With a good grace?"
"With resignation."
"With cheerful resignation?"
"I shall certainly do my best to acquire it; or, rather, if he makes
you happy, I shall welcome him all the days of my life; in the
contrary case, I will repeat, morning and evening, like Mme. de Lorcy:
'You would not listen to me; you ought to have believed me.' "
"It is agreed; you are a good father, and now we are in perfect
harmony," she replied, impulsively seizing his two hands, and pressing
them in her own.
He watched her a moment between his half-closed eyes, and then he
cried, half resentfully:
"But, /mon Dieu/ why do you love this man?"
She replied, in a low voice: "Because I love him; this is my sole
reason; but I find it good."
"Certainly most decisive. But, come, let us go quickly," he replied,
rising. "I fear that my retorts and crucibles, if they listen to you
much longer, will fall into a syncope as prolonged as that of M.
Larinski. Was ever such a debate heard of in a chemical laboratory?"
As soon as dinner was over, M. Moriaz made ready to repair to Maisons,
where Abbe Miollens passed the summer in the vicinity of Mme. de
Lorcy. Mlle. Moiseney followed him to the carriage, and said:
"You have a remarkable daughter, monsieur! With what courage she has
assumed her role! With what resolution she has renounced an impossible
happiness! Did you observe her during dinner? How tranquil she was!
how attentive! Is she not astonishing?"
"As astonishing as you are sagacious," he replied.
"Ah! undoubtedly; I never thought that she loved him so much as you
imagine I did: but he pleased her; she admired him. Did she ever utter
a word of complaint, or a sigh, on learning the cruel truth? what
strength of mind! what equability of temperament! what nobility of
sentiment! You do not admire her enough, monsieur; you are not proud
enough of having such a daughter. As to me, I glory in having been of
some value in her education. I always made a point of developing her
judgment, and putting her on her guard against all erratic tendencies.
Yes, I can safely say that I took great pains to cultivate and fortify
her reason."
"I thank you with all my heart," rejoined M. Moriaz, leaning back in
one corner of the carriage; "you can most assuredly boast of having
accomplished a marvellous work; but I beg of you, mademoiselle, when
you have finished your discourse, will you kindly say to the coachman
that I am ready to start?"
During the drive, M. Moriaz gave himself up to the most melancholy
reflections; he even tormented himself with sundry reproaches. "We
have acted contrary to good sense," he thought. "Her imagination has
been taken by storm; in time it would have calmed down. We should have
left her to herself, to her natural defence--her own good judgment,
for she has a large stock of it. I fell on the unlucky idea of calling
Mme. de Lorcy to my aid, and she has spoiled everything by her boasted
/finesse/. As soon as Antoinette had reason to suspect that her choice
was condemned by us, and that we were plotting the enemy's
destruction, the sympathy, mingled with admiration, which she accorded
to M. Larinski, became transformed into love; the fire smouldering
beneath ashes leaped up into flames. We neglected to count on that
passion which is innate in women, and which phrenologists call
combativeness. With her there is now a cause to be gained, and, when
love unites its interests with cards or with war, it becomes
irresistible. Truly our campaign is greatly jeopardized, unless Heaven
or M. Larinski interfere."
Thus reasoned M. Moriaz, whom paternal misadventures and recent
experiences had rendered a better psychologist than he ever had been.
While busied with his reflections the carriage drove rapidly onward,
and thirty-five minutes sufficed to reach the little /maison de
campagne/ occupied by Abbe Miollens. He found him in his cabinet,
installed in a cushioned arm-chair embroidered by Mme. de Lorcy,
slowly sipping a cup of excellent tea brought him by the missionaries
from China. On his left was his violin-box, on his right his beloved
Horace, Orelli's edition, Zurich, 1844.
Conversation began. As soon as M. Moriaz had pronounced the name of
Count Larinski, the abbe assumed the charmed and contented countenance
of a dog lying in wait for its favourite game.
He exclaimed, "A most truly admirable man!"
"Mercy upon us!" thought M. Moriaz. "Here we have an exordium
strangely similar to that of Mlle. Moiseney. Do they think to condemn
me to a state of perpetual admiration of their prodigy? I fear there
must be some kinship of spirit between our friend the abbe and that
crack-brained woman; that he is cousin-german to her at least."
"How grateful I am to you, my dear monsieur," continued Abbe Miollens,
lying back in his chair, "for having given us the pleasure of the
acquaintance of this rare man! It is you who sent him to us; to you
belongs the merit of having discovered him, or invented him, if you
choose."
"Oh! I beg of you not to exaggerate," humbly rejoined M. Moriaz. "He
invented himself, I assure you."
"At all events it was you who patronized him, who made him known to
us; without you the world never would have suspected the existence of
this superb genius, this noble character, who was hidden from sight
like the violet in the grass."
"He is unquestionably her cousin-german," thought M. Moriaz.
"Only think," continued the abbe, "I have found M. Larinski all over
again in Horace! Yes, Horace has represented him, trait for trait, in
the person of Lollius. You know Marcus Lollius, to whom he addressed
Ode ix. of book iv., and who was consul in the year 733 after the
foundation of Rome. The resemblance is striking; pay attention!"
Depositing his cup on the table he took the book in his right hand,
and placing the forefinger of his left by turns on his lips or
complacently following with it the lines of especial beauty in the
text, he exclaimed: "Now what do you say to this? 'Thy soul is wise,'
wrote Horace to Lollius, 'and resists with the same constancy the
temptations of happiness as those of adversity--/est animus tibi et
secundis temporibus dubiisque rectus/.' Is not this Count Larinski?
Listen further: 'Lollius detested fraud and cupidity; he despised
money which seduces most men--/abstinens ducentis ad se cuncta
pecuniae/.' This trait is very striking; I find even, between
ourselves, that our dear count despises money entirely too much, he
turns from it in horror, its very name is odious to him; he is an
Epictetus, he is a Diogenes, he is an anchorite of ancient times who
would live happily in a Thebaid. He told us himself that it made
little difference to him whether he dined on a piece of bread and a
glass of water, or in luxury at the Café Anglais. But I have not
finished. 'Happy be those,' exclaimed Horace, 'who know how to suffer
uncomplainingly the hardships of poverty--/qui duram que callet
pauperiem pati/!' Of whom does he speak--of Lollius, or of our friend,
who not only endures his poverty but who loves it, cherishes it as a
lover adores his mistress? And the final trait, what to you think of
it? Lollius was always ready to die for his country--'/non ille pro
patria timidus perire/.' In good faith, is it not curious? Does it not
seem as though Horace had known Count Larinski at Rome or at Tibur?"
"I do not doubt it for an instant," replied M. Moriaz, taking the book
from the hands of Abbe Miollens and placing it respectfully on the
table. "Luckily, our friend Larinski, as you call him, fell upon the
excellent idea of resuscitating himself some thirty years ago, which
procured for us the great joy of meeting him at Saint Moritz; and
while we are on the subject-- My dear abbe, have you a free, impartial
mind? Can you listen to me? I have a question to propound, an
elucidation to demand. It is not only the friend to whom I address
myself, it is the confessor, the director of consciences, the man of
the whole universe in whose discretion I place most reliance."
"I am all ears," responded the abbe, crossing the shapely legs in
which he took no little pride.
M. Moriaz entered at once into the subject that troubled him. It was
some moments before Abbe Miollens divined whither he was tending. As
soon as he had grasped a ray of light, his face contracted, and
uncrossing his limbs, he cried: "Ah, what a misfortune! You will have
to renounce your delightful dream, my dear Monsieur, and, believe me,
no one can be more grieved than I. I fully comprehend with what joy
you would have seen your charming daughter consecrate, I will not say
her fortune, for you know as well as I how little Count Larinski would
care for that, but consecrate, I say, her graces, her beauty, and all
the qualities of her angelic character to the happiness of a man of
rare merit who has been cruelly scourged by Providence. She loves him,
she is loved by him; Heaven would have blest their union. Ah, what a
misfortune! I must repeat it, this marriage is impossible; our friend
is already married."
"You are sure of it?" cried M. Moriaz, in a burst of enthusiasm that
the good abbe mistook for an access of despair.
"I scarcely can pardon myself for causing you this pain. You ask if I
am sure of it! I have it from our friend himself. One evening, apropos
of I scarcely remember what, it occurred to me to ask if he were
married, and he replied, briefly: 'I thought I had told you so.' Ah!
my dear professor, it were needless to discuss whether such a marriage
would be a happy one, for it never can take place."
"Well, now we have something positive," M. Moriaz hastened to observe,
"and there is nothing to do but yield to evidence."
"Alas! yes," rejoined the abbe; and, then, after a pause, during which
he wore a reflective air, he added, "However--"
"There is no 'however,' M. l'Abbe. Believe me, your word suffices."
"But I might possibly have misunderstood."
"I have entire confidence in your ears--they are excellent."
"But pray allow me to observe that it is never worth while to despair
too soon. Do you know what? Count Larinski came recently to see me
without finding me at home. I owe him a farewell visit. To-morrow
morning, I promise you, I will call on him."
"For what purpose?" interrupted M. Moriaz. "I thank you a thousand
times for your kindly intentions, but God forbid that I should
uselessly interfere with your daily pursuits; your time is too
precious! I declare myself completely edified. I consider the proof
firmly established; there is no further doubt."
As Madame de Lorcy had remarked, Abbe Miollens was not one to easily
relax his hold upon an idea he had once deemed good. In vain M. Moriaz
combated his proposition, bestowing secret maledictions on his excess
of zeal; the abbe would not give up, and M. Moriaz was forced to be
resigned. It was agreed that the next day the worthy man should call
on Count Larinski, and that from Paris he should repair to Cormeilles,
in order to communicate to the proper person the result of his
mission. M. Moriaz perceived the advantage of having Antoinette learn
from the abbe's own lips the fatal truth; and he did not leave without
impressing upon him to be very circumspect, as prudent as a serpent,
as discreet as a father confessor. He started for home with quite a
contented mind, seeing the future lie smoothly and pleasantly before
him, and it really seemed to him that the drive from Maisons to
Cormeilles was a much shorter and more agreeable one than that from
Cormeilles to Maisons.
Samuel Brohl was seated before an empty trunk, which he was apparently
about to pack, when he heard some one knock at his door. He went to
open it and found himself face to face with Abbe Miollens. From the
moment of their first meeting, Samuel Brohl had conceived for the abbe
that warm sympathy, that strong liking, with which he was always
inspired by people in whom he believed he recognised useful animals
who might be of advantage to him, whom he considered destined to
render him some essential service. He seldom mistook; he was a
admirable diagnostician; he recognised at first sight the divine
impress of predestination. He gave the most cordial reception to his
reverend friend, and ushered him into his modest quarters with all the
more /empressement/, because he detected at once the mysterious,
rather agitated air he wore. "Does he come in the quality of a
diplomatic agent, charged with some mission extraordinary?" he asked
himself. On his side the abbe studied Samuel Brohl without seeming to
do so. He was struck with his physiognomy, which expressed at this
moment a manly yet sorrowful pride. His eyes betrayed at intervals the
secret of some heroic grief that he had sworn to repress before men,
and to confess to God alone.
He sat down with his guest, and they began to talk; but the abbe
directed the conversation into topics of the greatest indifference.
Samuel Brohl listened to him and replied with a melancholy grace.
Lively as was his curiosity he well knew how to hold it in check.
Samuel Brohl never had been in a hurry; during the month that had
elapsed he had proved that he knew how to wait--a faculty lacking in
more diplomates than one.
Abbe Miollens's call had lasted during the usual time allotted to a
polite visit, and the worthy man seemed about to depart, when,
pointing with his forefinger to the open valise, he remarked: "I see
here preparations that grieve me. I did dream, my dear count, of
inviting you to Maisons. I have a spare chamber there which I might
offer to you. /Hoc erat in votis/, I should indeed have been happy to
have had you for a guest. We should have chatted and made music to our
hearts' content, close by a window opening on a garden. 'Hae latebrae
dulces, etiam, si credis, amoenae.' But, alas! you are going to leave
us; you do not care for the friendship accorded you here. Has Vienna
such superior attractions for you? But I remember, you will doubtless
be restored there to a pleasant home, a charming wife, children
perhaps who----"
Samuel looked at him with an astonished, confused air, as he had
viewed Mme. de Lorcy when she undertook to speak to him of the
Countess Larinski. "What do you mean?" he finally asked.
"Why, did you not confide to me yourself that you were married?"
Samuel opened wide his eyes; during some moments he seemed to be in a
dream; then, suddenly putting his hand to his brow and beginning to
smile, he said: "Ah! I see--I see. Did you take me literally? I
thought you understood what I said. No, my dear abbe, I am not
married, and I never shall marry; but there are free unions as sacred,
as indissoluble as marriage."
The abbe knit his brows, his countenance assumed an expression of
chagrin and disapproval. He was about delivering to his dear count a
sermon on the immorality and positive danger of free unions, but
Samuel Brohl gave him no time. "I am not going to Vienna to rejoin my
mistress," he interposed. "She never leaves me, she accompanies me
everywhere; she is here."
Abbe Miollens cast about him a startled, bewildered gaze, expecting to
see a woman start out of some closet or come forward from behind some
curtain.
"I tell you that she is here," repeated Samuel Brohl, pointing to an
alabaster statuette, posed on a /piedouche/. The statuette represented
a woman bound tightly, on whom two Cossacks were inflicting the knout;
the socle bore the inscription, "Polonia vincta et flagellata."
The abbe's countenance became transformed in the twinkling of an eye,
the wrinkles smoothed away from his brow, his mouth relaxed, a joyous
light shone in his eyes. "How well it is that I came!" thought he.
"And under what obligations M. Moriaz will be to me!"
Turning towards Samuel he exclaimed:
"I am simply a fool; I imagined-- Ah! I comprehend, your mistress is
Poland; this is delightful, and it is truly a union that is as sacred
as marriage. It has, besides, this advantage--that it interferes with
nothing else. Poland is not jealous, and if, peradventure, you should
meet a woman worthy of you whom you would like to marry, your mistress
would have nothing to say against it. To speak accurately, however,
she is not your mistress; one's country is one's mother, and
reasonable mothers never prevent their sons from marrying."
It was now Samuel's turn to assume a stern and sombre countenance. His
eye fixed upon the statuette, he replied:
"You deceive yourself, M. l'Abbe, I belong to her, I have no longer
the right to dispose of either my heart, or my soul, or my life; she
will have my every thought and my last drop of blood. I am bound to
her by my vows quite as much, I think, as is the monk by his."
"Excuse me, my dear count," said the abbe; "this is fanaticism, or I
greatly mistake. Since when have patriots come to take the vow of
celibacy? Their first duty is to become the fathers of children who
will become good citizens. The day when there will cease to be Poles,
there will cease also to be a Poland."
Samuel Brohl interrupted him, pressing his arm earnestly, and saying:
"Look at me well; have I not the appearance of an adventurer?" The
abbe recoiled. "This word shocks you?" continued Samuel. "Yes, I am a
man of adventures, born to be always on my feet, and ready to start
off at a moment's warning. Marriage was not instituted for those whose
lives are liable at any time to be in jeopardy." With a tragic accent,
he added: "You know what occurred in Bosnia. How do we know that war
may not very shortly be proclaimed, and who can foresee the
consequences? I must hold myself in readiness for the great day.
Perhaps an inscrutable Providence may ere long offer me a new occasion
to risk my life for my country; perhaps Poland will call me, crying,
'Come, I have need of thee!' If I should respond: 'I belong no more to
myself, I have given my heart to a woman who holds me in chains; I
have henceforth a roof, a family, a hearthstone, dear ties that I dare
not break!' I ask you, M. l'Abbe, would not Poland have a right to say
to me, 'Thou hast violated thy vow; thou hast denied me; upon thy head
rest forever my maledictions?' "
Abbe Miollens had just taken a pinch of snuff, and he hearkened to
this harangue, tapping his fingers impatiently on the lid of his
handsome gold snuff-box, which had been presented to him by the most
amiable of his penitents.
"If this be the way you view it," replied he, "is your conscience
quite tranquil, my dear friend? for you will permit me, I trust, to
call you so. Ay, is it sure that from your standpoint your conscience
has no accusations to make you? Is it certain that your heart has not
been unfaithful to its mistress? If I may believe a certain rumour
that has reached my ear, there took place a most singular scene
yesterday at the house of Mme. de Lorcy."
Samuel Brohl trembled violently; he changed colour; he buried his face
in his hands, doubtless to hide from the abbe the blushes remorse had
caused to mantle his cheeks. In a faint voice he murmured:
"Not a word more! you know not how deep a wound you have probed."
"It is, then, true that you love Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz?" asked the
abbe.
"I have sworn that she never shall know it," replied Samuel, in
accents of the most humble contrition. "Yesterday I had the unworthy
weakness to betray myself. /Mon Dieu!/ what must she have thought of
me?"
As he spoke thus, his face buried in his hands, he slightly moved
apart his fingers, and fixed upon the abbe two glittering eyes that,
like cats' eyes, were capable of seeing clearly in the dark.
"What she thinks of you!" echoed the abbe, taking a fresh pinch of
snuff. "Bah! my dear count, women never are angry when a man swoons
away because of their bright eyes, especially when this man is a noble
chevalier, a true knight of the Round Table. I have reason to believe
that Mlle. Moriaz did not take your accident unkindly. Shall I tell
you my whole thought? I should not be surprised if you had touched her
heart, and that, if you take the pains, you may flatter yourself with
the hope of one day being loved by her."
