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!”
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 myfemme de menagedoes not purchase as wisely as she might. I know I have great scenes with her sometimes for bringing me early vegetables;le bon Dieucan, 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 herchambriere. 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 tinysalon, 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 thesalon. 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 thesalon, 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 thesalon, 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 thisdiableof 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 rereadLe 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 mysalon. 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.”
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 thedenoument. 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 atete-a-tetehe 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 thetable d’hotehad 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’ssalonthe 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 atete-a-tetewith 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 achansonabout it all, and set it myself to music.”
“Sing me yourchanson.”
“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.
“Yourchansonis 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.”