And with brutal frankness she expounded her full thought.
"When will that bigot leave me in peace?... Old people ought to make way for the young. What fun do they get out of going on living?"
They had finished eating. She went on filling both their glasses with her special drink. At first Michael had found it repugnant, but in the end he was attracted to its refreshing fragrance which gently troubled the senses, like an intoxication with perfumes.
"Of course you use the pipe," said Alicia simply.
He shook his head and thought of the odor which struck him on entering. He knew what sort of a "pipe" it was, and gazed about the study. The smoking den must be in some hidden corner!
"A man like you!" she went on. "A sailor! And I fooled myself into thinking we'd smoke together!"
She even gave him to understand that the hope of being able to give him that forbidden pleasure was the principal reason for her invitation. She became resigned when she learned that the Prince, vigorous as he was, suffered nausea every time he attempted to experiment with that Asiatic vice. And while he lighted a havana, Alicia took from a silver case the cigarettes which she smoked in the presence of the "uninitiated": Oriental tobacco, but heavily dosed with opium. Suddenly Michael was convinced of something of which he had a presentiment the moment he entered the place, or even earlier, the moment their glances had met in the cemetery. He saw her half rising from the cushions, with a panther-like contraction of her muscles, as though she were ready to spring at him. It was the concentrated impulse of the beast, beautiful and sure of its power, unable to wait, and not knowing how to feign.
Alicia had forgotten the demi-tasse she held in her hand, as she sat there, looking at him fixedly. The tiny blue electric spark dancing in her eyes was something well known to Michael.
It was the offering glance of female silence, inviting violence, and mastery. He had encountered that glance often along his path of triumph as a conquering millionaire.... He felt he must say something at once to break the silent charm of the beautiful witch, who, sure of her final victory, was smiling and blowing puffs of cigarette smoke toward him. So Michael alluded to her amorous fame, to the great number of lovers she was supposed to have had. That might widen the distance between them.
"Ah! You too?" said Alicia laughing, with masculine frankness. "I don't suppose your morals are the same as Mamma's! You are not going to read me a sermon on my behavior. Although, after all, Mamma doesn't blame me for what I do. What makes her angry is the fact that I am not afraid of what people say, and that sometimes I am attracted to unknown men of low birth. Poor Señora! If I were to have an affair with a king or a crown prince, perhaps she'd even let us see each other in her house, and have herMonsignormount guard into the bargain."
She remained silent for a moment. That disturbing glance was still fixed on Michael.
"It is true; I have had a lot of men. And how about you? Do you think I don't know about your wanderings all over the planet in quest of types of women unknown to the novels and capable of giving new sensations?... We have both done the same: only it wasn't necessary for me to travel around so much to learn just what you have learned.... And you are not so absurd as to imagine,as certain men do, that our cases are not to be compared because we are of different sexes."
The Prince listened silently as she expounded her ideas. She was deeply in love with life, and in return she demanded all that life could give her.... The minds of other women were occupied with questions of a material nature: desire for wealth, longings for luxury, domestic cares.... As for her, she possessed everything; to-morrow held no worries for her; not even in regard to her beauty, sustained as it was by wonderful health, and seeming to increase in spite of age and her prodigal waste of energies.
In her life, made up of caprices, always completely satisfied, even to the point of satiety, only one thing interested her, from its infinite variety and from its many phases, which might seem to vulgar people a monotonous repetition of one another, but which in reality were distinct for a mind attuned, as hers was, to exquisite sensations. That thing was love.
"Oh please understand me, Michael; don't sit there laughing to yourself. You know me too well ever to imagine that I believe in love as the majority of women do. I know that a certain amount of illusion is necessary to color the material aspect of love; we all lie about it a little, and we enjoy the lie even though we know it as such; but way down deep, I laugh at love as the world understands it, just as I laugh at so many things which people venerate.... I don't want lovers, I want admirers. I am not looking for love; I care more for adoration."
She was proud of her beauty. She spoke of Venus as though the goddess were a real person. She admired the Olympic serenity with which the Deity of Passion gave herself to gods and men, never surrendering her superiorityeven at the moment when she was submitting to the domination of the stronger sex. Alicia considered herself a super-beauty, belonging to a sphere outside the ordinary limits of vice and virtue. She thought herself a living work of art; and art is neither moral nor immoral; its mission is fulfilled when it is beautiful.
"Poets, painters, and musicians seek to abandon themselves to the greatest number of admirers. They do their utmost to enlarge their circle of public worshipers and with feminine coquetry they try to attract new suitors. I am like them. I do not need to create beauty, for as they say, I have it in myself. I am my own work, but I love glory; I need admiration; and for that reason I give myself generously, content with the happiness which I apportion, but keeping my public at my feet, without allowing myself to be dominated by those whom I seek."
Michael was sure that many artists must have left their imprint on that woman's life. It was evident in the words and imagery with which she endeavored to express her enthusiasm for her own body. Her pride in her beauty was boundless. What were the ambitions of men, compared to the satisfaction of being lovely and desired? Only the glory of warriors, of blood-stained conquerors, whose names are known even in the remotest wilds of the earth, equals the glory that a woman feels in the sense of universal power over men.
"To me," continued Alicia, "the truest and most beautiful thing ever written is 'the old men on the wall.'"
The Prince looked at her questioningly; so she went on to explain. She referred to the old Trojan men in theIliad, who were protesting against the long siege of their city, against the blood sacrifice of thousands of heroes, against poverty and hardship, all due to the fault of a woman.... But Helen, majestic in her beauty, passed before the old men, trailing her golden tunic; and theyall lapsed into silent contemplation, rapt in wonder, as though divine Aphrodite had descended upon earth; and they murmured like a prayer: "It is indeed fitting that we should suffer thus for her. So lovely she is!"