At this moment the voice of his worthy friend appeared to Samuel Brohl
the most harmonious of all music. He felt a delicious thrill quiver
through his frame. The abbe was telling him nothing he had not known
before; but there are things of which we are certain, things that we
have told ourselves a hundred times, and yet that seem new when told
us for the first time by another.
"You are not misleading me?" ejaculated Samuel Brohl, overwhelmed with
joy, transported beyond himself. "Can it really be true!--One day I
may flatter myself--one day she may judge me worthy-- Ah! what a
glorious vision you cause to pass before my eyes! How good and cruel
together you are to me! What bitterness is intermingled with the
ineffable sweetness of your words! No, I never could have believed
that there could be so much joy in anguish, so much anguish in joy."
"What would you imply, my dear count?" interposed Abbe Miollens. "Have
you need of a negotiator? I can boast of having had some experience in
that line. I am wholly at your service."
These words calmed Samuel Brohl. Quickly recovering himself, he coldly
rejoined:
"A negotiator? What occasion would I have for a negotiator? Do not
delude me with a chimera, and above all do not tempt me to sacrifice
my honour to it. This height of felicity that you offer to me I must
renounce forever; I have told you why."
Abbe Miollens was at first inclined to be indignant; he even took the
liberty to rebuke, to expostulate with his noble friend. He
endeavoured to prove to him that his principles were too rigorous,
that such a thing is possible as exaggeration in virtue, too great
refinement in delicacy of conscience. He represented to him that noble
souls should beware of exaltation of sentiment. He cited the Gospels,
he cited Bossuet, he also cited his well-beloved Horace, who censored
all that was ultra or excessive, and recommended the sage to flee all
extremities. His reasoning was weak against the unwavering resolution
of Samuel, who resisted, with the firmness of a rock, all his
remonstrances, and finally ended these with the words:
"Peace, I implore you! Respect my folly, which is surely wisdom in the
eyes of God. I repeat it to you, I am no longer free, and, even if I
were, do you not know that there is between Mlle. Moriaz and myself an
insurmountable barrier?"
"And pray, what is that?" demanded the abbe.
"Her fortune and my pride," said Samuel. "She is rich, I am poor; this
adorable being is not made for me. I told Mme. de Lorcy one day what I
thought of this kind of alliances, or, to speak more clearly, of
bargains. Yes, my revered friend, I love Mlle. Moriaz with an ardour
of passion with which I reproach myself as though it were a crime.
Nothing remains to me but to avoid seeing her, and I never will see
her again. Let me follow to its end my solitary and rugged path. One
consolation will accompany me: I can say that happiness has not been
denied to me: that it is my conscience, admonished from on high, which
has refused to accept it, and there is a divine sweetness in great
trials religiously accepted. Believe me, it is God who speaks to me,
as he spoke to me of old in San Francisco, to enjoin me to forsake
everything and give my blood for my country. I recognise his voice,
which to-day bids my heart be silent and immolate itself on the altar
of its chosen cause. God and Poland! Beyond this, my watch-word, I
have no longer the right to yield to anything."
And, turning towards the statuette, he exclaimed: "It is at her feet
that I lay down my dolorous offering; she it is who will cure my
bruised and broken heart."
Samuel Brohl spoke in a voice thrilling with emotion; the breath of
the Divine Spirit seemed to play through his hair, and make his eyes
grow humid. The eyes of the good abbe also grew moist: he was
profoundly moved; he gazed with veneration upon this hero; he was
filled with respect for this antique character, for this truly
celestial soul. He never had seen anything like it, either in the odes
or in the epistles of Horace. Lollius himself was surpassed.
Transported with admiration, he opened wide his arms to Samuel Brohl,
spreading them out their full length, as though otherwise they might
fail to accomplish their object, and, clasping him to his bosom, he
cried:
"Ah! my dear count, how grand you are! You are immense as the world!"
CHAPTER VIII
Abbe Miollens hastened to repair to Cormeilles, where he gave a
faithful circumstantial account of his conference with Count Larinski.
He was still warm from the interview, and he gave free vent to the
effusions of his enthusiasm. He struck up a Canticle of Zion in honour
of the antique soul, the celestial soul, which had just been revealing
to him all its hidden treasures. M. Moriaz, both astonished and
scandalized, observed, dryly:
"You are right, this Pole is a prodigy; he should either be canonized
or hanged, I do not know which."
Antoinette said not a word; she kept her reflections to herself. She
retired to her chamber, where she paced to and fro for some time,
uncertain regarding what she was about to do, or, rather more restless
than uncertain. Several times she approached her writing-table, and
gazed earnestly at her inkstand; then, seized with a sudden scruple,
she would move away. At last she formed a resolute decision, seized
her pen, and wrote the following lines:
"MONSIEUR: Before setting out for Vienna, will you be so good as to
come and pass some moments at Cormeilles? I desire to have a
conversation with you in the presence of my father.
"Accept, monsieur, I beg of you, the expression of my most profound
esteem.
"ANTOINETTE MORIAZ."
The next morning she received by the first mail the response she
awaited, and which was thus fashioned:
"This test would be more than my courage could endure. I never
shall see you again, for, should I do so, I would be a lost man."
This short response caused Mlle. Moriaz a disappointment full of
bitterness, and blended with no little wrath. She held in her hand a
pencil, which she deliberately snapped in two, apparently to console
herself for not having broken the proud and obstinate will of Count
Abel Larinski. And yet can one break iron or a diamond? The carrier
had brought her at the same time another letter, which she opened
mechanically, merely to satisfy her conscience. She ran through the
first lines without succeeding in comprehending a single word that she
read. Suddenly her attention became riveted, her face brightened up,
her eyes kindled. This letter, which a kind Providence had sent her as
a supreme resource in her distress, was from the hand of Mlle. Galet,
and here was what this retired florist of the Rue Mouffetard wrote:
"MA CHERE DEMOISELLE: I learn that you have returned. What
happiness for me! and how I long to see you! You are my good
angel, whom I should like to see every day of my life, and the
time has seemed so long to me without you. When you enter the
garret of the poor, infirm old woman, it seems to her as though
there were three suns in the heavens; when you abandon her, the
blackness of midnight surrounds her. Mme. de Lorcy has been very
good to me. As my angel requested her, she came a fortnight since
to pay me the quarter due of my pension. She is a very charitable
lady, and she dresses beautifully; but she is a little hard on
poor people. She asks a great many questions; she wants to know
everything. She reproached me with spending too much, being too
fond of luxury, and you know how that is. She forgets that
everything is higher priced than it used to be, that meat and
vegetables are exorbitant, and that just now eggs cost one franc
and fifty centimes a dozen. Besides, a poor creature, deprived of
the use of her limbs, as I am, cannot go to market herself, and it
is quite possible that my /femme de menage/ does not purchase as
wisely as she might. I know I have great scenes with her sometimes
for bringing me early vegetables; /le bon Dieu/ can, at least,
bear me witness that I am no glutton.
"The good Mme. de Lorcy scolded me about a bouquet of camellias she
saw on my table, just like those for which I have been grateful to
my angel. I don't know what notions she got into her head about
them. Ah! well, /ma chere demoiselle/, I have learned since that
these double camellias--they are variegated, red and white--came
to me from a man, for, at present, as it would appear, men have
taken to give me bouquets and making me visits; it is rather late
in the day. The particular man to whom I refer presented himself
one fine morning, and, telling me that you had spoken to him of
me, said that he wished to assure himself that I was well and
wanted nothing. He returned several times, always pampering me
with some attention or other. But the best of all was when he came
to tell me that my angel had returned. What a man he is! he has
surely dropped right down from the skies! One evening when I was
sick he gave me my medicine himself, and would have sat up with me
all night if I had been willing to let him. You must tell me who
he is, for it puzzles me greatly. He has the head of some grand
lion; he is as generous as he is handsome, but very sad. He must
have some great sorrow on his heart. The misfortune, so far as I
am concerned, is that he cannot spoil me much longer--it is almost
over now. He expects to leave here in two days; and he has
announced to me that he will come to make his adieus, to-morrow
afternoon.
"You will come soon, won't you, /ma chere demoiselle/? I burn with
impatience to embrace you, since you permit me to embrace you. You
are my angel and my sunshine, and I am your very humble and
devoted servant,
"LOUISE GALET."
This letter of Mlle. Louise Galet continued nothing definite, beyond,
perhaps, the passage relative to the early vegetables, and the
supposed scenes with her /chambriere/. Whatever may have been the good
demoiselle's past record, she certainly was not void of principles,
and she prided herself on her truthfulness; only she did not always
see the necessity of telling everything she knew; in her narratives
she frequently omitted certain details. She had written at the
instigation of Samuel Brohl, who had not explained to her his motives.
To be sure, she had partially divined these, being shrewd and sly. He
had commended himself to her discretion, for which he had paid
liberally. Mlle. Galet had at first refused the round sum he had
offered her; she had ended by accepting it with tender gratitude.
These little pampering attentions make good friends.
An audacious idea suddenly came to Mlle. Moriaz; there was no time to
recoil from it. She ordered up her coupe. M. Moriaz had just gone out
to make a call in the neighbourhood. She determined to profit by his
absence, and besought Mlle. Moiseney to make ready in haste to
accompany her to Paris, where she had to confer with her dressmaker.
Ten minutes later she stepped into her carriage, having ordered her
coachman to drive like the wind.
Her dressmaker did not detain her long; from the Rue de la Paix she
ordered to be driven to No. 27 Rue Mouffetard. She never was in the
habit of permitting Mlle. Moiseney, who was very short of breath, to
climb with her to the fifth story, where Mlle. Galet lodged; upon this
occasion she indicated to her an express order to remain peaceably
below in the coupe to await her return.
She slowly mounted the stairs; on her way up she encountered a
servant, who informed her that Mlle. Galet was lying down taking a
nap, being somewhat indisposed, but that the key was in the door. The
apartment of which Mlle. Moriaz was in quest was composed of three
rooms, a vestibule serving as a kitchen, a tiny /salon/, and a bed-
chamber. She paused a few moments in the vestibule to regain her
breath, to gather together all her courage, to compose her mind; she
had at once divined that there was some one in the /salon/. She
entered; Mlle. Galet was not there, but he was there, the man whom she
had come to seek. Apparently, he awaited the awakening of the mistress
of the place. In perceiving the woman whom he had sworn never to see
again, he trembled violently, and his eyes sought some loophole of
escape; there was none. Standing upon the threshold, Antoinette barred
the passage. She looked fixedly at him and felt certain of her
victory; he had the air of one vanquished, and his defeat resembled a
complete routing.
She crossed her arms, she smiled, and, in a firm, half-mocking tone,
said:
"So this is the way you rob me of my poor people! They flourish under
it, I am well aware. Confess now that there is a little hypocrisy in
your virtue. Mlle. Galet never for a moment doubted that these famous
camellias were given for my sake. Bouquets costing sixty francs!
absolute folly! How you despise money! Why, then, do you not despise
mine? You are afraid of it, you fear to burn your fingers by touching
it. You will not aid me to throw it out of the windows? Your poor and
mine will surely pick it up. Say, will you not? My fortune is not such
a great affair; but it is certain that I alone do not suffice to spend
it properly; there is plenty for two--for two would really only be
one. You cannot consent to share it with me? You are too proud--that
is it. The day before yesterday you were playing comedy; you do not
love me. It costs little to owe something to those we love."
He made a gesture of despair and cried:
"I implore you, let me go!"
"Presently; I propose telling you first all that is in my mind. I do
not place much reliance on your boasted nobility of spirit; it is
pride, egotistical pride. Yes, your pride is your god--a pitiful sort
of a god! And as to Poland--" He winced at this word. After a pause,
Antoinette continued: "It is she herself who will give, or rather
lend, you to me. I solemnly promise that if ever she has need of you I
will say to her, 'Here he is, take him'; and to you, yourself, I will
say, 'She calls you--go.' But speak to me and look at me; you will not
die of so doing. Are you so very much afraid of me? Come, have courage
to repeat to me what you have said to others?"
He fell back into a chair, where he remained, his arms hanging
helplessly at his sides, his head drooping on his breast, and he
murmured:
"I knew well that if I saw you again I should be lost."
"Say, rather, saved. Your mind was sick; I have cured you. I work
miracles; you once took the pains to write me so. Will you touch my
hand? That will not bind you to anything; you can return it to me if
you choose."
He took the hand she extended to him; he did not carry it to his lips,
but he held it within his own.
"Listen to me," she resumed. "To-day, this very hour, you will set out
for Cormeilles, and you will say to my father: 'She has given me her
hand; it has seemed good to me to keep it; allow me to do so?' Is it
agreed upon? Will you obey me?"
He exclaimed: "You are here, you speak to me, the world has
disappeared; henceforth I believe only in you!"
"Well done! You see when two people frankly discuss matters they soon
come to an understanding; but the main essential is to see each other.
Since you are so wise when you see me, I naturally desire to have you
see me always. There--take that!" And she handed him a medallion
containing her portrait; then she moved towards the door. On the
threshold she turned. "Please tell Mlle. Galet," said she, "that I
respect her nap, and will return to-morrow. Mlle. Moiseney awaits me,
and must be growing impatient. I have your word of honour? Adieu,
then, until this evening. I must hasten away."
And she did hasten, or, rather, she flew away.
Returning from as well as driving into Paris, the coachman put his
horses to full speed, and Cormeilles was reached before the soup was
cold. Nevertheless, M. Moriaz had had abundant time for anxiety. He
did not take his seat at table without first questioning Mlle.
Moiseney; knowing nothing, she could give him no information; but she
responded indefinitely to his queries with that air of mystery beneath
which it was her wont to disguise her ignorance. He resolved to
question Antoinette after dinner. She anticipated him, taking him
aside and recounting to him what had occurred.
"I presume," said she, "that henceforth you will believe in his pride
and his disinterestedness. Did I not foretell you that I should have
to put myself on my knees to compel him to marry me?"
He could not repress a movement of indignation.
"Oh, reassure yourself!" she resumed; "that is only my way of
speaking. He was at my feet and I was standing."
M. Moriaz opened his lips and closed them again three times without
speaking. He finally contented himself with a gesture, which
signified, "The die is cast, let come what must."
Samuel Brohl religiously kept his word. After having made a most
faultless toilet, he repaired by the railway to Argenteuil, where he
took a carriage. He reached Cormeilles as the clock struck nine. He
was ushered into the /salon/, where M. Moriaz was reading his journal.
Samuel was pale, and his lips trembled with emotion. He greeted M.
Moriaz with profound respect, saying:
"I feel, monsieur, like a criminal. Be merciful, and refuse her to
me."
M. Moriaz replied: "The fact is, you come, monsieur, in the words of
the evangelist, 'like a thief in the night'; but I have nothing to
refuse you. You are not the son-in-law I frankly avow, whom I should
have chosen. This matters not; my daughter belongs to herself, she is
mistress of her own actions, and I have no reason to believe that she
errs in her choice. You are a man of taste and of honour, and you know
the worth of what she has given you. If you render Antoinette happy,
you will find in me a warm friend. I have said all that is necessary;
let us suppose that you have replied to me, and talk of something
else."
Samuel Brohl considered the matter settled; he insisted no longer, and
entered at once upon another topic. He knew how to be agreeable and
dignified at the same time. He was as amiable and gracious as his
lively emotion would permit. M. Moriaz was obliged to confess to
himself that Count Larinski was as good company at Cormeilles as he
had been at Saint Moritz, and had no other fault than having taken it
into his head to become his son-in-law.
Their interview was a prolonged one. During this time Antoinette had
been promenading the walk in front of the house, inhaling the jasmine-
perfumed air, pouring out her heart to the night and to the stars. Her
happy reverie was troubled only by the presence of a bat, flitting
incessantly from one end of the terrace to the other, flapping its
wings about her head. The loathsome creature seemed to be especially
in quest of her, circling around and above her with obstinate
persistency, even venturing to graze her hair in passing; Antoinette
even fancied that she could distinguish its hideous face, with deep
pouches and long ears, and she moved away, quivering with disgust.
She heard a step on the gravel-walk. Samuel Brohl had taken leave of
M. Moriaz and was crossing the terrace to regain his carriage. He
recognised Antoinette, approached her and clasped on her wrist a
bracelet he held in his hand, saying as he did so: "What could I give
you that would equal in value the medallion you deigned to offer me
and that should never leave me? However, here is a trinket by which I
set great store. My mother loved it; she always refused to part with
it, even in the time of her greatest distress; she wore it on her arm
when she died."
We are not all moulded alike; and there is no human clay in which are
not intermingled some spangles of gold. Intriguers as well as
downright knaves are often capable of experiencing moments of sincere
and pure sentiments; in certain encounters every human being rises
superior to him-or herself. The upper part of Mlle. Moriaz's face was
shaded by her red hood, the lower part lit up by the moon, which was
slowly rising above the hills. Samuel Brohl contemplated her in
silence; she seemed to him as beautiful as a dream. During two entire
minutes he forgot that she had an income of a hundred thousand livres,
and that, according to all probabilities, M. Moriaz would die one day.
His head was completely turned by the thought that this woman loved
him, that soon she would be his. Yes, for precisely two minutes,
Samuel Brohl was as passionately in love with Mlle. Moriaz as might,
perchance, have been Count Larinski.