"I like to see men suffer on my account. How glorious if I might be the cause of a great slaughter, like that ancient immortal woman!... I have an exultant feeling of pride when I notice that envy and spite are whispering behind my back, starting all that gossip that makes my mother so furious. Only extraordinary people stir up torrents of abuse.... And afterwards, in the drawing rooms, the very same austere gentlemen who have seconded all that their wives and daughters have to say against me, look at me with sly admiring glances, as I pass; and some of them blush in confusion and others turn pale. It is easy to guess that I have only to beckon and their silent admiration would.... I too have my 'old men on the wall.'"
Michael suddenly realized that while she was talking she had been coming gradually closer, from cushion to cushion as she lay resting on her elbows. She was almost at his feet, with head held high, endeavoring to envelop him in a wave of magnetism from her fixed and dominating eyes. She seemed like a black and white snake, twisting forward little by little among the cushions as though they were rocks of various colors.
"The only man of whom I have ever thought the least bit, the only one I ever considered at all different from other men," she continued in a half whisper, "is you.... Don't be alarmed: it isn't love. I am not going to invert rôles, and propose to you. Perhaps it is because, as children, we used to hate each other; because you never wanted me. That is such an unheard of thing in my life, that it alone is enough to interest me."
She put her hands on his knees, as though she were about to rise.
"When I saw you in the cemetery, after so many years, I remembered all that I had heard about you. Many women whom I know have been sweethearts of yours, and I said to myself: Why not I, too? Then I thought of all the men who have come into my life, and I added: Why not he?" ...
And now Alicia's elbows were resting on his knees, and as the Prince was seated on but two pillows, their lips and eyes were almost on a level. As she talked he could feel her breath on his face. It was like the breeze in an Asiatic forest, whispering beneath the moon. The spices and flowers with which the wine was saturated seemed to float in that volatile caress.
Michael tried to avoid her advance, but one of Alicia's hands was already on his shoulder. He merely shook his head.
"Don't be afraid," she added, exaggerating the caressing quality of her sigh. "There are no embarrassing obligations with me. You may leave me when you wish; perhaps I shall be the one to leave you first. I have wanted you for the last few days. You must surely desire me as the others do.... Let us live this moment, like people who know the secret of life and all it can give.... Then if we tire of each other, good-by, with no hard feeling and no pining!"
When from time to time in after years the Prince recalled that scene, he always felt a certain dissatisfaction with himself. He was sure he had seemed brutal as well as ridiculous. In his travels he had approached women frequently in the most matter of fact way, often remembering them afterwards with some repugnance; yet here he was, rebelling with a feeling of offended modesty at the advances of the Duchess. No! Withher, never! Rising within him he felt the same displeasure that had once made him raise his whip in his youth.
He found himself on his feet in the middle of the study, looking anxiously toward the door and muttering stupid excuses. "No, I must go: it is late. Some friends are waiting for me...." She had gained control of herself. She too was standing looking at him with astonishment and wrath.
"You are the only one who could do a thing like this," she said, in a cutting tone, as they parted. "I see it all clearly now. I hate you as you hate me. My whim was a stupid one. You have permitted yourself a liberty which no one in the world will ever be able to take again. If I were younger than I am I would thrash you again as I did in the Bois; but instead, just consider that I am repeating everything I said then."
They did not see each other again.
When the Prince had set in order everything concerning the inheritance from his mother, he thought of resuming his voyages, but on a more magnificent scale. It was no longer necessary for him to ask the Princess for money. He was one of the great millionaires of the world. Those who were in charge of the administration of his affairs—an office with numerous clerks, almost equalling the government bureau of a small state—made the announcement that the fifteen million francs which the Princess had received annually would soon be twenty, through the development of Russian railways, which allowed more intensive working of his mines.
The Colonel was commissioned to have the heavy medieval walls of Villa Sirena torn down, and the place replanned according to the Prince's tastes. The latter hated architectural resuscitations. He could not bear modern buildings patterned to flatter the pride of the rich proprietors, after the Alhambra, the palaces of Florence,or the solemn and orderly constructions of Versailles.
"The furniture ought to correspond to the period," said Michael, "and people ought to live in such houses as they lived in in the century which produced that particular style. People living in an ancient house ought to dress and eat as in former times.... What an absurdity to reconstruct those historic shells, with the interior arranged to suit the needs of modern men who are forced to commit an anachronism at every step!"
He recalled the project of a millionaire friend of his, a member of the Institute, who had built a Roman house on the Riviera, Roman in all the exactness of its details. At the house-warming the guests were obliged to sleep on corded beds and to eat reclining on couches; and even more intimate conveniences were modeled on the principle of hygiene known to the ancient Cæsars. Within twenty-four hours they all pretended they had received urgent telegrams calling them to Paris, and the owner himself after a few months, left his house in charge of a keeper to show to tourists as a museum.
Michael was fond of modern architecture, whose cathedrals are machine shops and large railway stations. Applied to dwellings it pleased him for its lack of style: white walls, a few moldings, rounded corners, with no angles whatsoever, so that the dust might be pursued to its remotest hiding places, wide openings letting in the breeze and the sunlight, double walls between which hot or cold air, and water at various temperatures, could circulate.
"Up to the present time," the Prince asserted, "man has lived in magnificent jewel cases of art and filth. Modern architects have done more in the last thirty years to make life pleasant than the artist-builders, so much admired by history, did in three thousand. They have declared running water and the bath-room as indispensable,things which were unknown to kings themselves half a century ago. They have invented the furnace and the water closet. Don't talk to me about the magnificent palaces of Versailles, where there was not a single toilet, and where every morning the lackeys were obliged to empty two hundred vessels for the king and his courtiers. Often to be through quicker, they threw their contents out of the majestic windows, and sometimes it would fall on the sedan chair and the retinue of a Dauphine or an ambassador."
Toledo applied himself to supervising the construction of Villa Sirena in accordance with the desires of the Prince, making it a plain white building, and without any definite style of architecture. Lubimoff himself, at the proper time, would take charge of the artistic touches, placing famous pictures, statues, tapestries, or rugs, just where they would be most pleasing to the eye. The house was to be a harmony of simple, pure lines. The walls were to have heating and cooling systems for the different seasons, and running water was to be available in abundance everywhere. Each room was to have its electric lights and its electric fan.
The Prince found it a much easier task to make over his wandering ocean residence. He simply sold the Gaviota, which reminded him of his youthful dependence on his family, and went to the United States to look into an advertisement. Three years before a certain multimillionaire had begun the construction of a yacht, designed to be more luxurious and of greater tonnage than that of any European sovereign. As the American was about to witness the consummation of this triumph of the democratic kings of industry over the historic kings of the Old World, he was killed in an automobile accident, and his heirs did not know what to do with the leviathan which would only be of use to an immenselyrich, and, in their opinion, somewhat crazy traveler. They were thinking of selling it at a loss to the Kaiser, William II, having decided finally to endure his demands as a sharp business man, when Prince Lubimoff appeared. A week later on the white stern and bows of the yacht a new name in gold letters was displayed, a name that was repeated in addition on the life preservers and on the various tenders, the dingies, the steam launches, and the motor boats. The American yacht had become theGaviota II.
It had the tonnage of a small trans-Atlantic liner and the speed of a torpedo boat. Each day the wealth of an ordinary man went up in smoke through theGaviota II'sdouble funnels. During a trip to some distant island, the supply of coal gave out. Immediately a collier chartered by the Prince, came to meet theGaviota IIin the farthest seas to fill the bunkers with fuel.
Quiet harbors came to be illuminated at night, as though the sun had risen. When the Prince gave afête, the ship would be a blaze of glory from the water to the mastheads, its outline marked by electric bulbs of various colors, while powerful searchlights shot out movable streams of radiance and drew the waves, the shores, and rows of city houses from the depths of the darkness. At other times, the white fire of theGaviota II'smonstrous eyes would flash on walls of ice towering to the clouds, and seals, penguins, and polar bears would waken from sleep frightened by the strange luminous, puffing monster that darted off like lightning into the mystery of night.
To be the owner of a floating palace which, when anchoring off large cities, drew such crowds of sightseers as rare spectacles only attract, was not enough for Michael Fedor. So he created something more interesting even than the luxurious salons, and the refinements of comfort of theGaviota II: he built up an orchestra.
Sensuous delight in music was for him the most exquisite of emotions. When his ears were satiated with the sweetness and melody of traditional music, he sought unknown and often bizarre composers, who aroused his curiosity; but he always came back to demanding as thepièces de résistanceof his harmonic feasts, the masters who had been his first love, and above all, Beethoven.
Treated as though they were officers, paid to their liking, and with the added inducement of being able to see a great deal of the world, musicians from every country offered their services to the yacht's orchestra. Famous concert players and young composers came in as mere instrumentalists. Some were ill, and sought to regain their health in a voyage around the world in real luxury and without expense; others embarked through love of adventure, to see new lands in this floating castle, in which everything seemed organized for an eternal holiday. There were never less than fifty of them.
"My orchestra is the finest in the world," the Prince would proudly say when his guests complimented him after one of the concerts his musicians gave at rare intervals on land.
In tropical nights, beneath the enormous honey-colored moon changing the sea to a vast plain of quick-silver, the musicians, seated in evening clothes before the rows of music racks illuminated by tiny electric lights, would weave on the quiet air, which seemed to have retained the first faint cries of the planet at its birth, the most original melodies, the most subtle combination of sounds that the sublime rapture of artists in god-like inspiration ever created. The music floated out behind the boat in the mystery of the ocean, like a scarf unfolding, breaking and scattering in fragments, with the smoke of the funnels. When the orchestra paused one could hear the distant subdued beat of the propellers, churning the foamwith a humming sound; and then from time to time the slow tolling of the bell calling the men on watch, or the cry of the lookout snuggled into the crow's nest on the mainmast, reporting his vigilance with the rhythmic intonation of a muezzin from a minaret. And the monotonous music of the sea gave an impression of night, and of immensity, to the music of man.
At the foot of the companionways, or on the outjutting parts of the lower decks, the various officers and officials of the Prince gathered to hear the concert in the night. On the prow the sailors squatted, listening to the music in religious silence, as is often the case with simple men when confronted with something they do not understand, but which inspires awe. Aft, the only listener would be Michael Fedor, standing at a distance from the music, and with his back toward the musicians, watching at his feet, the divided, foaming waters which rushed by like a double river far out and away from the boat. As occasionally he raised his cigar to his lips, his pensive features would appear for a moment in the darkness, lighted by the red glow.
The yacht held another more silent group. Those who succeeded in getting on board in the ports always obtained a distant glimpse of a woman or two with white shoes, blue skirts, jackets with rows of gold buttons, masculine collars and neckties, and officers' caps. No one knew for certain how many such women there may have been. The men of the crew were forbidden access to the central quarters of the boat, and to the upper deck. Some of them, chancing to break the rule through oversight, had met the Prince's companions attired in elegant naval uniforms, or more lightly clad, like dancers, in elaborate and exotic costumes. At the large ports, steam launches landed these mysterious and beautiful travelers for a few hours on shore. It was remarked that theydressed with modest elegance and that they would speak various languages.
When theGaviota IIreturned and anchored in the same harbor she had visited the preceding year, those whose curiosity had been aroused found that the personnel of the wandering harem had been completely renewed. They might occasionally recognize one or two of the former ladies, but now their faces wore the placid expression of the odalisque who has been supplanted, but is nevertheless contented with luxury and oblivion.
Some years Michael Fedor suspended his travels, during the summer, to take up his abode at fashionable beaches. The women who accompanied him on his long voyages remained on board, with all the lavish comforts to which they were accustomed. At other times he parted with them, as one dismisses a crew when a ship goes out of commission, at the end of a trip.