He could not resist the impulse that transported him. He folded in his
arms the slender, supple form of Antoinette, and imprinted upon her
hair a kiss of flame, a true Polish kiss. She offered no resistance;
but at this moment the bat that had already forced upon her its
distasteful company renewed the attack, struck her full in the face,
and stuck fast in her hood. Antoinette felt the touch of its cold,
clammy wings, of its hooked claws. She tore the hood from her head and
flung it away in horror. Samuel Brohl sprang forward to pick it up,
pressed it to his lips, and made his escape, like a thief carrying off
his booty.
When Antoinette re-entered the /salon/, she found there Mlle.
Moiseney, whose boisterous, overwhelming joy had just put M. Moriaz to
flight. This time Mlle. Moiseney knew everything. She had seen Samuel
Brohl arrive, she had been unable to control her overweening
curiosity, and, without the slightest scruples, she had listened at
the door. She cast herself into Antoinette's arms, pressed her to her
heart, and cried: "Ah, my dear! oh, my dear! Did I not always say that
it would end thus?"
Mlle. Moriaz hastened to free herself from her embraces; she felt the
need of being alone. On entering her chamber she took a hasty survey
of it: her furniture, her pretty knick-knacks, her rose-tined
tapestry, the muslin hangings of her bed, the large silver crucifix
hanging on the extreme wall, all seemed to regard her with
astonishment, asking, "What has happened?" And she replied:
"You are right, something has happened."
She remained in contemplation before a portrait of her mother, whom
she had lost very young.
"I have been told," she mused, "that you were a great romance-reader.
I do not care for romances at all--I scarcely ever read them; but I
have just been making one myself, with which you would not be
discontented. This man would astonish you a little; he would please
you still more. Some hours ago he seemed lost to me forever. I
brazened it out. I went in search of him, and when he saw me he
surrendered. Only now he was with me on the terrace; his lips touched
me here on my hair, and thrilled me from head to foot. Do not feel
displeased with me--his are pure and royal lips! They have been
touched by the sacred fire; they never have lied; never have there
fallen from them other than proud and noble words; they modestly
recount the history of a life without blemish Ah! why are you not
here? I have a thousand things to say to you, which you alone could
comprehend; others do not comprehend me."
She began her toilet for the night. When she had unfastened her hair,
she remembered that there was One in her chamber who could comprehend
everything, and to whom she had yet said nothing. She knelt down, her
wealth of hair streaming over her beautiful shoulders, her hands
reverently clasped, her eyes fixed on the silver crucifix, and she
said, in a low tone:
"Forgive me that I have forgotten thee, thou who never hast forgotten
me! I return thanks to thee that thou hast granted my desires; thou
hast given me the happiness of which I have dreamed without daring to
ask it. Ah, yes, I am happy, perfectly happy! I promise thee that I
will cast the reflection of my joy among the poor and unfortunate of
this world: I will love them as I have never loved them before! When
we give them food and drink, we give it also unto thee; and when we
give them flowers, this crown of thorns that has wounded thy brow
bursts into bloom. I will give them flowers and bread. It is vain to
say that thou art a jealous God. Full as may be my heart, thou knowest
that there is always room for thee, and that thou never canst knock at
the door without my crying: 'Enter; the house and all that therein is
belong unto thee! My happiness blesses thee: oh, bless thou it!' "
While Mlle. Moriaz thus held communion with her crucifix, Samuel Brohl
was rolling along the great highway from Cormeilles to Argenteuil, a
distance of six kilometres. His head was held erect, his face was
radiant, his eyes were like balls of fire, his temples throbbed, and
it seemed to him that his dilated chest might have held the world. He
was speaking to himself--murmuring over and over again the same
phrase. "She is mine!" he repeated to the vines bordering the road, to
the mill of Trouillet, to the Sannois Hills, whose vague outlines
loomed up against the sky. "She is mine!" he cried to the moon, which
this evening shone for him alone, whose sole occupation was to gaze
upon Samuel Brohl. It was plain to see that she was in the secret,
that she knew that before long Samuel Brohl would marry Mlle. Moriaz.
She had donned her festal garments to celebrate this marvellous
adventure; her great gleaming face expressed sympathy and joy.
Although he had exhorted his coachman to make haste, Samuel missed the
train, which was the last. He decided to put up for the night at
Argenteuil, and sought hospitality at the inn of the Coeur-Volant,
where he ordered served forthwith a great bowl of punch, his favourite
drink. He betook himself to bed in the full expectation of enjoying
most delicious dreams; but his sleep was troubled by a truly
disagreeable incident. Glorious days are at times succeeded by most
wretched nights, and the inn of Coeur-Volant was destined to leave
most disagreeable reminiscences with Samuel Brohl.
Towards four o'clock he heard some one knocking at his door, and a
voice not unknown to him cried:
"Open, I beseech you!"
He was seized with an insupportable anguish; he felt like one
paralyzed, and it was with great difficulty that he rose up in a
sitting posture. He remembered that the bolt was drawn, and this
reassured him. What was not his stupefied amazement to see the bolt
glide back in its shaft! The door opened; some one entered, slowly
approached Samuel, drew back the curtains of his bed, and bent towards
him, fixing upon him great eager eyes that he recognised. They were
singular eyes, these, at once full of sweetness and full of fire, of
audacity and of candour; a child, a grand soul, an unbalanced weakling
--all this in one was in this gaze.
Samuel Brohl quailed with horror. He tried to speak, but his tongue
was powerless to move. He made desperate efforts to unloose it; he
finally succeeded in moving his lips, and he murmured:
"Is it you, Abel? I believed you dead."
Evidently Count Abel, the veritable Abel Larinski, was not dead. He
was on his feet, his eyes were terribly wide open, and his face never
had worn more life-like colouring. Nothing remained but to believe
that he had been buried alive, and that he had been resuscitated. In
coming forth from the tomb, he had carried with him a portion of its
dust; his hair was covered with a singular powder of an earthy hue,
and at intervals he shook himself as though to make it fall from him.
With the exception of this there was nothing alarming in his
appearance; but a mocking, half-crafty smile played about his lips.
After a long pause, he said to Samuel:
"Yes, it is indeed I. You did not expect me?"
"Are you sure that you are not dead?" rejoined Samuel.
"Perfectly sure," he replied, once more shaking a mass of dust from
his head. "Does my return incommode you, Samuel Brohl?" he added.
"Your name is Samuel, I believe; it is a pretty name. Why have you
taken mine? You must give it back to me."
"Not to-day," pleaded Samuel, in a stifled voice, "nor to-morrow, nor
the day after to-morrow; but after the marriage."
Count Abel burst out laughing, which was by no means his habit, and
which therefore greatly surprised Samuel. Then he cried:
"It is I she will marry--she will be the Countess Larinski."
Suddenly the door opened again, and Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz appeared,
robed in white like a bride, a crown on her head, a bouquet in her
hand. She bent her steps towards Samuel, but the apparition arrested
her progress, saying:
"It is not he whom you love; it is my history. Do you not see that
this is a false Pole? His father was a German Jew, who kept a tavern.
Here it was that this hero grew up. I will relate to you how."
Here Samuel put his hand over his mouth, and stammered: "Oh, for
mercy's sake, say nothing!"
Heeding him not, the apparition continued: "Yes, Samuel Brohl is a
hero. For five years he was the pledged lover of an old woman, and he
fulfilled all the duties of his post. This cherished hero well earned
his money. Are you not eager to be called Mme. Brohl?"
With these words, he opened wide his arms to Mlle. Moriaz, who fixed
upon him a gaze at the same time astonishing and tender, and straining
her to his bosom, kissed her hair and her crown.
Then Samuel Brohl recovered strength, life, movement; clinching his
hands, he sprang forward to dispute with Abel Larinski his prey.
Suddenly, with a shiver of terror and dismay, he paused; he had heard
proceeding from a distant corner of the chamber a shrill, malignant
laugh. He turned, and distinctly perceived his father--a greasy cap on
his head, wrapped in a forlorn, threadbare, dirty caftan. This was
unquestionably Jeremiah Brohl, and this night it seemed truly that the
whole world had arisen from the dead. The little old man continued to
laugh jeeringly; then in a sharp, peevish voice, he cried:
"/Schandbube! vermaledeiter Schlingel! ich will dich zu Brei
schlagen!/" which signifies: "Scoundrel! accursed blackguard! I will
beat you to a jelly!" It was a mode of address that Samuel had heard
often in his infancy; but familiar though he might be with paternal
amenities, when he saw his father uplift a withered, claw-like hand, a
cry escaped his lips; he started back to evade the blow, entangled his
feet in the legs of a chair, stumbled, and flung himself violently
against a table.
He opened his eyes and saw no one. He ran to the window and threw open
the shutter; the growing dawn illumined the chamber with its grayish
light. Thank God! there was no one there. The vision had been so real
that it was some time before Samuel Brohl could fully regain his
senses, and persuade himself that his nightmare was forever
dissipated, that phantoms were phantoms, that cemeteries do not
surrender their prey. When he had once acquired this rejoicing
conviction, he spoke to the dead man who had appeared to him, and
whose provoking visit had indiscreetly troubled his sleep, and with
considerable hauteur he said, in a tone of superb defiance: "We must
be resigned, my poor Abel; we shall see each other again only in the
valley of Jehosaphat; I have seen twenty shovelfuls of earth cast upon
you--you are dead; I live, and she is mine!"
Thereupon he hastened to settle his account, and to quit the Coeur-
Volant, within whose walls he promised himself never again to set
foot.
At the very same moment, M. Moriaz, who had risen early, was engaged
in writing the following letter:
"It is done, my dear friend--I have yielded. Pray, do not reproach
me with my weakness; what else could I do? When one has been for
twenty years the most submissive of fathers, one does not
emancipate one's self in a day; I never have been in the habit of
erecting barriers, and it is scarcely likely that I could learn to
do so at my age. Ah! /mon Dieu!/ who knows if, after all, her
heart has not counselled her well, if one day she will not satisfy
us all that she was in the right/ It must be confessed that this
/diable/ of a man has an indescribable charm about him. I can
detect only one fault in him: he has committed the error of
existing at all; it is a grave error, I admit, but thus far I have
nothing else with which to reproach him.
"When one loses a battle, nothing remains but to plan an orderly
retreat. Count Larinski, I regret to inform you, is armed with all
needful weapons; he carries with him his certificate of birth, and
certificate of the registry of death of both his parents. No
pretext can be made on this score, and my future son-in-law will
not aid me to gain time. The sole point upon which we must
henceforth direct our attention is the contract. We scarcely can
take too many precautions; we must see that this Pole's hands are
absolutely tied. If you will permit me, I will one day ask you to
confer with me and my notary, who is also yours. I venture to hope
that upon this point Antoinette will consent to be guided by our
counsels.
"I am not gay, my friend; but, having been born a philosopher, I
bear my misfortunes patiently, and I will forthwith reread /Le
Monde comme il va, ou la Vision de Babouc/, in order to endeavour
to persuade myself that, if all is not well, all is at least
supportable."
The evening of the same day, M. Moriaz received the following
response:
"I never will pardon you. You are a great chemist, I grant, but a
pitiful, a most deplorable father. Your weakness, which well
merits another name, is without excuse. You should have resisted;
you should have stood your ground firmly. Antoinette, although she
is of age, never in the world would have decided to address to you
a formal request of consent to this marriage. She would have made
some scenes; she would have pouted; she would have endeavoured to
soften you by assuming the airs of a tearful, heart-broken widow;
she would have draped herself in black crape. And after that?
Desperate case! These Artemisias are very tiresome, I admit; but
one can accustom one's self to anything. Should philosophers, who
plead such sublime indifference about the affairs of this mundane
sphere, be at the mercy of a fit of the sulks, or a dress of black
crape? Besides, black is all the fashion just now, even for those
who are not in mourning.
"You speak of contracts! You are surely jesting! What! distrustful
of a Pole? take precautions against an antique man?--I quote from
Abbe Miollens--against a soul as noble as great? Think what you
are doing! At the mere thought of his disinterestedness being
called into question, M. Larinski would swoon away as he did in my
/salon/. It is a little way he has, which is most excellent, since
it proves successful. Do not think of such trifles as contracts;
marry them with equal rights, and leave the consequences to
Providence! Follies have neither beauty nor merit, unless they are
complete. Ah, my good friend, Poland has its charm, has it?
Admirable! But you must swallow the whole thing. I am your
obedient servant."
CHAPTER IX
The pitiless sentence pronounced by Mme. de Lorcy grieved M. Moriaz,
but did not discourage him. It was his opinion that, let her say what
she might, precautions were good; that, well though it might be to
bear our misfortunes patiently, there was no law forbidding us to
assuage them; that it was quite permissible to prefer to complete
follies those of a modified character, and that a bad cold or an
influenza was decidedly preferable to inflammation of the lungs, which
is so apt to prove fatal. "Time and myself will suffice for all
things," proudly said Philip II. M. Moriaz said, with perhaps less
pride: "To postpone a thing so long as possible, and to hold
deliberate counsel with one's notary, are the best correctives of a
dangerous marriage that cannot be prevented." His notary, M. Noirot,
in whom he reposed entire confidence, was absent; a case of importance
had carried him to Italy. Nothing remained but to await his return,
until which everything stood in suspense.
In the first conversation he had with his daughter on the subject, M.
Moriaz found her very reasonable, very well disposed to enter into his
views, to accede to his desires. She was too thoroughly pleased with
his resignation not to be willing to reward him for it with a little
complaisancy; besides, she was too happy to be impatient; she had
gained the main points of her case--it cost her little to yield in
matters of secondary detail.
"You will be accused of having taken a most inconsiderate step," said
her father to her. "You are little sensible to the judgment of the
world, to what people say; I am much more so. Humour my weakness or
cowardice. Let us endeavour to keep up appearances; do not let us
appear to be in a hurry, or to have something to hide; let us act with
due deliberation. Just at present no one is in Paris; let us give our
friends time to return there. We will present Count Larinski to them.
Great happiness does not fear being discussed. Your choice will be
regarded unfavourably by some, approved by others. M. Larinski has the
gift of pleasing; he will please, and all the world will pardon my
resignation, which Mme. de Lorcy esteems a crime."
"You promised me that your resignation would be mingled with
cheerfulness: I find it somewhat melancholy."
"You scarcely could expect me to be intoxicated with joy."
"Will you at least assure me that you have taken your part bravely,
and that you will think of no further appeal?"
"I swear it to you!"
"Very good; then we will honour your weakness," she replied, and she
said Amen to all that he proposed.
It was agreed that the marriage should take place during the winter,
and that two months should be allowed to elapse before proceeding to
the preliminary formalities. M. Moriaz undertook to explain matters to
Samuel Brohl, who found the arrangement little to his taste. He took
pains, however, to give no signs of this. He told M. Moriaz that he
was still in the first bewildering surprise of his happiness, that he
was not sorry to have time to recover from it; but he secretly
promised himself to devise some artifice for abridging delays, for
hastening the /denoument/. He was apprehensive of accidents,
unforeseen occurrences, squalls, storms, tornadoes, sudden blights, in
short everything that might damage or destroy a harvest; he
impatiently longed to gather in his, and to have it carefully stowed
away in his granary. In the interim he wrote to his old friend M.
Guldenthal a letter at once majestic and confidential, which produced
a most striking effect. M. Guldenthal concluded that a good marriage
was much better security than a poor gun. Besides, he had had the
agreeable surprise of being completely reimbursed for his loan,
capital and interest. He was charmed to have so excellent a debtor
return to him, and he hastened to advance to him all that he could
possibly want, even more.
A month passed peaceably by, during which time Samuel Brohl repaired
two or three times each week to Cormeilles. He made himself adored by
the entire household, including the gardener, the porter and his
family, and the Angora cat that had welcomed him at the time of his
first visit. This pretty, soft white puss had conceived for Samuel
Brohl a most deplorable sympathy; perhaps she had recognised that he
possessed the soul of a cat, together with all the feline graces. She
lavished on him the most flattering attentions; she loved to rub
coaxingly against him, to spring on his knee, to repose in his lap. In
retaliation, the great, tawny spaniel belonging to Mlle. Moriaz
treated the newcomer with the utmost severity and was continually
looking askance at him; when Samuel attempted a caress, he would growl
ominously and show his teeth, which called forth numerous stern
corrections from his mistress. Dogs are born gendarmes or police
agents; they have marvellous powers of divination and instinctive
hatred of people whose social status is not orthodox, whose
credentials are irregular, or who have borrowed the credentials of
others. As to Mlle. Moiseney, who had not the scent of a spaniel, she
had gone distracted over this noble, this heroic, this incomparable
Count Larinski. In a /tete-a-tete/ he had contrived to have with her,
he had evinced much respect for her character, so much admiration for
her natural and acquired enlightenment, that she had been moved to
tears; for the first time she felt herself understood. What moved her,
however, still more was that he asked her as a favour never to quit
Mlle. Moriaz and to consider as her own the house he hoped one day to
possess. "What a man!" she ejaculated, with as much conviction as
Mlle. Galet.
The principal study of Samuel Brohl was to insinuate himself into the
good graces of M. Moriaz, whose mental reservations he dreaded. He
succeeded in some measure, or at least he disarmed any lingering
suspicions by the irreproachable adjustment of his manners, by the
reserve of his language, by his great show of lack of curiosity
regarding all questions that might have a proximate or remote
connection with his interests. How, then, had Mme. de Lorcy come to
take it into her head that there was something of the appraiser about
Samuel Brohl, and that his eyes took an inventory of her furniture? If
he had forgotten himself at Maisons, he never forgot himself at
Cormeilles. What cared he for the sordid affairs of the sublunary
sphere? He floated in ether; heaven had opened to him its portals; the
blessed are too absorbed in their ecstasy to pay heed to details or to
take an inventory of paradise. Nevertheless, Samuel's ecstasies did
not prevent him from embracing every opportunity to render himself
useful or agreeable to M. Moriaz. He frequently asked permission to
accompany him into his laboratory. M. Moriaz flattered himself that he
had discovered a new body to which he attributed most curious
properties. Since his return he had been occupied with some very
delicate experiments, which he did not always carry out to his
satisfaction; his movements were brusque, his hands all thumbs; very
often he chanced to ruin everything by breaking his vessels. Samuel
proposed to assist him in a manipulation requiring considerable
dexterity; he had very flexible fingers, was as expert as a juggler,
and the manipulation succeeded beyond all hopes.