Immediately he became interested in women living stay-at-home lives, in shore society, and in summer flirtations at famous watering places. He would take up his abode in a hotel on the coast, while his yacht was to be seen rising from the azure waters, motionless, like a palace of mystery and magnificence, the center of all feminine imaginings.
Living in Biarritz he came to know Atilio Castro intimately through learning that they were related on his father's side. The Spaniard admired the fascination exercised by the Prince, often without wishing to do so, on all women.
Never at any period had women been more strongly attracted by luxury or felt less scruples in the means of obtaining it than at present. This was the opinion of Castro. Lavish display, which in other centuries had been within reach of only the very few families, was now possible for every one. All one needed to indulgein it was money. Besides, it was necessary to take into account present-day progress in material things, which has made life easier, but at the same time has increased our needs.
"The motor car and the pearl necklace have made more victims than the wars of Napoleon," said Atilio.
"These two things are like the gala uniform of women, and those who are forced to go without them consider themselves unfortunate and ill treated by fate. This twin image has shattered the illusions of maidens and the fidelity of wives. Mothers in middle class society, with melancholy dejection written on their faces as though they had made stupid failures of their lives, advise their daughters: 'If you are going to get married, make sure you will get an auto and a pearl necklace.' And long after the modest marriage this desire still remains, strengthened by maternal advice. Luxury is the one thought, luxury at whatever cost. Luxury has been democratized. It is within reach of all, obtainable through money, which has no taint, no odor, no sign of its origin."
"You are the great provider of the expensive motor car of fashionable make and of the rope of pearls," continued Castro. "You are the great Sultan of magnificence. Your signature to a check is enough to sweep a woman off her feet in a torrent of gold. Make the most of your opportunity! The period in which you were born has left you an open field for your talents."
And the Prince, who was not at all in need of such advice, went his way as conqueror through a world in which the best accredited virtues collapsed before his attack. Even sincere resistance finally appeared to him to be a clever device for postponing surrender and increasing the market value of desire. The millions from Russia were scattered broadcast in smaller and smallersubdivisions, maintaining the well being and display of many homes, indulging the taste for luxury of numerous ladies, and keeping numberless factories busy producing elegant novelties of female luxury. A few women felt a sincere interest in Michael Fedor for his own sake, because of the mysterious prestige of his voyages in a boat which was talked about as though it were an enchanted palace; and also because of his adventures with celebrated actresses and women of high society, which made him more attractive. But once their vanity and curiosity were satisfied, they allowed their own self-interest to have a word. "Why should I be any more altruistic than the rest?"
They were not obliged to use cunning or round-about phrases in formulating their requests. Some at the second meeting, took on a melancholy air, and spoke of the sad realities of life. But the generous Prince anticipated their desires. He preferred to pay his mistresses and dazzle them with splendid gifts. Thus he could regard them as favored slaves covered with jewels. In this way also, it was easier to break with them: He could go away from them whenever he so desired, satisfied with his own behavior, and quite unmoved by their tears and laments. From his semi-oriental Russian ancestors he had inherited a great sensual capacity, which caused him to be attracted to women, and at the same time to feel an inalterable scorn for them. He indulged them but could not love them; he adored them, but was stirred to indignation when they presumed to be on terms of equality with him. He was capable of ruining himself, of braving death for them, but he was ready to thrust them aside with his foot if they tried in the least to govern his life. The ambitious ones who feigned deep, passionate love for him in the hope of marriage, the sentimental ones who tried to interest him with psychologicalsubtleties, and those who kept their maternal enthusiasm even in adultery, and murmured in his ear how happy they would be to have a child who might resemble him, waited for him in vain the following day. "Neither deep passion, nor children!" ... Two trails of smoke were soon rising from the yacht, carrying its owner to another port or perhaps to another continent: or if he wished to flee from a city in the interior, he gave orders that his private car should be coupled to the first train that was leaving.
These flights were never undertaken without a generous remembrance. Michael Fedor's munificence continued for those whom he had abandoned. Each year new names were added to his budget, like that of a reigning house which allots pensions to its forgotten servants. But the pensions of Prince Lubimoff were for the maintenance of luxury and not of life. The most modest were over thirty thousand francs a year. The average was double that amount.
"Your Excellency: there will have to be a revision," his administrator would say.
Michael would examine the list of names, hesitating at a few. He could not recall clearly the persons who bore them. Then suddenly he would smile, as certain visions were suddenly and attractively awakened in his mind. He was immensely wealthy: why not keep up the luxury which was the one dream of all of them?... He was not disturbed by the jealous thought that his successors would be reaping the benefit of that luxury.
He felt a certain god-like pride in making his generosity felt at all times, without letting himself be seen. In Paris a jewelry shop managed by a Jew of Spanish origin limited its entire business to the production of the Prince's gifts. His gems of high intrinsic value, with no false artifices, had a certain family resemblance, asort of imaginary perfume which enabled the women who displayed them to recognize each other. When it was least expected, at tea time, in the dining-room of a hotel, at an elegant watering place at a dance, two women who had just met would gaze at each other's ears and breast in silence, until the boldest, blushing imperceptibly under her rouge, would ask simply: "You knew Prince Lubimoff too?..."
Atilio Castro felt a deep admiration for his relative, less on account of his triumphs than of the iron constitution required to sustain them.
"What a Cossack! A regular Cossack!... He is a true descendant of that lover of the Great Catherine!"
Nevertheless, frequently the yacht would hurriedly put out to sea on long voyages, without its master being forced to flee from any dangerous or entangling passion. He was running away from himself, from his perverse imagination and curiosity, which made him seek and allure different women, upsetting his peace of mind, without rousing in him any real desire. He undertook the most extraordinary voyages, for the sake of the bracing air and the sense of restfulness the sea brings. The orchestra accompanied him; but the "harem" remained on shore. He had gone completely around the globe, following the shortest route; then he had repeated this circumnavigation, but over a zig-zag course, to become acquainted with all the coasts of the earth. At present he was on going on whimsical trips; he was sailing from one hemisphere to another for the pleasure of visiting one or another of the small islands which seem lost in the Pacific, and are so tiny that on the maps they look like mere dots placed after long names traced on the blue colored surface.
Returning from one of these excursions on which he went around the world as though it were his personalproperty, he received by wireless the news that Germany had declared war against Russia and France.
He felt no great surprise. He knew William II personally. It was because of him that Prince Lubimoff avoided cruising off the coast of Norway in summer.
The year following his acquisition of theGaviota IIhe had come across the Imperial yacht in those parts. The Kaiser, like an officious, all-knowing neighbor, came to see him in order to look over the yacht, examining it in all its details, giving advice, reviewing the men and materials, making a dissertation on the engines and interrupting himself to advise certain changes in the uniform of the crew. After a breakfast on his own yacht, and luncheon on the Emperor's, Prince Michael had had enough of this unexpected friendship. Lohengrin, with his winged helmet, white mantle, and both hands on the hilt of his sword, was less unbearable than this gentleman with turned up mustache, and wolfish teeth, dressed like a sailor, who laughed a false and brutal laugh, and (whenever he met on the seas a multimillionaire from America or Europe) played the rôle of a man of great simplicity and of an unconventional sovereign. Money inspired deep veneration in this story-book hero, this mystic with a mind fed on grandeur. Michael had never shared the enthusiasm of various snobs for the German Emperor. He smiled at the Hohenzollern's theatrical tastes, his war-like bravadoes, and his intellectual ambitions which pretended to embrace the whole knowable universe.
"He is a comedian," Michael said on receiving the news of the war, "a comedian who for a long time is going to make the whole world weep.... And to think that the fate of mankind should depend on such a man!..."
Michael Fedor considered himself as a being set apartfrom the rest of mankind. He lamented the war as something terrible for the rest, but which could not influence his own particular fate. Since a madness for blood had descended upon Europe, he would go on sailing distant seas. Thanks to his wealth he could keep beyond the margins of the struggle.
But times changed rapidly; life was not the same: all old values had lost their significance. In spite of her Russian flag, theGaviota IIfound herself halted by some English torpedo boats and was forced to submit to a minute inspection. They could not believe that any one should be cruising for pleasure when all the seas had been converted into a battlefield. In the latitude of the Azores it became necessary to force the yacht's engines to escape from a German corsair.
Besides, fuel was getting scarce. The various coaling stations located here and there on the coast were reserved exclusively for the warships. Important news kept coming by wireless from far-off Paris, where the chief agent of the Prince was located. Communication had been broken off between the Paris office and the administrators of the Lubimoff fortune in Russia. No money was coming from there, and the French banks, with their vaults closed by themoratorium, were willing secretly to lend money to a millionaire like the Prince, but not in quantities sufficient to meet his current needs.
The yacht came to anchor in the port of Monaco, and Michael Fedor, on arriving in Paris, almost laughed, as though witnessing some preposterous change in the laws of nature. The heir of the Lubimoffs in need of money, and compelled to make an effort to obtain it—something he had never done in all his life! Here he was having to ask for loans at frightfully usurious rates, on the security of his distant and famous wealth, which for the first time was regarded somewhat contemptuously!...
When communications were reëstablished in an intermittent fashion between Western Europe and Russia—which was practically isolated—the administrator of the Prince gave a look of despair. The collections had been reduced eighty per cent.
"According to that, I am going to be poor?" asked Lubimoff, laughing, the news seemed so unbelievable and absurd.
It was very difficult to send money as far as Paris. Besides the rouble was decreasing in value at a dizzy rate. Millions on reaching France became mere hundred thousands. Mobilization had left the mines without workmen; there was no outlet for the produce; the peasants, seeing their sons in the army, refused to pay any money, and even to work. The Russian government, to keep as much money as possible at home, limited to small amounts the money sent to citizens residing abroad.
"The Czar putting me on a pension!" said the Prince in amazement. "A thousand or two thousand francs a month!... How absurd!"
But he did not laugh long. His anger against the Russian court, which had gradually been growing in his subconsciousness ever since his expulsion so long ago from Petersburg, now moved by a selfish impulse suddenly flared up. The Czar and his counselors, desirous of Russianizing all Eastern Europe, were responsible for the war. They certainly might have kept peace with Germany. Why disturb the peace of the world, for the sake of a little race of people in the Balkans?
He coolly made fun of certain of his friends who, by devious routes across Europe and the icy Northern seas, returned to Russia to regain their former commissions in the army. As for him, he had no desire to die for the Czar. It made little difference to him whether his countrywere governed by Germans. There were times when he even thought that would be preferable, so long as peace were restored rapidly, allowing him once more to reap the benefit of his wealth, and resume the life he had been leading a few months before, or, as it now seemed, a half century before.
The next two years went by for Lubimoff like a nightmare. What sort of a world was he living in?... His former friends were disappearing. Some of the frivolous women who had made life pleasant for him were not moved in the least by the unfortunate events which were happening; but others showed themselves to be heroic and self-sacrificing, forgetting all they had done before, feeling a new soul developing within them.
The Prince suddenly found himself dragged along by the world happenings. A mysterious and irresistible force was pushing against him, causing him to lose his balance, just as he was reaching the pinnacle of his life, so pleasant, so vast, crowned with a halo of such glory. And now, once started, he was tumbling head over heels, of his own inertia, and each step he struck as he descended, gave him a harder blow, a more painful surprise. How far would this landslide take him?... What would he strike at the end of this unheard-of fall?...
His interviews with his Paris administrator seemed to him like something taking place in another world, subject to ridiculous laws. These conferences always ended with the same order on his part:
"Try and get some money. Ask for a loan.... I am Prince Lubimoff, and this cannot last. Whoever wins—it is all the same to me—order will be reëstablished, and I shall pay my creditors immediately."