Mme. de Lorcy was furious at having been outwitted by Count Larinski;
she retracted all the concessions she had made concerning him; her
rancour had decided that the man of fainting-fits could not be other
than an imposter. She had disputes on this subject with M. Langis, who
persisted in maintaining that M. Larinski was a great comedian, but
that this, strictly considered, did not prevent his being a true
count; in the course of his travels he had met specimens of them who
cheated at cards and pocketed affronts. Mme. de Lorcy, in return,
accused him of being a simpleton. She had written again to Vienna, in
hopes of obtaining some further intelligence; she had been able to
learn nothing satisfactory. She did not lose courage; she well knew
that, in the important affairs of life, M. Moriaz found it difficult
to dispense with her approbation, and she promised herself to choose
with discretion the moment to make a decisive assault upon him. In the
meanwhile she gave herself the pleasure of tormenting him by her
silence, and of grieving him by her long-continued pouting. One day M.
Moriaz said to his daughter:
"Mme. de Lorcy is displeased with us; this grieves me. I fear you have
dropped some word that has wounded her. I shall be greatly obliged to
you if you will go and see her and coax her into good-humour."
"You gave me a far from agreeable commission," she rejoined, "but I
can refuse you nothing; I shall go to-morrow to Maisons."
At the precise moment when this conversation was taking place, Mme. de
Lorcy, who was passing the day in Paris, entered the Ecole des Beaux-
Arts. The exhibition of the work of a celebrated painter, recently
deceased, had attracted thither a great throng of people. Mme. de
Lorcy moved to and fro, when suddenly she descried a little old woman,
sixty years of age, with a snub nose, whose little gray eyes gleamed
with malice and impertinence. Her chin in the air, holding up her eye-
glasses with her hand, she scrutinized all the pictures with a
critical, disdainful air.
"Ah! truly it is the Princess Gulof," said Mme. de Lorcy to herself,
and turned away to avoid an encounter. It was at Ostend, three years
previous, during the season of the baths, that she had made the
acquaintance of the princess; she did not care to renew it. This
haughty, capricious Russian, with whom a chance occurrence at the
/table d'hote/ had thrown her into intercourse, had not taken a place
among her pleasantest reminiscences.
Princess Gulof was the wife of a governor-general whom she had wedded
in second marriage after a long widowhood. He did not see her often,
two or three times a year, that was all. Floating about from one end
of Europe to another, they kept up a regular exchange of letters; the
prince never took any step without consulting his wife, who usually
gave him sound advice. During the first years of their marriage, he
had committed the error of being seriously in love with her: there are
some species of ugliness that inspire actually insane passions. The
princess found this in the most wretched taste, and soon brought
Dimitri Paulovitch to his senses. From that moment perfect concord
reigned between this wedded couple, who were parted by the entire
continent of Europe, united by the mail-bags. The princess did not
bear a very irreproachable record. She looked upon morality as pure
matter of conventionality, and she made no secret of her thoughts. She
was always on the alert for new discoveries, fresh experiences; she
never waited to read a book to the end before flinging it into the
waste-paper basket, most frequently the first chapter sufficed; she
had met with many disappointments, she had wearied of many caprices,
and she had arrived at the conclusion that man is, after all, of but
small account. Nevertheless, there had come to her late in life a
comparatively lasting caprice; during nearly five years she had
flattered herself that she had found what she sought. Alas! for the
first time she had been abandoned, forsaken, and that before she had
herself grown tired of her fancy. This desertion had inflicted a sharp
wound on her pride; she had conceived an implacable hatred for the
faithless one, and then she had forgotten him. She had plunged into
the natural sciences, she had made dissections--it was her way of
being avenged. She held very advanced ideas; she believed in the most
radical of the doctrines of evolution; she deemed it a clearly
demonstrated fact that man is a development of the monkey, the monkey
of the monad. She profoundly despised any one who permitted himself to
doubt this. She did not count melancholy; to analyze or dissect
everything, that was her way of being happy.
During their common sojourn at Ostend, Mme. de Lorcy had gained the
good graces of the Princess Gulof through the dexterity with which she
had dressed the wounds of Moufflard, her lapdog, whose paw had been
injured by some awkward individual. She had been quite pleased with
Mme. de Lorcy, her sympathy and her kindly services, and she had
bestowed her most amiable attentions upon her. Mme. de Lorcy had done
her best to respond to her advances; but she found herself revolted by
this old magpie whose prattling never ceased, and whose chief delight
was in the recital of the secret chronicles of every capital of
Europe; Mme. de Lorcy, in fact, soon grew disgusted with her
cosmopolitan gossip and her physiology; she found her cynical and
evil-minded. In meeting her at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, her first
impulse was to evade her; but suddenly she changed her mind. For some
weeks past she had been governed by a fixed idea, about which all else
revolved; an inspiration came over her, which doubtless fell directly
from the skies.
"Princess Gulof," said she to herself, "has passed her life in running
around the world; her real home is a railroad-car; there is not a
large city where she has failed to make a sojourn; she is acquainted
with the whole world: is it not possible that she knows Count
Larinski?"
Mme. de Lorcy retraced her steps, cut her way through the crowd,
succeeded in approaching the princess, and, taking her by the arm,
exclaimed: "Ah! is it you, princess! How is Moufflard?"
The princess turned her head, regarded her fixedly a moment, and then
pressing her hand between her thumb and forefinger she rejoined with
as little ceremony as though they had met the day before: "Moufflard
does very poorly indeed, my dear. He died two months ago of
indigestion."
"How you must have mourned his loss!"
"I am still inconsolable."
"Ah! well, princess, I shall undertake to console you. I own a lapdog,
not yet six months old: you never saw a more charming one or one with
a shorter nose or whiter and more delicate hair. I am a great
utilitarian, as you know. I only care for large dogs that are of some
use. Will you accept of me Moufflard II? But you must come and fetch
him yourself, which will procure me the pleasure of seeing you at
Maisons."
The princess replied that she was on her way to England; that she was
merely taking Paris in passing; that her hours were numbered; and two
minutes later she announced to Mme. de Lorcy that she would call on
her the following day, in the afternoon.
True to her appointment, Princess Gulof entered Mme. de Lorcy's
/salon/ the following day. The ladies occupied themselves first of all
with the lapdog, which was found charming and quite worthy to succeed
to Moufflard I. Mme. de Lorcy watched all the time for a suitable
opportunity of introducing the subject nearest to her heart; when she
thought it had come, she observed:
"Apropos, princess, you who know everything, you who are a true
cosmopolitan, have you ever heard of a mysterious personage who calls
himself Count Abel Larinski?"
"Not that I am aware of, my dear, although his name may not be
absolutely unknown to me."
"Search among your reminiscences; you must have encountered him
somewhere; you have visited all the countries of the world--"
"Of the habitable world," she interposed; "but according to my
especial point of view Siberia scarcely can be called so, and it is
there, if I mistake not, that your Count Larinski must have been
sent."
"Would to heaven!-- Perhaps there was question of procuring this
little pleasure for his father; but, unfortunately, he took the
precaution to emigrate to America. The inconvenience of America is,
that people can return from there, for my Larinski has returned, and
it is that that grieves me."
"What has he done to you?" inquired the princess pinching the ears of
the dog who was slumbering in her lap.
"I spoke to you at Ostend about my goddaughter Mlle. Moriaz, who is an
adorable creature. I proposed to marry her to my nephew, M. Langis, a
most highly accomplished young man. This Larinski came suddenly on the
scene, he cast a charm over the child, and he will marry her."
"What a pity! Is he handsome?"
"Yes; that, to tell the truth, is his sole merit."
"It is merit sufficient," replied the princess, whose gray eyes
twinkled as she spoke. "There is nothing certain but a man's beauty;
all else is open to discussion."
"Pray, allow me to consider matters from a more matter-of-fact point
of view,: said Mme. de Lorcy. "Also I may as well confide to you my
whole perplexity: I suspect Count Larinski of being neither a true
Larinski nor a true count; I would stake my life that the Larinskis
are all dead, and that this man is some adventurer."
"You will end by interesting me," rejoined the princess. "Do not speak
too severely of adventurers, however; they are one of the most curious
varieties of the human family. Let your goddaughter marry hers; it
will bring a piquant element into her life; the poor world is so
generally a prey to ennui."
"Thank you! my goddaughter was not born to marry an adventurer. I
detest this Larinski, and I have vowed that I will play him some
abominable trick!"
"Do not become excited, my dear. What colour are his eyes?"
"Green as those of the cats or of the owls."
Once more the eyes of Princess Gulof flashed and twinkled, and she
cried: "An adventurer with green eyes! Why, it is a superb match, and
I find you hard to please."
"You grieve me, princess," said Mme. de Lorcy. "I had promised myself
that you would lend me the assistance of your judgment, your
incomparable penetration, your experienced eye; that you would aid me
in unmasking this Pole, in detecting in him some irremediable vice
that would at once prove an insurmountable obstacle to the marriage.
Be good, for once in your life; may I present him to you?"
"I repeat to you that I am merely taking Paris in passing," replied
the princess, "and I am expected in England. Besides, you do too much
honour to my incomparable penetration. I swear to you that I am no
connoisseur in Larinskis; you may as well spare yourself the pains of
presenting to me yours. I am a good-natured woman, who has often been
made a good dupe, and I do not complain of it. The best reminiscences
of my past are of sundry agreeable errors, and of men skilled in
deception. I have found it the wisest way to judge by the labels, and
never to ask any one to show me the contents of his sack, for I long
ago discovered that sacks are very apt to be empty or at best only
poorly filled. Let your goddaughter act according to her own head; if
she deceives herself, it is because she wishes to be deceived, and she
knows better than you what suits her. /Eh! bon Dieu/, what matters it
if there be one more unhappy household under the broad canopy of
heaven? Besides, it is only fools who are unhappy, and who stupidly
pause before a closed portal; others manage in some way to find a
loop-hole of escape. Marriage, my dear, is an institution worn
threadbare. Ten years hence there will be only free women and husbands
on trial. Ten years hence the Countess Larinski will be a liberated
countess. Let her serve her time as a galley-slave, and she will come
out entirely cured of her follies."
Just as Princess Gulof was finishing this remarkable declaration of
her principles, the door opened and Mlle. Moriaz entered. Whatever it
might cost her to do so, the future Countess Larinski faithfully kept
the promise she had made to her father. Mme. de Lorcy was strictly on
her guard; she hastened to meet her, held out both hands, kissed her
on both cheeks, and reproached her, in the most affectionate tone in
the world, for the rarity of her visits. Then she presented her to the
princess, who said: "Come here, my beauty, that I may look at you; I
have been told that you are adorable."
When Antoinette approached, she fixed on her a keen, penetrating
glance, examined her from head to foot, passed all her perfections in
review: one might have taken her for some Normandy farmer at a cattle-
fair. The result of this investigation was satisfactory; the princess
cried, "Truly she does very well!" and proceeded to assert that Mlle.
Moriaz greatly resembled a certain person who had played a certain
role in a certain adventure that she undertook to narrate. She had
scarcely finished this recital when she entered on another. Mme. de
Lorcy was on thorns. She knew by experience that the anecdotes of
Princess Gulof were ordinarily somewhat indelicate and ill-suited to
maiden ears. She watched Antoinette anxiously, and, when she saw the
approach of an especially objectionable passage, she was suddenly
seized with a fit of coughing. The princess, comprehending the
significance of that, made an effort to gloss over, but her glossings
were very transparent. Mme. de Lorcy coughed anew, and the princess
ended by losing patience, and, brusquely interrupting herself,
exclaimed: "And this, that, and the other, etc. Thus ended the
adventure."
Mlle. Moriaz listened with an astonished air, not in the least
understanding these attacks of coughing and these interruptions, nor
divining the significance of the constant repetition of "this, that,
and the other, etc." Princess Gulof struck her as a very eccentric and
unpleasantly brusque person; she even suspected her of being slightly
deranged or at least rather crack-brained; yet she was pleased with
her for being present upon this especial occasion and sparing her a
/tete-a-tete/ with Mme. de Lorcy with its disagreeable explanations
and unpleasant discussions.
She remained nearly an hour, planted on a chair, watching with a sort
of stupor the turning of the fan of this word-mill, whose clapper kept
up such an incessant noise. After having criticised to her heart's
content her neighbours, including under that title emperors and grand-
dukes, and having abundantly multiplied the et ceteras, Princess Gulof
suddenly turned the conversation to physiology: this science, whose
depths she believed herself to have fathomed, was, in her estimation,
the secret of everything, the Alpha and Omega of human life. She
exposed certain materialistic views, making use of expressions that
shocked the modest and delicate ears of Mlle. Moriaz. The astonishment
the latter had at first experienced became now blended with horror and
disgust; she judged that her visit had lasted long enough, and she
proceeded to beat a retreat, which Mme. de Lorcy made no effort to
prevent.
Upon arriving at Cormeilles, her carriage crossed with a young man on
horseback, who with his head bowed down allowed his animal full
liberty to take his own course. This young man trembled when a clear,
soprano voice, which he preferred to the most beautiful music in the
world, cried to him, "Where are you going, Camille?"
He bowed over his horse's neck, drew down his hat over his eyes, and
replied, "To Maisons."
"Do not go there. I have just left because there is a dreadful old
woman there who says horrid things." Then Mlle. Moriaz added, in a
queenly tone, "You cannot pass--you are my prisoner."
She obliged him to turn back; ten minutes later she had alighted from
her coupe, he had sprung from his saddle, and they were seated side by
side on a rustic bench.
A few days previous M. Langis had met M. Moriaz, who had complained
bitterly of being forsaken by him as well as by Mme. de Lorcy, and who
had extracted from him the promise to come and see him. Camille had
kept this promise. Had he chosen well his time of doing so? The truth
is, he had been both rejoiced and heart-broken to learn that Mlle.
Moriaz was absent. Man is a strange combination of contradictions,
especially a man who is in love. In the same way he had bestowed both
blessings and imprecations upon Heaven for permitting him to meet
Antoinette. During some moments he had lost countenance, but had
quickly recovered himself; he had formed the generous resolution to
act out consistently his role of friend and brother. He had acquitted
himself of it so well at Saint Moritz, that Antoinette believed him
cured of the caprice of a day with which she had inspired him and
which she had never taken seriously.
"The last time I saw you," said she, "you dropped a remark that pained
me, but I am pleased to think that you did not mean to do so."
"I am a terrible culprit," he rejoined, "and I smite myself upon the
breast therefore. I was wanting in respect to your idol."
"Fortunately, my idol knew nothing about it, and, if he had known, I
would have appeased him by saying: 'Pardon this young man; he does not
always know what he is saying.' "
"He even seldom knows it; but what help is there for it? A man given
to fainting always did seem a curiosity to me. I know we should
endeavour to conquer our prejudices; every country has its customs,
and, since Poland is a country that pleases you, I will make an effort
to see only its good sides."
"Now that is the right way to talk. I hope this very day to reconcile
you with Count Larinski; stay and dine with us--he will be here very
soon; the first duty of the people whom I love is to love one
another."
M. Langis at first energetically declined accepting this invitation;
Antoinette insisted: he ended by bowing in sign of obedience. Youth
has a taste for suffering.
Tracing figures in the gravel with a stick he had picked up, M. Langis
said, in a wholly unconstrained voice: "I do not wish M. Larinski any
harm, and yet you must admit that I would have the right to detest him
cordially, for I had the honour two years ago, if I mistake not, of
asking your hand in marriage. Do you remember it?"
"Perfectly," she replied, fixing upon him her pure, clear eyes; "but I
ought to avow to you that this fancy of yours never seemed to me
either very reasonable or very serious."
"You are wrong; I can certify to you that your refusal plunged me for
as much as forty-eight hours into the depths of despair--I mean one of
those genuine despairs that neither eat, drink, nor sleep, and that
speak openly of suicide!"
"And at the end of forty-eight hours were you consoled?"
"/Eh! bon Dieu/, it surely was time to come to reason. I had hesitated
a long time before asking your hand, because I thought, 'If she
refuses me, I cannot see her any more.' But I still do see you, so all
is well!"
"And how soon do you mean to marry?"
"I? Never! I shall die a bachelor. An aspirant to the hand of Mlle.
Moriaz, being unable to win her, could not care for another woman.
Nothing remains but to strike the attitude of the inconsolable lover."
"And when this ceases to hinder one from eating, drinking, or sleeping
--what then?"
"One becomes interesting without being inconvenienced by the
consequences," he gaily interposed. Then, letting his eyes wander idly
around for a moment, he added: "It seems to me that you have in some
way changed the order of this terrace; put to the right what was at
the left, thinned out the shrubbery, cut the trees; I feel completely
lost here."