But the administrator answered, with a look of dismay: "Raise money on property in Russia?..." Takingadvantage of the former prestige of the Prince, he had been able to negotiate various loans; but time was passing and the enormous interest was accumulating. Lubimoff in spite of cutting down expenses and doing away with pensions, was in need of money for his current living expenses.
The fall of the Czar gave a ray of hope to this magnate who hated the Imperial government. "With the Republic the war will be over sooner and we shall come back to the proper order of things." His egoism made him conceive of a Republic as a form of government occupied chiefly with restoring the wealth of beings of fortunate birth. The meager shreds of his fortune which now and then still got as far as Paris were suddenly cut off. The fountain of wealth was dry. The crumbling of a whole world had dammed its source, and perhaps forever.
"Your Excellency must sell," the administrator was always saying. "You must do without everything that is superfluous. We must liquidate in time. Who knows how long the present state of affairs may last!"
The yacht was lying idle in Monaco harbor. Almost the entire crew, composed of Italians, Frenchmen, and Englishmen, had left it to go and serve in the navies of their respective nations. Only a few Spaniards remained on board, to keep the boat clean.
TheGaviota IIwas renamed by the English admiralty, and turned over to the Red Cross. When he signed the bill of sale, Michael Fedor felt that he was giving up his whole past. The romantic prestige of his mode of life was vanishing now for all time; theArabian Nightspalace was being converted into a hospital ship.... What a world!
The English millions afforded him a year of respite. The administrator paid the huge debts, and he was ableto live without economizing, in Paris, a Paris nearing the end of its third year of war with inexplicable tranquillity, resuming its usual pleasures as though all danger were past. Love affairs with two distinguished women, whose husbands were called to arms—although they were not at the front—caused him to spend a few months, now at Biarritz, now on the Riviera, and now at Aix-les-Bains.
His agent disturbed these enjoyments. He was constantly repeating the same advice: "You must sell." The Prince's fortune was already like an old ship drifting aimlessly. The administrator had stopped the last leaks with the money from the most recent sale, but warned him at every moment that she was taking in water through new ones.
In the end Michael Fedor grew accustomed to misfortune, accepting it serenely.
The sale of the palace built by his mother moved him less than that of his yacht.
At the same time his desires had changed. He was beginning to tire of love adventures, which seemed to be the only object of existence. His fresh and vigorous constitution, which had amazed Castro, suddenly broke down. But this was more the result of worry than of physical wear and tear.
He felt that he was poor, and was he not accustomed to pay royally for his love affairs? Not being able to reward women with luxury, he would rather flee in order not to accept from them and be obliged to tolerate from them their caprices. He preferred to master his desires, as long as he could not satisfy them with all the grandeur of an oriental potentate. Besides he was tired of love, and all the pleasant things of life a man can find in this world!...
He thought of his friend Atilio, of the Colonel, of Villa Sirena, white and shining in the Mediterranean sunlight, among the olive trees and cypresses.
"The earth is being swept by the deluge. Perhaps the old lands will once more appear; perhaps they will remain submerged forever.... Let us take refuge in our Ark, and wait and hope."
AFTERglancing with satisfaction at the imposing aspect of Villa Sirena, the adjoining buildings, and the surrounding groves, the Colonel said to Novoa:
"The part you see cost less than what you don't see. There is a great deal of money spent under ground here."
Turning away from the residence, Don Marcos pointed to the gardens, which lay extended before them in terraces, some on a level with the roof of the "villa," others descending like a mighty stairway almost to the water's edge.
He recalled the promontory as it was when the late Princess first thought of buying it; an ancient refuge of pirates; a tongue of rocks wild and storm-swept when themistralwas blowing, with deep caves gnawed by the surge, which caused the land above to crumble, and threatened to break it lengthwise into a chain of reefs and islets.
"The bulwarks we have had to build!" he continued. "You should have seen the stone we had to put in here,—enough to build a wall around the whole city!"
There were walls more than twenty yards thick, descending in a gradual slope from the gardens to the sea. In places, it was possible to see their foundations in the natural rocks which emerged from the water like greenish beads always awash in the foam; in other places the masonry went down and down until it was lost from view in the watery depths. They were like the breakwaters one sees in harbors. They covered the original hollows of the promontory, the caves, the inlets that were forming,and all the jagged spaces, which had been filled with rich soil.
These tremendous works of masonry were Toledo's pride, owing to their cost and grandeur. He called his fellow-countryman's attention to the proportions of the ramparts, worthy of a monarch of olden times.
"And they are not only strong," he continued, "but look, Professor! They are all 'artistic.'"
The blocks of stone had been cut in large hexagons which fitted together in a uniform mosaic, each piece outlined by a cement border.
At intervals there were large openings, so that the earth might rid itself of its moisture; but each one of these blind windows held some sort of wild vegetation, some hardy, aromatic plant, obstinately parasitic, spreading downward over the wall and covering it with flowers for the greater part of the year. The thick groves at the summit, and the long balustrades arched with wine-colored clematis, seemed to exude a flowery, green, inferior form of life, pouring it out seaward through the gaps in the wall.
"When you see it from a boat below you will appreciate it better. Señor Castro says it reminds him of the hanging gardens of Babylon, and of Queen Semiramis. He is the only one who would think of such comparisons. All I can say is that it meant doing all this! Imagine all the stone. A whole quarry! And I wish you could have seen the bargeloads of rich soil it took to fill the hollows, level the ground, and make a decent garden!"
He grew enthusiastic as he talked about the modern flower gardens stretching around the villa and along the iron railing bordering the Menton road; and he lavished his praise on their harmonious elegance, and the majestic regulation to which the plants were forced to conform. That was howhefelt a garden should be, like many anotherthing in life: perfect order, a sense of subordination, and respect for the hierarchies, each thing in its place, with no individual rivalries to cause confusion. But he was afraid to expound his "old-fashioned" tastes, recalling the jests of the Prince and Castro. They preferred the park, which the Colonel always thought of as the "wild garden."