"You mistake greatly; nothing is changed here; it is you who have
become forgetful. How! you now longer recognise this terrace, scene of
so many exploits? I was a thorough tyrant; I did with you what I
pleased. You revolted sometimes, but in his heart the slave adored his
chains. Open your eyes. See! here is the sycamore you climbed one day
to escape me when I wanted you to make believe that you were a girl,
as you said, and you had little fancy for such a silly role. There is
the alley where we played ball, and yonder the hedge and the grove
where we played hide-and-seek."
"Say rather, /cligne-musette/; it is more poetical," he rejoined.
"When I was down in Transylvania I made a /chanson/ about it all, and
set it myself to music."
"Sing me your /chanson/."
"You are mocking at me; my voice is false, as you well know; but I
will consent to recite it to you. The rhymes are not rich--I am no son
of Parnassus."
With these words, lowering his voice, not daring to look her in the
face, he recited the couplets.
"Your /chanson/ is very pretty," said she; "but it does not tell the
truth, for here we are sitting together on this bench; we have not
lost each other at all."
She was so innocent that she had no idea of the torture she was
inflicting, and he saw this so plainly that he could not so much as
have the satisfaction of finding fault with her; yet he asked himself
whether in the best woman's heart there was not a foundation of
cruelty, of unconscious ferocity. He felt the tears start to his eyes;
he scarcely could restrain them; he abruptly bowed his head, and began
to examine a beautiful horned beetle, which was just crossing the
gravel-path at a quick pace, apparently having some very important
affairs to regulate. When M. Langis raised his head his eyes were dry,
his face serene, his lips smiling.
"It is very certain," he observed, "that two years ago I must have
appeared supremely ridiculous to you. This little playmate of old,
this foolish little Camille, to attempt to transform himself into a
husband! The pretension was absurd indeed."
"Not at all," she replied; "but I thought at once that it was a
mistake. Little Camilles are apt to be hot-headed and fanciful; they
are subject to self-deceptions regarding their sentiments. Friendship
and love, however, are two entirely different things! I once said to
Mlle. Moiseney that a woman never should marry an intimate friend,
because it would be a sure way of losing him as such, and friends are
good to keep."
"Bah! How much do you care now for yours? I find my role very modest,
very insignificant. Open the trap-door--it is time for me to
disappear."
"Bad counsel! I shall not open the trap-door. One always has need of
friends. I can readily imagine the possibility of the very happiest
married woman needing some advice or assistance that she could not ask
of her husband, for husbands do not understand everything. If ever
such a thing happens to me, Camille, I shall turn to you."
"Agreed!" he cried; "to help you out of embarrassment, I would run, if
necessary, all the way from Transylvania."
He held out his right hand, which she shook warmly.
At this moment they heard a step that Mlle. Moriaz at once recognised,
and Count Larinski appeared from the walk bordering the house.
Antoinette hastened to meet him, and led him forward by laying hold of
the tip of his glove, which he was in the act of drawing off.
"Gentlemen," said she, "I do not need to present you to each other;
you are already acquainted."
It is a very difficult thing to lead two men who do not like each
other into conversation: the present effort proved a total failure.
Fortunately for all parties, M. Moriaz shortly made his appearance at
the end of the terrace, and M. Langis arose to join him. Antoinette
remained alone with Samuel Brohl, who at once rather brusquely asked:
"Has M. Langis the intention of remaining here forever?"
"He has only just arrived," she replied.
"And you will send him away soon?"
"I thought so little of sending him away that I asked him to dinner,
in order to give you an opportunity of becoming more fully acquainted
with him."
"I thank you for your amiable intentions, but M. Langis pleases me
little."
"What have you against him?"
"I have met him sometimes at Mme. de Lorcy's, and he always has shown
me a most dubious politeness. I scent in him an enemy."
"Pure imagination! M. Langis has been my friend from childhood up, and
I have forewarned him that it is his duty to love the people whom I
love."
"I mistrust these childhood's friends," said he, growing excited. "I
should not wonder if this youth was in love with you."
"Ah, indeed! then you should have heard him but now. He has been
reminding me, this youth, that two years ago he sought my hand, and he
assured me that forty-eight hours sufficed to console him for my
refusal."
"I did not know that the case was so grave, or the personage so
dangerous. Truly, do you mean to keep him to dinner?"
"I invited him; can I retract?"
"Very well, I will leave the place," he cried, rising.
She uplifted her eyes to his face and remained transfixed with
astonishment, so completely was his face transformed. His contracted
brows formed an acute angle, and he had a sharp, hard, evil air. This
was a Larinski with whom she was not yet acquainted, or rather it was
Samuel Brohl who had just appeared to her--Samuel Brohl, who had
entered upon the scene as suddenly as though he had emerged from a
magic surprise-box. She could not remove her eyes from him, and he at
once perceived the impression he was making on her. Forthwith Samuel
Brohl re-entered his box, whose cover closed over him, and it was a
true Pole who said to Mlle. Moriaz, in a grave, melancholy, and
respectful tone:
"Pardon me, I am not always master of my impressions."
"That is right," said she; "and you will remain, won't you?"
"Impossible," he replied; "I should be cross, and you would not be
pleased."
She urged him; he opposed her entreaties with a polite but firm
resistance.
"Adieu," said she. "When shall I see you again?"
"To-morrow--or the day after--I do not know."
"Really, do you not know?"
He perceived that her eyes were full of tears. Tenderly kissing her
hand he said, with a smile that consoled her:
"This is the first time we have had any dispute; it is possible that I
may be wrong, but it seems to me that if I were a woman I would not
willingly marry a man who was always right."
These words uttered, he assured himself anew that her eyes were humid,
and then he left, charmed to have proved the extent of the empire he
held over her.
When she rejoined M. Langis, the young man asked:
"Does it chance to be I who put Count Larinski to flight? If so, I
should be quite heart-broken."
"Reassure yourself," said she, "he came expressly to inform me that
his evening was not free."
The dinner was only passably lively. Mlle. Moiseney owed M. Langis a
grudge; she could not forgive him for having made fun of her more than
once--in her eyes an unpardonable sin. M. Moriaz was enchanted to find
himself once more in company with his dear Camille; but he kept asking
himself, mournfully, "Why is not he to be my son-in-law?" Antoinette
had several attacks of abstraction; she did not, however, omit the
least friendly attention to Camille. Love had become master of this
generous soul; it might cause it to commit many imprudences, but it
was not in its power to cause it to commit an injustice.
At nine o'clock M. Langis mounted his horse and took his departure.
Meanwhile, Mlle. Moriaz, her arm resting on the ledge of her window,
was meditating on the strange conduct of Count Larinski as she gazed
on the stars; the sky was without clouds, unless a little black speck
above Mount-Valerien might be so called. Mlle. Moriaz's heart swelled
with emotion, and she felt implicit confidence that all would be
arranged the next day. What is one black spot in the immensity of a
starry sky?
CHAPTER X
In all that Samuel Brohl did, even in his wildest freaks, there was
somewhat of calculation, or contrivance. Unquestionably, he had
experienced intense displeasure at encountering M. Camille Langis at
Cormeilles; he had, doubtless, very particular and very personal
reasons for not liking him. He knew, however, that there was need for
controlling his temper, his impressions, his rancour; and, if he
ceased to do so for a moment, it was because he counted upon deriving
advantage therefrom. He was impatient to enter into possession, to
feel his good-fortune sheltered from all hazards; delays,
procrastinations, long waiting, displeased and irritated him. He
suspected M. Moriaz of purposely putting his shoulder to the wheel of
time, and of preparing a contract that would completely tie the hands
of Count Larinski. He resolved to seize the first opportunity of
proving that he was mistrustful, stormy, susceptible, in the hope that
Mlle. Moriaz would become alarmed and say to her father, "I intend to
marry in three weeks, and without any conditions." The opportunity had
presented itself, and Samuel Brohl had taken good care not to lose it.
The next day he received the following note:
"You have caused me pain, a great deal of pain. Already! I passed a
sorrowful evening, and slept wretchedly all night. I have
reflected seriously upon our dispute; I have endeavoured to
persuade myself that I was in the wrong: I have neither been able
to succeed, nor to comprehend you. Ah! how your lack of confidence
astonishes me! It is so easy to believe when one loves. Please
write me word quickly that you also have reflected, and that you
have acknowledged your misdemeanour. I will not insist upon your
doing penance, your face humbled to the ground; but I will condemn
you to love me to-day more than yesterday, to-morrow more than
to-day. Upon these conditions, I will pass a sponge across your
grave error, and we shall speak of it no more.
"Ever yours. It is agreed, is it not?"
Samuel Brohl had the surprise of receiving at the same time another
letter, thus worded:
"MY DEAR COUNT: I cannot explain to myself your conduct; you no
longer give me any signs of life. I believed that I had some
claims upon you, and that you would hasten to announce to me in
person the great event of events, and seek my congratulations.
Come, I beg of you, and dine this evening at Maisons with Abbe
Miollens, who is dying to embrace you; he studies men in Horace,
you know, and he finds none whom he prefers to you.
"You need not answer, but come; else I will be displeased with you
as long as I live."
Samuel replied as follows to Mlle. Moriaz:
"Be assured I have suffered more than you. Forgive me; much should
be forgiven a man who has suffered much. My imagination is subject
to the wildest alarms. Great, unlooked-for joy has rendered me
mistrustful. I have been especially low-spirited of late. After
having resolutely fought against my happiness, I tremble now lest
it escape me; it appears to me too beautiful not to prove only a
dream. To be loved by you! How can I help fearing to lose the
great boon? Each evening I ask myself: 'Will she still love me
to-morrow?' Perhaps my anxiety is blended with secret remorse. My
pride, ever on the alert to take umbrage, has often been my
torment; you can tell me it is only self-love: I will endeavour to
cure myself of it, but this cannot be done in a day. During these
long months of waiting there will come to me more than one
suspicion, more than one troubled thought. I promise you, however,
that I shall maintain a rigid silence concerning them, and, if
possible, hide them.
"You condemn me, for my punishment, to love you to-day more than
yesterday; you know well this were impossible. No; I shall inflict
upon myself another chastisement. Mme. de Lorcy has invited me to
dinner. I suspect her of having a very mediocre feeling of good-
will for me, and I also accuse her of being cold and insensible;
of understanding nothing whatever of the heart's unreasonableness,
which is true wisdom. Nevertheless, I will refrain from declining
her invitation. It is at Maisons and not at Cormeilles that I
shall this day pass my evening. Are you content with me? Is not
the penance severe enough?
"But to-morrow--oh! I shall arrive at your home to-morrow by two
o'clock, and I shall enter by the little green gate at the foot of
the orchard. Will you do me a favour? Promenade about two o'clock
in the gravel-walk that I adore. The wall being low at that place,
I shall perceive from afar, before entering, the white silk of
your sun-umbrella. I am counting, you see, upon sunshine. How very
childish! Yet, even this is not strange; I was born three months
and a half ago; I commenced to live July 5th of this year; at four
o'clock in the afternoon, in the cathedral at Chur. Forgive me all
my errors, my suspicions, my childish absurdities."
Mlle. Moriaz concluded that it would be well to shorten the term of
waiting, and that she would ask Count Larinski to fix the date of
their marriage himself. As to the contract, she had immediate occasion
to speak of it to her father, who announced to her that he had invited
his notary, Maitre Noirot, to dine with him the next day.
She was silent a few moments, and then said, "Can you explain to me
the use of notaries?"
He replied about as did /le Philosophe sans le savoir/: "We only see
the present; notaries foresee the future and possible contingencies."
She replied that she did not believe in contingencies, and that she
did not like precautions, because they presupposed distrust, and might
appear offensive.
"We have charming weather to-day," said her father; "nevertheless
there is a possibility of rain to-morrow. If I started this evening on
a journey, I should carry my umbrella, without fearing to insult
Providence. Who speaks to you of offending M. Larinski? Not content
with approving of the step I propose taking, he will thank me for it.
Why did he at first refuse to marry you? Because you are rich, and he
is poor. The contract I wish to have drawn up will thoroughly set at
ease his disinterestedness and his pride."
"The question of money no longer exists for him," she eagerly replied;
"it is my desire that it should not be started again. And since you
like comparisons, let us suppose that you invited one of your friends
to take a turn in your garden. Your espaliers are laden with fruit,
and you know that your friend is an honest man, and that, besides, he
does not care for pears. Suppose you were to put handcuffs on him,
would he or would he not be insulted?"
He answered in an exceedingly vexed tone, that this was entirely
different, and Mlle. Moiseney having taken the liberty to interfere in
the discussion in Antoinette's behalf, declaring that Counts Larinski
are not to be distrusted, and that men of science are incapable of
comprehending delicacy of sentiment, he gave full vent to his wrath,
telling the worthy demoiselle to meddle with what concerned her. For
the first time in his life he was seriously angry. Antoinette caressed
him into good-humour, promised that she would put on the best possible
face to Maitre Noirot, that she would pay religious attention to his
counsels, and that she would endeavour to profit by them.
While M. Moriaz was engaged in this stormy interview with his
daughter, Samuel Brohl was /en route/ for Maisons. After the first
flush of astonishment, the note and invitation of Mme. de Lorcy had
pleased him immensely; he saw in it the proof that she had ceased to
struggle against the inevitable--against Samuel Brohl and destiny;
that she had resolved to bear her disappointment with a cheerful
countenance. He formed the generous resolution to console her for her
vexation; to gain her good-will by force of modesty and graceful
attentions.
Alone in his compartment of the cars, Samuel Brohl was happy,
perfectly happy. He was nearing port; he held it for an established
fact that, before a fortnight, the banns would be published. Was he
alone in his compartment? An adored image kept him company; he spoke
to it, it replied to him. Blended with a rather uncommon frigidity of
soul, Samuel Brohl had an imagination that readily took fire, and,
when his imagination was kindled, he felt within him something warm,
which he took for a heart, and sincerely persuaded himself that he had
such an organ. At this moment he saw Antoinette as he had left her the
evening previous, her face animated, her cheeks flushed, her
countenance full of reproach, her eyes tearful. She never had appeared
to him so charming. He believed himself so madly in love that he was
inclined to mock a little at himself. He teased in anticipation the
joys that were in reserve for him; he revelled in thought of the day
and the hour when this superb creature would be his, when he could
view her as his own undisputed possession, and devour page after page,
chapter after chapter, of this elegantly printed, richly bound book.
However, he was not the man to wholly absorb himself in such a
reverie. His thoughts travelled farther; in idea he embraced his
entire future, which he fashioned out at pleasure. He took leave of
his sorrowful past as a blind man who by some miracle recovers his
sight, parts from his dog and his staff--troublesome witnesses of evil
days. He had done with petty employments, with ungrateful toil, with
humiliating servitude, with anxiety about the morrow, with the
necessity for counting every sou, with meagre repasts, with sordid
expedients, with sorrow, distress, and usuries; to all these he said
farewell. Henceforth he would pick up silver and gold by the
shovelful; he would have a share in abundance of festivals--the joy of
doing nothing--the pleasure of commanding--all the sweetness and all
the calm satisfaction of delightful egotism--reposing in a bed of
eider-down--fed upon delicate birds--owning two or three houses, a
carriage, horses, and a box at the opera. What a future! At intervals
Samuel Brohl passed his tongue over his lips; they were parched with
thirst.
Alnaschar the Lazy received one hundred drachms of silver as his
entire patrimony, and he promised himself that he would one day marry
the daughter of the grand-vizier. He meant to clothe himself like a
prince, to mount upon a horse with a saddle of fine gold and housings
of gold, richly embroidered with diamonds and pearls. He proposed to
see that his wife formed good habits, to train her to obedience, to
teach her to stand before him and be always ready to wait upon him; he
resolved to discipline her with his looks, his hand, and his foot.
Samuel Brohl possessed a calmer spirit than the Athenian Hippoclide;
he was less brutal than Alnaschar of Bagdad: was he much less
ferocious? He proposed, he also, to educate his wife; he intended that
the daughter of the grand-vizier should consecrate herself wholly to
his happiness, to his service. To possess a beautiful slave, with
velvety eyes, chestnut hair, tinged with gold, who would make of
Samuel Brohl her padishah and her god, who would pass her life at his
knees on the alert for his wishes, reading his good pleasure in his
face, attentive to his fancies and to his eye-brows, belonging to him
body and soul, uplifting to him the gaze of a timid gazelle or a
faithful spaniel--such was his dream of conjugal felicity. And little
need would he have to exert himself much in the education of Mlle.
Antoinette Moriaz. Love would charge itself with that. She adored
Samuel Brohl, and he relied upon her devotion; it were impossible that
she could refuse him anything! She was prepared in advance for every
compliance, every obedience; she was ready to be his humble servant in
all things. Knaves make it their boast that they can readily fathom
honest people; the truth is, they only half comprehend them. Honest
people have sentiments, as do certain languages, reputed easy, which
are full of mystery, of refined delicacy, inaccessible to the vulgar
mind. A commercial traveller often learns to speak Italian in three
weeks, and yet never really knows the language; Samuel Brohl had
gained a superficial knowledge of Mlle. Moriaz in a few days, and yet
he was far from having a true comprehension of her.
He arrived at Maisons in the most cheerful, self-satisfied frame of
mind. As he walked through the park, he remembered that Mme. de Lorcy
had lost her only two children when they were still of a tender age;
that she was therefore free to will her property as she pleased; that
she had a short neck, an apoplectic temperament; that Antoinette was
her goddaughter; that although she was piqued with Count Larinski the
count was adroit, and would find a way to regain her sympathies. The
park appeared to him magnificent; he admired its long, regular alleys,
which had the appearance of extending as far as Peking; he paused some
moments before the purple beech, and it seemed to him that there must
be some resemblance between this beautiful tree and himself. He
contemplated with the eyes of proprietorship the terrace planted with
superb lindens, and he decided that he would establish himself in his
Maisons chateau, that his pretty Cormeilles villa would merely be his
country-seat. As it may be seen, his imagination refused him nothing;
it placed happiness and wealth untold at his command.
We are unable to state whether Mme. de Lorcy actually had an
apoplectic temperament; the one thing certain is, that she was not
dead. Samuel Brohl perceived her from afar on the veranda, which she
had just stepped out upon in order to watch for his arrival. He had
forgotten himself in the park, which should one day be his park, and
she was beginning to be uneasy about his coming.
She cried out to him: "At last! You always make us wait for you,"
adding, in a most affable tone, "We meet to-day under less tragic
circumstances than the last time you were here, and I hope you will
bear away a pleasanter remembrance of Maisons."
He respectfully kissed her hand, saying: "Happiness must be purchased;
I cannot pay too dearly for mine."
She ushered him into the /salon/, where he had scarcely set foot, when
he descried an old woman lounging on a /causeuse/, fanning herself as
she chatted with Abbe Miollens. He remained motionless, his eyes
fixed, scarcely breathing, cold as marble; it seemed to him that the
four walls of the /salon/ swayed from right to left, and left to
right, and that the floor was sliding from under his feet like the
deck of a pitching vessel.
The previous day, Antoinette once departed, Mme. de Lorcy had resumed
her attack on Princess Gulof, and the princess had ended by consenting
to delay her departure, to dine with the adventurer of the green eyes,
and to subject him to a close scrutiny. There she was; yes, it was
indeed she! The first impulse of Samuel Brohl was to regain the door
as speedily as possible; but he did nothing of the kind. He looked at
Mme. de Lorcy: she herself was regarding him with astonishment; she
wondered what could suddenly have overcome him; she could find no
explanation for the bewilderment apparent in his countenance. "It is a
mere chance," he thought at last; "she has not intentionally drawn me
into a snare." This thought was productive of a sort of half relief.
"/Eh bien!/ what is it?" she asked. "Has my poor /salon/ still the
misfortune to be hurtful to you?"
He pointed to a /jardiniere/, saying: "You are fond of hyacinths and
tuberoses; their perfume overpowered me for a moment. I fear you think
me very effeminate."
She replied in a caressing voice: "I take you for a most worthy man
who has terrible nerves; but you know by experience that if you have
weaknesses I have salts. Will you have my smelling-bottle?"
"You are a thousand times too good," he rejoined, and bravely marched
forward to face the danger. It is a well-known fact that dangers in a
silken robe are the most formidable of all.
Mme. de Lorcy presented him to the princess, who raised her chin to
examine him with her little glittering eyes. It seemed to him that
those gray orbs directed at him were two balls, which struck him in
the heart; he quivered from head to foot and asked himself confusedly
whether he were dead or living. He soon perceived that he was still
living; the princess had remained impassible--not a muscle of her face
had moved. She ended by bestowing upon Samuel a smile that was almost
gracious, and addressing to him some insignificant words, which he
only half understood, but which seemed to him exquisite--delicious. He
fancied that she was saying to him: "You have a chance, you were born
lucky; my sight has been impaired for some years, and I do not
recognise you. Bless your star, you are saved!" He experienced such a
transport of joy that he could have flung his arms about the neck of
Abbe Miollens, who came up to him with extended hand, saying:
"What have you been thinking about, my dear count? Since we last met a
very great event has been accomplished. What woman wishes, God wishes;
but, after all, my own humble efforts were not without avail, and I am
proud of it."
Mme. de Lorcy requested Count Larinski to offer his arm to Princess
Gulof and lead her out to dinner. He mechanically complied; but he had
not the strength to utter a syllable as he conducted the princess to
table. She herself said nothing; she seemed wholly busied in arranging
with her unoccupied hand a lock of her gray hair, which had strayed
too far over her forehead. He looked fixedly at this short, plump
hand, which one day in a fit of jealous fury had administered to him
two smart blows; his cheeks recognised it.
During dinner the princess was very gay: she paid more attention to
Abbe Miollens than to Count Larinski; she took pleasure in teasing the
good priest--in endeavouring to shock him a little. It was not easy to
shock him; to his natural, easy good-nature he united an innate
respect for grandeurs and for princesses. She did not neglect so good
an opportunity to air her monkey-development theories. He merrily
flung back the ball; he declared that he should prefer to be a fallen
angel rather than a perfected monkey; that in his estimation a parvenu
made a much sorrier figure in the world than the descendent of an old
family of ruined nobility. She replied that she was more democratic
than he. "It is pleasant to me," said she, "to think that I am a
progressive ape, who has a wide future before him, and who, by taking
proper pains, may hope to attain new advancement."
While they were thus chatting, Samuel Brohl was striving with all his
might to recover from the terrible blow he had received. He noted with
keen satisfaction that the eyesight of the princess was considerably
impaired; that the microscopic studies, for which she had always had a
taste, had resulted in rendering her somewhat near-sighted; that she
was obliged to look out carefully to find her way among her wine-
glasses. "She has not seen me for six years," thought he, "and I have
become a different man, I have undergone a complete metamorphosis; I
have difficulty sometimes in recognising myself. Formerly, my face was
close-shaven, now I have let my entire beard grow. My voice, my
accent, the poise of my head, my manners, the expression of my
countenance, all are changed; Poland has entered my blood--I am Samuel
no longer, I am Larinski." He blessed the microscope, which enfeebled
the sight of old women; he blessed Count Abel Larinski, who had made
of him his twin brother. Before the end of the repast he had recovered
all his assurance, all his aplomb. He began to take part in the
conversation: he recounted in a sorrowful tone a sorrowful little
story; he retailed sundry playful anecdotes with a melancholy grace
and sprightliness; he expressed the most chivalrous sentiments;
shaking his lion's mane, he spoke of the prisoner at the Vatican with
tears in his voice. It were impossible to be a more thorough Larinski.
The princess manifested, in listening to him, an astonished curiosity;
she concluded by saying to him: "Count, I admire you; but I believe
only in physiology, and you are a little too much of a Pole for me."
After they had left the table and repaired to the /salon/, several
callers dropped in. It was like a deliverance to Samuel. If the
society was not numerous enough for him to lose himself in it, at
least it served him as a shield. He held it for a certainty that the
princess had not recognised him; yet he did not cease feeling in her
presence unutterably ill at ease. This Calmuck visage of hers recalled
to him all the miseries, the shame, the hard, grinding slavery of his
youth; he could not look at her without feeling his brow burn as
though it were being seared with a hot iron.
He entered into conversation with a supercilious, haughty, and
pedantic counsellor-at-law, whose interminable monologues distilled
ennui. This fine speaker seemed charming to Samuel, who found in him
wit, knowledge, scholarship, and taste; he possessed the (in his eyes)
meritorious quality of not knowing Samuel Brohl. For Samuel had come
to divide the human race into two categories: the first comprehended
those well-to-do, thriving people who did not know a certain Brohl; he
placed in the second old women who did know him. He interrogated the
counsellor with deference, he hung upon his words, he smiled with an
air of approbation at all the absurdities that escaped him; he would
have been willing to have his discourse last three hours by the watch;
if this charming bore had shown symptoms of escaping him, he would
have held him back by the button.
Suddenly he heard a harsh voice, saying to Mme. de Lorcy: "Where is
Count Larinski? Bring him to me; I want to have a discussion with
him."
He could not do otherwise than comply; he quitted his counsellor with
regret, went over and took a seat in the arm-chair that Mme. de Lorcy
drew up for him at the side of the princess, and which had for him the
effect of a stool of repentance. Mme. de Lorcy moved away, and he was
left /tete-a-tete/ with Princess Gulof, who said to him, "I have been
told that congratulations are due to you, and I must make them at once
--although we are enemies."
"By what right are we enemies, princess?" he asked with a slightly
troubled feeling, which quickly passed away as she answered:
"I am a Russian and you are a Pole, but we shall have no time for
fighting; I leave for London to-morrow morning at seven o'clock."
He was on the point of casting himself at her feet and tenderly
kissing her two hands, in testimony of his gratitude. "To-morrow at
seven o'clock," he mentally ejaculated. "I have slandered her; she has
some good in her."
"When I say that I am a Russian," resumed the princess, "it is merely
a formal speech. Love of country is a prejudice, an idea that has had
its day, that had sense in the times of Epaminondas or of Theseus, but
that has it no longer. We live in the age of the telegraph, the
locomotive; and I know of nothing more absurd now than a frontier, or
more ridiculous than a patriot. Rumour says that you fought like a
hero in the insurrection of 1863; that you gave proof of incomparable
prowess, and that you killed with your own hand ten Cossacks? What
harm had they done you, those poor Cossacks? Do they not sometimes
haunt your dreams? Can you think of your victims without disquietude
and without remorse?"
He replied, in a dry, haughty tone: "I really do not know, princess,
how many Cossacks I have killed; but I do know that there are some
subjects on which I do not love to expatiate."
"You are right--I should not comprehend you. Don Quixote did not do
Sancho the honour to explain himself to him every day."
"Ah, I beg of you, let us talk a little of the man-monkey," he
observed, in a rather more pliant tone than he had at first assumed.
"That is a question that has the advantage of being neither Russian
nor Polish."
"You will not succeed that way in throwing me off the track. I mean to
tell you all the evil I think of you, no matter how it may incense
you. You uttered, at table, theories that displeased me. You are not
only a Polish patriot; you are an idealist, a true disciple of Plato,
and you do not know how I always have detested this man. In all these
sixty years that I have been in this world, I have seen nothing but
selfishness, and grasping after self-gratification. Twice during
dinner you spoke of an ideal world. What is an ideal world? Where is
it situated? You speak of it as of a house whose inhabitants you are
well acquainted with, whose key is in your pocket. Can you show me the
key? I promise not to steal it from you. O poet!--for you are quite as
much of a poet as of a Pole, which is not saying much--"
"Nothing remains but to hang me," he interposed, smilingly.
"No, I shall not hang you. Opinions are free, and there is room enough
in the world for all, even idealists. Besides, if you were to be
hanged, it would bring to the verge of despair a charming girl who
adores you, who was created expressly for you, and whom you will
shortly marry. When will the ceremony take place?"
"If I dared hope that you would do me the honour of being present,
princess, I should postpone it until your return from England."
"You are too amiable; but I could not on any consideration retard the
happiness of Mlle. Moriaz. There, my dear count, I congratulate you
sincerely. I had the pleasure to meet here the future Countess
Larinski. She is adorable! It is an exquisite nature, hers--a true
poet's wife. She must have brains, discernment; she has chosen you--
that says everything. As to her fortune, I dare not ask you if she has
any; you would turn away from me in disgust. Do idealists trouble
their heads with such vile questions?"
She leaned towards him, and, fanning herself excitedly, added: "These
poor idealists! they have one misfortune."
"And what is that, princess?"
"They dream with open eyes, and the awakening is sometimes
disagreeable. Ah, my dear Count Larinski, this, that, and the other,
/et cetera/. Thus endeth the adventure."
Then, stretching out her neck until her face was close to his, she
darted at him a venomous, viper-like look, and, in a voice that seemed
to cut into his tympanum like a sharp-toothed saw, she hissed, "Samuel
Brohl, the man with the green eyes, sooner or later the mountains must
meet!"
It seemed to him that the candelabra on the mantel-piece darted out
jets of flame, whose green, blue, and rose-coloured tongues ascended
to the ceiling; and it appeared to him as though his heart was beating
as noisily as a clock-pendulum, and that every one would turn to
inquire whence came the noise. But every one was occupied; no one
turned round; no one suspected that there was a man present on whom a
thunderbolt had just fallen.
The man passed his hand over his brow, which was covered with a cold
sweat; then dispelling, by an effort of will, the cloud that veiled
his eyes, he, in turn, leaned towards the princess, and with quivering
lip and evil, sardonic glance, said to her, in a low voice:
"Princess, I have a slight acquaintance with this Samuel Brohl of whom
you speak. He is not a man who will allow himself to be strangled
without a great deal of outcry. You are not much in the habit of
writing, nevertheless he received from you two letters, which he
copied, placing the originals in safety. If ever he sees the necessity
of appearing in a court of justice, these two letters can be made to
create quite a sensation, and unquestionably they will be the delight
of all the petty journals of Paris."
Thereupon he made a profound bow, respectfully took leave of Mme. de
Lorcy, and retired, followed by Abbe Miollens, who inflicted a real
torture by insisting on accompanying him to the station.
No longer restrained by Mme. de Lorcy's presence, the abbe spoke
freely of the happy event in which he prided himself to have been a
co-operator; he overwhelmed him with congratulation, and all the good
wishes he could possibly think of for his happiness. During a quarter
of an hour he lavished on him his myrrh and honey. Samuel would gladly
have wrung his neck. He could not breathe until the abbe had freed him
from his obtrusive society.
A storm muttered in the almost cloudless sky. It was a dry storm; the
rain fell elsewhere. The incessant lightning, accompanied by distant
thunder, gleamed from all quarters of the horizon, and darted its
luminous flashes over the whole extent of the plain. At intervals the
hills seemed to be on fire. Several times Samuel, who stood with his
nose against the glass of the car-door, thought that he saw in the
direction of Cormeilles the flaring light of a conflagration, in which
were blazing his dream and two millions, to say nothing of his great
expectations.
He bitterly reproached himself for his folly of the previous day. "If
I had passed yesterday evening with her," he thought, "surely she
would have spoken of the Princess Gulof. I would have taken measures
accordingly, and nothing would have happened." It was all M. Langis's
fault; it was to him that he imputed the disaster, and he hated him
all the more.
However, as he approached Paris, he felt his courage returning.
"Those two letters frightened the old fairy," he thought. "She will
think twice before she declares war with me. No, she will not dare."
He added: "And if she dared, Antoinette loves me so much that I can
make her believe what I please."
And he prepared in his mind what he should say, in case the event
occurred.
At that very moment Mme. de Lorcy, who was alone with Princess Gulof,
was saying: "Well, my dear, you have talked with my man. What do you
think of him?"
The princess distressed her by her reply. "I think, my dear," she
rejoined, "that Count Larinski is the last of the heroes of romance--
or, if you like better, the last of the troubadours; but I have no
reason to believe him to be an adventurer."
Mme. de Lorcy could get nothing further from Princess Gulof; she had
invited her to remain overnight; she got no pay for her hospitality.
The princess spent part of the night in reflecting and deliberating.
Samuel Brohl's insolent menace had produced some effect. She sought to
remember the exact purport of the two letters that formerly she had
had the imprudence to write him from London, while he was fulfilling a
business commission for her in Paris. On his return she had required
Samuel to burn these two compromising epistles, in her presence; he
had deceived her; he burned the envelopes and blank paper. The thought
of some day having her composition quoted in court, and printed
verbatim in the petty journals, terrified her, and made her blood boil
in her veins; she hardly cared to take Paris and St. Petersburg into
her confidence concerning an experience the recollection of which
caused her disgust--but to let such an admirable opportunity of
vengeance escape her! renounce the delight of the gods and of
princesses! permit this man who had just defied her to accomplish his
underhand intrigue! She could not resign herself to the idea, and the
consequence was that, during the night she spent at Maisons, she
scarcely closed her eyes.
CHAPTER XI
The following day, after breakfast, Mlle. Moriaz was walking alone on
the terrace. The weather was delightfully mild. She was bare-headed,
and had opened her white silk umbrella to protect herself from the
sun; for Samuel Brohl had been a true prophet--there was sunshine. She
looked up at the sky, where no trace was left of the wind-storm of the
preceding evening, and it seemed to her that she never had seen the
sky so blue. She looked at her flower-beds, and the flowers that she
saw were perhaps not there. She looked at the orchard, growing on the
slope that bordered the terrace, and she admired the foliage of the
apple-trees, over which Autumn, with liberal hand, had scattered gold
and purple; the grass there was as high as her knee, and was fragrant
and glossy. Above the apple-trees she saw the spire of the church at
Cormeilles; it seemed to amuse itself watching the flying clouds. It
was a high-festival day. The bells were ringing out a full peal; they
spoke to this happy girl of that far-off, mysterious land which we
remember, without ever having seen it. Their silvery voices were
answered by the cheerful cackling of the hens. She at once understood
that a joyful event was occurring in the poultry-yard, as well as in
the belfry; that below, as well as above, an arrival was being
celebrated. But what pleased her more than all the rest was the little
deep-set gateway with its ivy-hung arch at the end of the orchard. It
was through this gate that he would come.
She walked several times around the terrace. The gravel was elastic,
and rebounded under her step. Never had Mlle. Moriaz felt so light:
life, the present, the future, weighed no heavier on her brow than a
bird in the hand that holds it and feels it tremble. Her heart
fluttered like a bird; like a bird it had wings, and only asked to
fly. She believed that there was happiness everywhere; there seemed to
be joy diffused through the air, in the wind, in every sound, and in
all silences. She gazed smilingly on the vast landscape that was
spread out before her eyes, and the sparkling Seine sent back her
smile.
Some one came to announce that a lady, a stranger, had called, who
wished to speak with her. Immediately thereupon the stranger appeared,
and Mlle. Moriaz was most disagreeably surprised to find herself in
the presence of the Princess Gulof, whom she would willingly never
have seen again. "This is an unpleasant visit," she thought, as she
asked her guest to be seated on a rustic bench. "What can this woman
want with me?"