They had availed themselves of the extremely ancient olive trees already on the promontory as a beginning for the park. These trees could not be called old, exactly. Such an appellation would have been petty and inadequate to their age. They were simply ancient, of no visible age. They had an air of changeless eternity about them which made them seem contemporaries of the rocks and the waves themselves. They looked more like ruins than like trees, like heaps of black wood, twisted and overthrown by a storm, or piles of wood, warped and hollowed and scorched by some fire long since past. With them also the invisible part was more important than the portions exposed to the light. Their roots, as large around as tree trunks, went out of sight, wound their way through the red earth, and then appeared once more thirty or forty yards beyond. Some of the trees had died on one side, only to come to life again on the other. What had been the trunk five hundred years before, now appeared as a mutilated stump, table shaped, severed by ax or shattered by thunderbolt; and the root, showing above the soil, was flowering again in its turn, changing into a tree, to continue an apparently limitless existence, in which centuries counted as years. The hearts of other trees were gnawed away and empty; and these supported only half of their outer shell, looking like a tower with one side blown out by an explosion; but on high they displayed an almost ridiculous crown of foliage, a few handfuls of silvery leaves scatteringalong the sinuous black branches. Below, the gnarled roots which seemed to have preserved in their knotted windings the sap that was the first life of the earth, embraced a much larger radius on the ground than that occupied by the branches in the air. Other olive trees, that were only three or four hundred years old, stood erect with the arrogance of youth, leafy and exuberant, casting a light, trembling, almost diaphanous shadow, like that of frosted glass which swayed with the capricious will of the wind.
"His Excellency says that there are olive trees here that were seen by the Romans. Do you believe it, Professor? Can it be that any of these trees date back to the time of Jesus Christ?"
Novoa hesitated in replying. The Colonel continued his observations as they walked along between walls of well-trimmed shrubbery towards the end of the park.
"Look: there is the Greek garden."
It was an avenue of laurels and cypress trees with curving marble benches, and in the background a semi-circular colonnade.
"I would have liked to plant a great many palms: African, Japanese, and Brazilian, like those in the gardens of the Casino. But the Prince and Don Atilio detest them. They say that they are an anachronism, that they never existed in this region, and were imported by the wealthy people who have been building for the last fifty years on the Blue Coast. All those two fellows admire is the ancient Provençal or Italian garden: olive trees, laurels, and cypresses—but not the huge, funereal cypresses with bushy tops, that we use in Spain, to decorate thecalvariesand cemeteries. Look at them: they are as light and slender as feathers. To keep the wind from blowing them over you have to plant two or three together in a clump."
They had reached the extreme limit of the park, where the leafiest olive trees were growing. They walked along open pathways through high masses of wild and fragrant vegetation, whose vigorous vitality seemed to challenge the salt breeze. The plants had stiff leaves, and gave out strong exotic perfumes. As Novoa breathed in the fragrance, it evoked visions of far-off lands; and in truth it seemed almost as though an odor of Hindoo cooking or Oriental incense were floating through that wild garden. A variety of creepers hung from tree to tree. Though it was still winter these natural garlands had already begun to bloom, owing to the warm breezes of an early Spring. They stood out with all the gay splendor of a courtly festival, against the chaste pale green of the olive trees.
"Don Atilio says that all this makes him think of a Mozart symphony."
The deep blue Mediterranean lay at their feet, its slow swells combed by a sharp reef that broke the streaming water into clouds of spray. Here the promontory divided, forming two arms of unequal length. The shortest was a prolongation of the park, carrying the magnificent vegetation which flourished on its back, into the very waters. The other descended to the sea in a chaos of rocks and loose earth, with no growth save a few twisted pines, clinging to the soil, obstinately determined to prolong their death struggle. The barren loneliness of this tongue of land drew a sad smile from the Colonel each time he gazed at the dividing wall. The rugged point was eaten away by the sea with caves that threatened to cut it in two. It had no regular place of entrance, being separated from the mainland by the gardens of Villa Sirena, and shut off by a hostile wall, which represented the inalienable rights of ownership, and was a source of constant indignation and amazement to Don Marcos.
Doubtless that was why he turned away from it, gazing out toward where Monaco lay beyond the rocky cliffs.
"It is lovely, Professor: one of the most delightful panoramas anywhere. There is good reason for people to come here from the farthest ends of the earth!"
He let his glance rest on the violet colored mountains that, at the farthest horizon, projected out upon the sea, like the limit of a world. They were the so-called Mountains of the Moors, which, with Esterel Point, form a branch of the Maritime Alps, a separate mountain chain, which juts into the Mediterranean. In the opposite direction lay a portion of the pseudo-Blue Coast, which begins at Toulon and Hyères. But this part did not interest the Colonel. What he saw, more in imagination than in reality, was a bird's-eye view of the real Blue Coast, his own Blue Coast—that of the aristocratic and wealthy people on whom he was in the habit of calling, in their elegant villas and expensive hotels.
The Maritime Alps form a giant wall, parallel to the sea. In some places they fall steeply toward the Mediterranean with the sharp slope of a bulwark, without the slightest break to mask the abrupt descent. At other points the incline is gentler, creating waves of stone, miniature mountains which stand out above the water, forming capes and placid inlets. And on these sheltered shores, from Esterel to the Italian frontier, wealthy people, sensitive to cold, arriving in pilgrimages every winter, had finally converted the sleepy provincial villages into world-famous capitals. Fishing hamlets were transformed into elegant towns; the large Paris and London hotels erected enormous annexes on the deserted bays; the most expensive shops of the Boulevards opened branches in tiny settlements where a few years before every one had gone barefoot.