"It was M. Moriaz whom I desired to speak with," began the princess.
"I am told that he is out. I shall leave in a few hours for Calais; I
cannot await his return, and I have, therefore, decided to address
myself to you, mademoiselle. I have come here to render you one of
those little services that one woman owes to another; but, first of
all, I would like to be assured that I may rely on your absolute
discretion; I do not desire to appear in this affair."
"In what affair, madame?"
"One of no little consequence; it concerns your marriage."
"You are extremely kind to concern yourself with my marriage; but I do
not understand----"
"You will understand in a few moments. So you promise me----"
"I promise nothing, madame, before I understand."
The princess looked in amazement at Mlle. Moriaz. She had anticipated
talking with a dove; she found that the dove had a less accommodating
temper and a much stiffer neck than she had believed. She hesitated
for a moment whether she would not at once end the interview; she
decided, however, to proceed:
"I have a story to relate to you," she continued, in a familiar tone;
"listen with attention, I beg of you. I err if in the end you do not
find it interesting. Thirteen or fourteen years ago, one of those
unlucky chances, common in travelling, obliged me to pass several
hours in a miserable little town in Galicia. The inn, or rather the
tavern, where I stopped, was very dirty; the tavern-keeper, an ill-
looking little German Jew, was still dirtier than his tavern, and he
had a son who was in no better condition. I am given to forming
illusions about people. In spite of his filth, this youth interested
me. His stupid father refused him all instruction, and beat him
unmercifully; he appeared intelligent; he made me think of a fresh-
water fish condemned to live in a quagmire. He was called Samuel
Brohl: remember the name. I pitied him and I saw no other way of
saving him than to buy him of his father. This horrid little man
demanded an exorbitant price. I assure you his pretensions were
absurd. Well, my dear, I was out of cash; I had with me just the money
sufficient for the expenses of the rest of the journey; but I wore on
my arm a bracelet that had the advantage of pleasing him. It was a
Persian trinket, more singular than beautiful. I can see it now; it
was formed of three large plates of gold ornamented with grotesque
animals, and joined by a filigree network. I valued this bracelet; it
had been brought to me from Teheran. By means of a secret spring, one
of the plates opened, and I had had engraved inside the most
interesting dates of my life, and underneath them my profession of
faith, with which you have no concern. Ah! my dear, when one has once
been touched by that dangerous passion called philanthropy, one
becomes capable of exchanging a Persian bracelet for a Samuel Brohl,
and I swear to you that it was a real fool's bargain that I made. This
miserable fellow paid me badly for my kindness to him. I sent him to
the university, and later I took him into my service as secretary. He
had a black heart. One fine morning, he took to his heels and
disappeared."
"That was revolting ingratitude," interrupted Antoinette, "and your
good work, madame, was poorly recompensed; but I do not see what
relation Samuel Brohl can have to my marriage."
"You are too impatient, my darling. If you had given me time I would
have told you that I had had the very unexpected pleasure of dining
yesterday with him at Mme. de Lorcy's. This German has made great
advances since I lost sight of him; not content with becoming a Pole,
he is now a person of vast importance. He is called Count Abel
Larinski, and he is to marry very soon Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz."
The blood rushed into Antoinette's cheeks, and her eyes flashed fire.
Princess Gulof entirely mistook the sentiment that animated her, and
said: "My dear, don't be angry, don't be indignant, your indignation
will not help you at all. Without doubt, a rascal capable of deceiving
such a charming girl as you deserves death ten times over; but be
careful not to make an exposure! My dear, scandal always splashes mud
over every one concerned, and there is a rather vulgar but exceedingly
sensible Turkish proverb that says that the more garlic is crushed,
the stronger becomes its odour. Believe me, you would not come off
without a tinge of ridicule; certain mistakes always appear a little
ridiculous, and it is useless to proclaim them to the universe. Thank
Heaven! you are not yet the Countess Larinski--I arrived in time to
save you. Be silent about the discovery you have just made; by no
means mention it to Samuel Brohl, and seek a proper pretext to break
with him. You would not be a woman if you could not find ten for one."
Mlle. Moriaz could no longer refrain her anger. "Madame," she
exclaimed excitedly, "will you declare to M. Larinski, in my presence,
that his name is Samuel Brohl?"
"I made that declaration to him yesterday--it is useless to repeat it.
He was nearer dead than alive, and I was truly sorry for the state
into which I had thrown him. I cannot disguise from myself that I am
the cause of all this; why did I take the boy from his father's tavern
and his natal mud? Perhaps there he would have remained honest. It was
I who launched him into the world and gave him the desire to advance,
I put the trump-cards into his hand, but he found that he could not
win fast enough by fair play, so he ended by cheating. It is not my
place to overwhelm the poor devil--we owe some consideration to those
who are under obligations to us; and, once more, I desire not to
appear further in this business. Promise me that Samuel Brohl never
will be informed of the measures I have taken."
She replied, in a haughty tone: "I promise you, madame, that I never
will do Count Larinski the wrong to repeat to him a single word of the
very likely story you have related to me."
The princess rose hastily, remained standing before Mlle. Moriaz, and
contemplated her in silence; finally she said, in tones of the most
cutting sarcasm: "Ah! you do not believe me, my dear. Decidedly you do
not believe me. You are right; you should not put faith in an old
woman's childish chatter. No, my darling, there is no Samuel Brohl: I
dined yesterday at Maisons with the most authentic of Counts Larinski,
and nothing remains for me to say but to present my best wishes for
the certain happiness of the Countess Larinski, /et cetera/--of the
Countess Larinski and company."
With these words she bowed, turned on her heels, and disappeared.
Mlle. Moriaz remained an instant as if stunned by a blow. She
questioned herself as to whether she had not seen a vision, or had had
the nightmare. Was it, indeed, a Russian princess of flesh and blood
who had just been there, who had been seated close beside her, and had
conversed so strangely with her that the belfry of Cormeilles could
not hear it without falling into a profound stupor? In fact, the
belfry of Cormeilles had become silent, its bells no longer rang; an
appalling silence reigned for two leagues round.
Antoinette soon controlled her emotions. "The day before yesterday,"
she thought, "this woman appeared to me to be deranged: she is a
lunatic; I wish that Abel were here, he could tell me what happened at
dinner between him and this dotard, and we should laugh over it
together. Perhaps nothing happened at all. The Princess Gulof should
be confined. They do very wrong to let maniacs like that go at large.
It is dangerous; the bells of Cormeilles have ceased ringing. Ah! /bon
Dieu/, who knows? Mme. de Lorcy surely has a hand in this business; it
is the result of some grand plot. How many acts are there in the play?
Here we are at the second or third; but there are some jokes that are
very provoking. I shall end by being seriously angry."
Princess Gulof appeared to have entirely failed in her object. It
seemed to Mlle. Moriaz that for the last twenty minutes she loved
Count Larinski more than ever before.
The hour drew near; he was on the way; she had never been so impatient
to see him. She saw some one at the end of the terrace. It was M.
Camille Langis, who was going towards the laboratory.
He turned his head, retraced his steps, and came to her. M. Moriaz had
asked him to translate two pages of a German memoir which he had not
been able to understand. Camille was bringing the translation; perhaps
that was the reason of his coming back to Cormeilles after two days;
perhaps, too, it was only a pretext.
Mlle. Moriaz could not help thinking that his visit was inopportune;
that he had chose an unfortunate time for it. "If the count finds him
still here," thought she, "I am not afraid that he will make a scene,
but all his pleasure will be spoiled." There was a tinge of coldness
in her welcome to M. Langis, of which he was sensible.
"I am in the way," he said, making a movement to retire.
She kept him, and altered her tone: "You are never in the way,
Camille. Sit there."
He seated himself, and talked of the races at Chantilly, that he had
attended the day before.
She listened to him, bowed her head in sign of approval; but she heard
his voice through a mist that veiled her senses. She lifted her hand
to brush away a wasp that annoyed her by its buzzing. The lace of her
cuff, in falling back, left her wrist exposed.
"What a curious bracelet you have!" said M. Langis.
"Have you not seen it before?" she replied. "It is some time
since----"
She interrupted herself, a sudden idea occurring to her. She looked at
her wrist. This bracelet from which she never was parted--this
bracelet that Count Larinski had given to her--this bracelet that he
loved because it had belonged to his mother, and that the late
Countess Larinski had worn as long as she lived--resembled none other;
but Mlle. Moriaz observed that it had a strong resemblance to the
Persian bracelet that the Princess Gulof had described to her, and
which she had exchanged for Samuel Brohl. The three gold plates, the
grotesque animals, the filigree network--nothing was wanting. She took
it from her arm and handed it to M. Langis, saying to him: "There is,
it seems, something written on the interior of one of these plates;
but you must know the secret to be able to open it. Can you guess
secrets?"
He carefully examined the bracelet. "Two of these plates," said he,
"are solid, and of heavy gold; the third is hollow, and might serve as
a case. I see a little hinge that is almost invisible; but I seek in
vain for the secret--I cannot find it."
"Is the hinge strong?"
"Not very, and the lid easily could be forced open."
"That is what I want you to do," she rejoined.
"What are you thinking of? I would not spoil a trinket that you
value."
She replied: "I have made the acquaintance of a Russian princess who
has a mania for physiology and dissection. I have caught the disease,
and I want to begin to dissect. I am fond of this trinket, but I want
to know what is inside. Do as I tell you," she continued. "You will
find in the laboratory the necessary instruments. Go; the key is in
the door."
He consulted her look; her eye was burning, her voice broken, and she
repeated: "Go--go! Do you not understand me?"
He obeyed, went to the laboratory, taking the bracelet with him. After
five minutes he returned saying: "I am very unskilful; I crushed the
lid in raising it; but you wished it, and your curiosity will be
satisfied."
She could, in truth, satisfy her curiosity. She eagerly seized the
bracelet, and on the back of the plate, now left bare, she saw
engraved in the gold, characters almost microscopic in size. Through
the greatest attention she succeeded in deciphering them. She
distinguished several dates, marking the year, the month, and the day,
when some important event had occurred to the Princess Gulof. These
dates, accompanied by no indication of any kind, formerly sufficed to
recall the principal experiments that she had practised on mankind
before having discovered Samuel Brohl. The result had not been very
cheerful, for beneath this form of calendar stood a confession of
faith, thus expressed, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" This
melancholy declaration was signed, and the signature was perfectly
legible. Mlle. Moriaz spelled it out readily, although at that moment
her sight was dim, and she was convinced that the trinket, which Count
Larinski had presented to her as a family relic, had belonged to Anna
Petrovna, Princess Gulof.
She grew mortally pale, and lost consciousness; she seemed on the
verge of an attack of delirium. In the agitation of her mind, she
imagined that she saw herself at a great distance, at the end of the
world, and very small; she was climbing a mountain, on the other side
of which there was a man awaiting her. She questioned herself, "Am I,
or is this traveller, Mlle. Moriaz?" She closed her eyes, and saw a
blank abyss open before her, in which her life was ingulfed, whirled
about, like the leaf of a tree in a whirlpool.
M. Langis drew near her, and, lightly slapping the palms of her hands,
said, "What is the matter?"
She roused herself, made an effort to lift her head, and let it sink
again. The trouble that lay in the depths of her heart choked her; she
experienced an irresistible need of confiding in some one, and she
judged that the man who was talking to her was one of those men to
whom a woman can tell her secret, one of those souls to whom she could
pour out her shame without blushing. She began, in a broken voice, a
confused, disconnected recital that Camille could scarcely follow.
However, he finally understood; he felt himself divided between an
immense pity for her despair, and a fierce lover's joy that tightened
his throat and well-nigh strangled him.
The belfry of Cormeilles had recovered its voice; two o'clock rang out
on the air. Antoinette rose and exclaimed: "I was to meet him at the
pretty little gate that you see from here! He will have the right to
be angry if I keep him waiting."
At once she hastened towards the balustered steps that led from the
terrace to the orchard. M. Langis followed her, seeking to detain her.
"You need not see him again," said he. "I will meet him. Pray, charge
me with your explanations."
She repelled him and replied, in a voice of authority: "I wish to see
him, no one but I can say to him what I have in my heart. I command
you to remain here; I intend that he shall blame no one but me." She
added with a curl of the lips meant for a smile: "You must remember, I
do not believe yet that I have been deceived; I will not believe it
until I have read the lie in his eyes."
She hastily descended into the orchard, and, during five minutes, her
eye fixed on the gate, she waited for Samuel Brohl. Her impatience
counted the seconds, and yet Mlle. Moriaz could have wished the gate
would never open. There was near by an old apple-tree that she loved;
in the old days she had more than once suspended her hammock from one
of its arched and drooping branches. She leaned against the gnarled
trunk of the old tree. It seemed to her that she was not alone; some
one protected her.
At last the gate opened and admitted Samuel Brohl, who had a smile on
his lips. His first words were: "And your umbrella! You have forgotten
it?"
She replied: "Do you not see that there is no sunshine?" And she
remained leaning against the apple-tree.
He uplifted his hand to show her the blue sky; he let it fall again.
He looked at Antoinette, and he was afraid. He guessed immediately
that she knew all. At once he grew audacious.
"I spent a dull day yesterday," said he. "Mme. de Lorcy invited me to
dine with a crazy woman; but the night made up for it. I saw Engadine
in my dreams--the firs, the Alpine pines, the emerald lakes, and a red
hood."
"I, too, dreamed last night. I dreamed that the bracelet you gave me
belonged to the crazy woman of whom you speak, and that she had her
name engraved on it."
She threw him the bracelet: he picked it up, examined it, turned and
returned it in his trembling fingers. She grew impatient. "Look at the
place that has been forced open. Don't you know how to read?"
He read, and became stupefied. Who would have believed that this
trinket that he had found among his father's old traps had come to him
from Princess Gulof? that it was the price she had paid for Samuel
Brohl's ignominy and shame? Samuel was a fatalist; he felt that his
star had set, that Fate had conspired to ruin his hopes, that he was
found guilty and condemned. His heart grew heavy within him.
"Can you tell me what I ought to think of a certain Samuel Brohl?" she
asked.
That name, pronounced by her, fell on him like a mass of lead; he
never would have believed that there could be so much weight in a
human word. He trembled under the blow; then he struck his brow with
his clinched hand and replied:
"Samuel Brohl is a man as worthy of your pity as he is of mine. If you
knew all that he has suffered, all that he has dared, you could not
help deeply pitying him and admiring him. Listen to me; Samuel Brohl
is an unfortunate man--"
"Or a wretch!" she interrupted, in a terrible voice. She was seized by
a fit of nervous laughter; she cried out: "Mme. Brohl! I will not be
called Mme. Brohl. Ah! that poor Countess Larinski!"
He had a spasm of rage that would have terrified her had she
conjectured what agitated him. He raised his head, crossed his arms on
his breast, and said, with a bitter smile:
"It was not the man that you loved, it was the count."
She replied, "The man whom I loved never lied."
"Yes, I lied!" he cried, gasping for breath. "I drank that cup of
shame without remorse or disgust. I lied because I loved you madly. I
lied because you were dearer to me than my honour. I lied because I
despaired of touching your heart, and any road seemed good that led to
you. Why did I meet you? why could I not see you without recognising
in you the dream of my whole life? Happiness had passed me by, it was
about to take flight; I caught it in a trap--I lied. Who would not
lie, to be loved by you?"
Samuel Brohl never had looked so handsome. Despair and passion kindled
a sombre flame in his eyes; he had the sinister charm of a fiery
Satan. He fixed on Antoinette a fascinating glance that said: "What
matter my name, my lies, and the rest? My face is not a mask, and I am
the man who pleased you." He had not the least suspicion of the
astonishing facility with which Antoinette had taken back the heart
that she had given away so easily; he did not suspect that miracles
can be wrought by contempt. In the middle ages people believed in
golems, figures in clay of an entrancing beauty, which had all the
appearance of life. Under a lock of hair was written, in Hebrew
characters, on their brow, the word "Truth." If they chanced to lie,
the word was obliterated; they lost all their charm, the clay was no
longer anything but clay.
Mlle. Moriaz divined Samuel Brohl's thought; she exclaimed: "The man I
loved was he whose history you related to me."
He would have liked to kill her, so that she never should belong to
another. Behind Antoinette, not twenty steps distant, he descried the
curb of a well, and grew dizzy at the sight. He discovered, with
despair, that he was not made of the stuff for crime. He dropped down
on his knees in the grass, and cried, "If you will not pardon me,
nothing remains for me but to die!" She stood motionless and
impassive. She repeated between her teeth Camille Langis's phrase: "I
am waiting until this great comedian has finished playing his piece."
He rose and started to run towards the well. She was in front of him
and barred the passage, but at the same moment she felt two hands
clasp her waist, and the breath of two lips that sought her lips and
that murmured, "You love me still, since you do not want me to die."
She struggled with violence and horror; she succeeded, by a frantic
effort, in disengaging herself from his grasp. She fled towards the
house. Samuel Brohl rushed after her in mad pursuit; he was just
reaching her, when he suddenly stopped. He had caught sight of M.
Langis, hurrying from out a thicket, where he had been hidden. Growing
uneasy, he had approached the orchard through a path concealed by the
heavy foliage. Antoinette, out of breath, ran to him, gasping,
"Camille, save me from this man!" and she threw herself into his arms,
which closed about her with delight. He felt her sink; she would have
fallen had he not supported her.
At the same instant a menacing voice saluted him with the words,
"Monsieur, we will meet again!"
"To-day, if you will," he replied.
Antoinette's wild excitement had given place to insensibility; she
neither saw nor heard; her limbs no longer sustained her. Camille had
great difficulty in bringing her to the house; she could not ascend
the steps of the terrace; he was obliged to carry her. Mlle. Moiseney
saw him, and filled the air with her cries. She ran forward, she
lavished her best care on her queen. All the time she was busy in
bringing her to her senses she was asking Camille for explanations, to
which she did not pay the least attention; she interrupted him at
every word to exclaim: "This has been designed, and you are at the
bottom of the plot. I have suspected you--you owe Antoinette a grudge.
Your wounded vanity never has recovered from her refusal, and you are
determined to be revenged. Perhaps you flatter yourself that she will
end by loving you. She does not love you, and she never will love you.
Who are you, to dare compare yourself with Count Larinski? Be silent!
Do I believe in Samuel Brohl? I do not know Samuel Brohl. I venture my
head that there is no such person as Samuel Brohl."
"Not much of a venture, mademoiselle," replied M. Moriaz, who had
arrived in the meantime.
Antoinette remained during an hour in a state of mute languor; then a
violent fever took possession of her. When the physician who had been
sent for arrived, M. Langis accompanied him into the chamber of the
sick girl. She was delirious: seated upright, she kept continually
passing her hand over her brow; she sought to efface the taint of a
kiss she had received one moonlight night, and the impression in her
hair of the flapping of a bat's wings that had caught in her hood.
These two things were confounded in her memory. From time to time she
said: "Where is my portrait? Give me my portrait."
It was about ten o'clock when M. Langis called on Samuel Brohl, who
was not astonished to see him appear; he had hoped he would come.
Samuel had regained self-possession. He was calm and dignified.
However, the tempest through which he had gone had left on his
features some vestige of its passage. His lips quivered, and his
beautiful chestnut locks curled like serpents about his temples, and
gave his head a Medusa-like appearance.
He said to Camille: "Where and when? Our seconds will undertake the
arrangement of the rest."
"You mistake, monsieur, the motive of my visit," replied M. Langis. "I
am grieved to destroy your illusions, but I did not come to arrange a
meeting with you."
"Do you refuse to give me satisfaction?"
"What satisfaction do I owe you?"
"You insulted me."
"When?"
"And you said: 'The day, the place, the weapons. I leave all to your
choice.' "
M. Langis could not refrain from smiling. "Ah! you at last acknowledge
that your fainting-fit was comedy?" he rejoined.
"Acknowledge on your part," replied Samuel, "that you insult persons
when you believe that they are not in a state to hear you. Your
courage likes to take the safe side."
"Be reasonable," replied Camille. "I placed myself at Count Larinski's
disposal: you cannot require me to fight with a Samuel Brohl!"
Samuel sprang to his feet; with fierce bearing and head erect he
advanced to the young man, who awaited him unflinchingly, and whose
resolute manner awed him. He cast upon him a sinister look, turned,
and reseated himself, bit his lips until the blood came; then said in
a placid voice:
"Will you do me the favour of telling me, monsieur, to what I owe the
honour of this visit?"
"I came to demand of you a portrait that Mlle. Moriaz is desirous of
having returned."
"If I refuse to give it up, you will doubtless appeal to my delicacy?"
"Do you doubt it?" ironically replied Camille.
"That proves, monsieur, that you still believe in Count Larinski; that
it is to him you speak at this moment?"
"You deceive yourself. I came to see Samuel Brohl, who is a business-
man, and it is a commercial transaction that I intend to hold with
him." And drawing from his pocket a porte-monnaie, he added: "You see
I do not come empty-handed."
Samuel settled himself in his arm-chair. Half closing his eyes, he
watched M. Langis through his eye-lashes. A change passed over his
features; his nose became more crooked, and his chin more pointed; he
no longer resembled a lion, he was a fox. His lips wore the sugared
smile of a usurer, one who lays snares for the sons of wealthy
families, and who scents out every favourable case. If at this moment
Jeremiah Brohl had seen him from the other world, he would have
recognised his own flesh and blood.
He said at last to Camille: "You are a man of understanding, monsieur;
I am ready to listen to you."
"I am very glad of it, and, to speak frankly, I had no doubts about
it. I knew you to be very intelligent, very much disposed to make the
best of an unpleasant conjuncture."
"Ah! spare my modesty. I thank you for your excellent opinion of me; I
should warn you that I am accused of being greedy after gain. You will
leave some of the feathers from your wings between my fingers."
For a reply M. Langis significantly patted the porte-monnaie which he
held in his hand, and which was literally stuffed with bank-notes.
Immediately Samuel took from a locked drawer a casket, and proceeded
to open it.
"This is a very precious gem," he said. "The medallion is gold, and
the work on the miniature is exquisite. It is a master-piece--the
colour equals the design. The mouth is marvellously rendered. Mengs or
Liotard could not have done better. At what do you value this work of
art?"
"You are more of a connoisseur than I. I will leave it to your own
valuation."
"I will let you have the trinket for five thousand francs; it is
almost nothing."
Camille began to draw out the five thousand francs from his porte-
monnaie. "How prompt you are!" remarked Samuel. "The portrait has not
only a value as a work of art; I am sure you attach a sentimental
value to it, for I suspect you of being head and ears in love with the
original."
"I find you too greedy," replied Camille, casting on him a crushing
glance.
"Do not be angry. I am accustomed to exercise methodical precision in
business affairs. My father always sold at a fixed price, and I, too,
never lower my charges. You will readily understand that what is worth
five thousand francs to a friend is worth double to a lover. This gem
is worth ten thousand francs. You can take it or leave it."
"I will take it," replied M. Langis.
"Since we agree," continued Samuel, "I possess still other articles
which might suit you."
"Why, do you think of selling me your clothing?"
"Let us come to an understanding. I have other articles of the same
lot."
And he brought from a closet the red hood, which he spread out on the
table.
"Here is an article of clothing--to use your own words--that may be of
interest to you. Its colour is beautiful; if you saw it in the
sunshine, it would dazzle you. I grant that the stuff is common--it is
very ordinary cashmere--but if you deign to examine it closely, you
will be struck by the peculiar perfume that it exhales. The Italians
call it '/l'odor femminino/.' "
"And what is your rate of charge for the '/odor femminino/?' "
"I will be moderate. I will let you have this article and its perfume
for five thousand francs. It is actually giving it away."
"Assuredly. We will say ten and five--that makes fifteen thousand."
"One moment. You can pay for all together. I have other things to
offer you. One would say that the floor burned your feet, and that you
could not endure being in this room."
"I allow that I long to leave this--what shall I say?--this shop,
lair, or den."
"You are young, monsieur; it never does to hurry; haste causes us acts
of forgetfulness that we afterwards regret. You would be sorry not to
take away with you these two scraps of paper."
At these words he drew from his note-book two letters, which he
unfolded.
"Is there much more?" demanded Camille. "I fear that I shall become
short of funds, and be obliged to go back for more."
"Ah! these two letters, I will not part with them for a trifle, the
second especially. It is only twelve lines in length; but what pretty
English handwriting! Only see! and the style is loving and tender. I
will add that it is signed. Ah! monsieur, Mlle. Moriaz will be charmed
to see these scrawls again. Under what obligations she will be to you!
You will make the most of it; you will tell her that you wrested them
from me, your dagger at my throat--that you terrified me. With what a
gracious smile she will reward your heroism! According to my opinion,
that smile is as well worth ten thousand francs as the medallion--the
two gems are of equal value."
"If you want more, it makes no difference."
"No, monsieur; I have told you I have only one price."
"At this rate, it is twenty-five thousand francs that I owe you. You
have nothing more to sell me?"
"Alas! that is all."
"Will you swear it?"
"What, monsieur! you admit, then, that Samuel Brohl has a word of
honour--that when he has sworn, he can be believed?"
"You are right; I am still very young."
"That is all, then, I swear to you," affirmed Samuel, sighing. "My
shop is poorly stocked; I had begun laying in a supply, but an
unfortunate accident deranged my little business."
"Bah! be consoled," replied M. Langis; "you will find another
opportunity; a genius of such lofty flights as yours never is at a
loss. You have been unfortunate; some day Fortune will compensate you
for the wrongs she has done you, and the world will accord justice to
your fine talents."
Speaking thus, he laid on the table twenty-five notes of a thousand
francs each. He counted them; Samuel counted them after him, and at
once delivered to him the medallion, the hood, and the two letters.
Camille rose to leave. "Monsieur Brohl," he said, "from the first day
I saw you, I formed the highest opinion of your character. The reality
surpasses my expectations. I am charmed to have made your
acquaintance, and I venture to hope that you are not sorry to have
made mine. However, I shall not say, /au revoir/."
"Who knows?" replied Samuel, suddenly changing his countenance and
attitude. And he added, "If you are fond of being astonished,
monsieur, will you remain still another instant in this den?"
He rolled and twisted the twenty-five one-thousand-franc notes into
lamp-lighters; then, with a grand gesture, /a la Poniatowski/, he
approached the candle, held them in the flame until they blazed, and
then threw them on the hearth, where they were soon consumed.
Turning towards M. Langis, he cried, "Will you now do me the honour of
fighting with me?"
"After such a noble act as that, I can refuse you nothing," returned
Camille. "I will do you that signal honour."
"Just what I desire," replied Samuel. "I am the offended; I have the
choice of arms." And, in showing M. Langis out, he said, "I will not
conceal from you that I have frequented the shooting-galleries, and
that I am a first-class pistol-shot."
Camille bowed and went out.
The next day, in a lucid interval, Mlle. Moriaz saw at the foot of her
bed a medallion laid on a red hood. From that moment the physician
announced an improvement in her symptoms.
CHAPTER XII
Six days after these events, Samuel Brohl, having passed through Namur
and Liege without stopping at either place, arrived by rail at Aix-la-
Chapelle. He went directly to the Hotel Royal, close to the railroad-
station; he ordered a hearty dinner to be served him, which he washed
down with foaming champagne. He had an excellent appetite; his soul
kept holiday; his heart was expanded, inflated with joy, and his brain
intoxicated. He had revenged himself; he had meted out justice to that
insolent fellow, his rival. Mlle. Moriaz did not belong to Samuel
Brohl, but she never would belong to Camille Langis. Near the Franco-
Belgian frontier, on the verge of a forest, a man had been shot in the
breast; Samuel Brohl had seen him fall; and some one had cried, "He is
dead!" It is asserted that Aix-la-Chapelle is a very dull city, that
the very dogs suffer so sadly from ennui that they piteously beg
passers-by to kick them, with a view to having a little excitement.
Samuel never felt one moment's ennui during the evening that he spent
in Charlemagne's city. He had constantly in mind a certain spot in a
forest, and a man falling; and he experienced a thrill of delight.
After the champagne, he drank punch, an after that he slept like a
dormouse; unfortunately, sleep dissipated his exhilaration, and when
he awoke his gaiety had left him. He had the fatal custom of
reflecting; his reflections saddened him; he was revenged, but what
then? He thought for a long while of Mlle. Moriaz; he gazed with
melancholy eye at his two hands, which had allowed her and good
fortune to elude their grasp.
He recited in a low voice some German verses, signifying:
"I have resolved to bury my songs and my dreams; bring me a large
coffin. Why is this coffin so heavy? Because in it with my dreams I
have laid away my love and my sorrows."
When he had recited these verses Samuel felt sadder than before, and
he cursed the poets. "They did me great harm," he said, bitterly.
"Without them I had spent days interwoven with gold and silk. My
future was secure: it was they who gave me a distaste for my position.
I believed in them; I was the dupe of their hollow declamation; they
taught me thoughtless contempt, and they gave me the sickly ambition
to play the silly part of a man of fine sentiments. I despised the
mud. Where am I now?"
He had formed the project of going to Holland and of embarking thence
for America. What would he do in the United States? He did not know
yet. He passed in review all the professions that at all suited him;
they all required an outlay for first expenses. Thanks to God and to
M. Guldenthal, whose loan was in the greatest danger, he was not
destitute of all supplies. But a week previous he had held into the
flames and burned twenty-five one-thousand-franc bills of the Bank of
France. He felt some remorse for the act; he could not help thinking
that a revenge that cost twenty-five thousand francs was an article of
luxury of which poor devils should deprive themselves. In thinking
over this adventure, it seemed to him that it was another than himself
who had burned those bills, or at least that he had mechanically
executed this /auto-da-fe/ through a sort of thoughtless impulse, like
a puppet moved by an invisible string. Suddenly the phantom with whom
he had had frequent conversations appeared, and there was a sneer on
its lips. Samuel addressed it once more--this was to be the last time;
he said:
"Imbecile! You are my evil genius. It was you who caused me to commit
this extravagance. You yourself lighted the candle, you put the bills
into my hands, you guided my arm, extended it, held it above the fatal
flame. This act of supreme heroism was your work; it is not I, it is
you, who paid so dearly for the pleasure of astonishing one who
wantonly insulted me, and of killing him. Cursed forever be the day
when I assumed your name, and when I conceived the foolish notion of
becoming your second self! I made myself a Pole: did Poland ever have
the least idea of government? You of all men were the most incapable
of making your way; I aped a poor model indeed. Abel Larinski, I break
off all connection with you; I wind up the affairs of our firm, I put
the key under the door, or drop it down the well. O my great Pole! I
return to you your title, your name, and with your name all that you
gave me--your pride, your pretensions, your dangerous delicacy, your
attitudes, your sentimental grimaces, and your waving plume."
It was thus that Samuel Brohl took a decisive farewell of Count Abel
Larinski, who might henceforth rest quietly in his grave; there was no
further danger of a dead man being compromised by a living one. What
name did Samuel Brohl mean now to assume? Out of spite to his destiny,
he chose for the time the humblest of all; he decided to call himself
Kicks, which was his mother's name.
His melancholy would have known no bounds, had he suspected that
Camille Langis was still in the world. Camille Langis for two weeks
lay between life and death, but the ball had finally been successfully
extracted. Mme. de Lorcy hastened to Mons and nursed him like a
mother; she had the joy of bringing him back alive to Paris.
Care was taken that no mention of the duel should be made to Mlle.
Moriaz, and not a word concerning it reached her; her condition for a
long time caused the gravest anxiety. After she became convalescent
she remained sunk in a gloomy, taciturn sadness. She never made the
least allusion to what had passed, and would not permit any one to
speak of it to her. She had been deceived, and a mortification,
mingled with dread, was the result of her mistake. It seemed to her
that nothing remained in life for her but remembrance and silence.
Towards the end of November, M. Moriaz proposed to her that they
should return to Paris. She expressed her desire not to leave
Cormeilles--to pass the winter in solitude; the human face terrified
her. M. Moriaz tried to represent to her that she was unreasonable.
"Will you wear eternal mourning for a stranger?" he asked; "for, in
reality, the man that you loved you never saw. Ah! /mon Dieu/, you
deceived, you deluded yourself. Is there, I will not say a single
woman, but a single member of the Institute, who has not once been
grossly imposed on? It is through the means of failures in experiments
that science progresses."
And he rose to still higher considerations; he endeavoured to prove to
her that, if it is bad to have erred, an excessive fear of erring is a
still worse evil, because it is better to lose one's way than not to
walk at all.
When he had finished his harangue, she said, shaking her head, "I have
no longer faith in any one."
"What! not even in the brave fellow to whom you owe the recovery of
your portrait and your letters?"
"Of whom do you speak?" she exclaimed.
Then he declared to her how M. Langis had effected the descent into
the den, without telling her what had resulted therefrom.
"Ah! that was kind, very kind," she said. "I never doubted that
Camille was a true friend."
"A friend? Are you very sure that it is only friendship that he feels
for you?"
Whereupon M. Moriaz told her all the rest. She grew pensive and sank
into a reverie. Suddenly the door of the /salon/ opened, and Camille
entered. After inquiring after her health, he informed her that in
consequence of a cold he, too, had been sick; and, as he was now free
from business engagements, his physician was sending him to pass the
winter in Sorrento.
She replied: "That is a journey that I would like to make. Will you
take me with you?"
She gazed fixedly at him; there was everything in her gaze. He bent
his knee before her, and for some moments they remained hand-in-hand,
and eye to eye. In the midst of this, Mlle. Moiseney appeared, who, at
sight of this /tableau vivant/, stood perfectly confounded.
"You are very much astonished, mademoiselle," said M. Moriaz to her.
"Not so much as you fancy, monsieur," replied she, recovering herself.
"I did not dare to say it, but in my heart I always believed, always
thought-- Yes, I always was sure that it would end thus."
"God bless Pope Joan!" he cried; "I shall cease to correct her."
We have failed to learn what Samuel Brohl is doing in America. In
waiting for something better, has he become an humble teacher? has he
attempted a new matrimonial enterprise? has he become a reporter of
the /New York Herald/, or a politician in one of the Northern States,
or a carpet-bagger in South Carolina? does he dream of being some day
President of the glorious republic with the starry banner?
Up to the present time, no American journal has devoted the shortest
paragraph to him. Adventurers are beings who constantly vanish and
reappear; they belong to the family of divers; but, after many
plunges, they always end by some catastrophe. The wave supports the
drowning man an instant, then bears him away and drags him down to the
depths of the briny abyss; there is heard a splash, a ripple, a hoarse
cry, followed by a smothered groan, and Samuel Brohl is no more! For
some days the question is agitated whether his real name is Brohl,
Kicks, or Larinski; soon something else is talked about, and his
memory becomes a prey to eternal silence.
End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Samuel Brohl & Company, by Cherbuliez