In his mind Toledo went over the undulating line ofcelebrated places, overlooking the sea from the promontories, or nestling in the little horseshoe bays to profit more directly by the refraction of the winter sunlight from the red walls of the Alps: Cannes, which inspired in him a certain awe on account of its quiet distinction—the place where consumptives and old people of renown desire to die—Antibes, with its square harbor and its walls which, according to Castro, recalled the romantic seascapes painted by Vernet; Nice, the capital where people come together to spend their money, copying Parisian life; the deep bay of Villefranche, the harborage of battleships; Cap-Ferrat and the beautiful Point Saint-Hospice, a former den of African pirates, jutting out from it; Beaulieu, with its Tunisian palaces, the homes of American multimillionaires, who always keep open house, and who had often invited the Colonel to luncheon there; Eze, the feudal hamlet, hanging grimly to the side of the Alps, and falling in ruins around its decaying castle, while down below, the people who fled from it are forming a new town, beside the gulf which their predecessors proudly called the Sea of Eze; Cap d'Ail, which serves as a sort of portico to the adjoining Principality; the Rock of Monaco, carrying on its giant's back a walled city; opposite it the dazzling Monte Carlo; and beyond, Cap-Martin, with somber vegetation, reserved and lordly, the ultimate shelter of dethroned kings; and lastly, close to Italy, pleasant Menton, the stronghold of Englishmen, another place for invalids of distinction, where every self-respecting consumptive feels obliged to end his days.
"Think of the money that has been spent here!" Don Marcos exclaimed.
Fifty years before, the Corniche railway in successfully finding its way through this mountain region had been considered a marvelous piece of work; but now for the convenience of winter visitors, the same work hadbeen repeated in every direction. Smoothly curving roads, clean and firm as a drawing-room floor, extended along the seashore, ascended the Alpine heights, passing from crest to crest on lofty viaducts, or burrowing the hills in long tunnels. Where the perpendicular rock would not allow a ledge to be cut the engineer had made one with buttresses many yards high, the bases of which were lost to view in the waves.
A new dream had been added to the many which the blessed in this world's goods may realize—the owning of a house on the Riviera! Within fifty years, every architectural whim, every possible fancy of rich people bent on creating sensations, had covered this shore of the Mediterranean with villas, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Venetian, and Tuscan palaces, and dwellings of other distinct or indescribable styles. The palm tree was imported and acclimated as a native plant.
"Enormous fortunes have been invested here; three generations have been ruined, and as many more enriched. When you think what it was a century ago, and see what it is now...!"
The Colonel spoke of an Englishwoman's tomb, completely abandoned on the extreme point of Cap-Ferrat. She was a forerunner of the present winter visitors, a youthful contemporary of Byron, charmed by the beauty of the Mediterranean, and by the pathless and practically unexplored mountains. On her death, they buried her on the deserted promontory, because she was a Protestant. The fishermen and peasants of this lonely coast shunned the stranger, denying her the rights of hospitality even in their cemeteries.
"This happened less than a century ago. And such poverty as there was! The only products of the country were thick skinned oranges, lemons, and these olives. The trees are very pretty, very decorative, but they bearan exceedingly small pointed olive, all pit. Compare them with ours in Andalusia, Professor! And to-day there are millionaires, born right here on the Riviera, who have grown rich merely by selling the wretched fields of their fathers. The red land, abounding in stones, is bought by the yard, even in the most out of the way spots, like lots in large cities. When you least expect it, at a turn in the road, you come across a miserable hut with a little land around it that takes your fancy. The roof of the building sags, and the wind blows through the cracks in the wall. The owners sleep with the pig, the chickens, and the horse. This same poverty and shiftlessness you find among the peasants almost everywhere. You happen to think that you might build up a country home there without much expense. Surely the good people won't ask very much, no matter how inflated their ideas of value may be! But when you ask the price, after much talk, and many doubts, they finally say in the most casual manner: 'A hundred and fifty thousand francs, or two hundred thousand.' When you protest in amazement they reply, pointing to the mountains, the sun, and the sea: 'And the view, monsieur.'"
The red soil of the Alps amounts to little for its power of production: it is the situation that gives it its value. And the native has grown rich selling, so much per yard, the sunlight, the azure of the Mediterranean, the orange color of the mountains and the dazzling glory of the clouds at sunset, the shelter of the distant rock which, like a screen, turns aside the icy breeze of themistral.
"If you only knew how inexplicably obstinate some of these people are!"
As Don Marcos spoke he turned and pointed out to Novoa the miserable strip of land that seemed fastened like a curse to the gardens of Villa Sirena. The Princess Lubimoff with all her millions, had not been able to buythe tip of that promontory. It belonged to an old married couple without any children. "That is their house," he added, pointing to a sort of yellowish cube, halfway up the mountain, beside a road that cut across the red and black slope.
The Princess, after acquiring the promontory for her medieval castle, had considered the acquisition of the small extremity a mere trifle. "Give them what they ask," she said to her business agent. And in spite of her recklessness with money, she was amazed to learn that they refused two hundred thousand francs for a few rocks undermined by the waves, and a couple of dozen dying pines.
"I was present at the interviews with the old people. The agent of the Princess offered five hundred thousand, six hundred thousand, and the couple did not seem to grasp the meaning of the figures. The Princess lost her patience, lamenting the fact that they were not in Russia, in the good old days. She even talked of engaging an assassin in Italy—as she had read in certain novels—to get rid of the stubborn old pair. It was just like her Excellency,—but she was really very kind at heart! Finally, one day, she shouted to us: 'Offer them a million, and let us be done with it!' Imagine, Professor, more than two thousand francs a yard; you could buy land at that rate in the business district of a big city! We went up to their cottage. They didn't bat an eyelash when they heard the figure. The old woman, who was the more intelligent of the two, let Her Excellency's lawyer explain what a million meant. She looked at her husband for a long time, in spite of the fact that she was the only one of the two who was doing any thinking, and finally accepted; but on condition that the Princess should erect, on the outermost point, a chapel to the Virgin. It was a wish that her simple imagination hadcherished all her life. Without the chapel, she would not accept the million. 'Don't worry, we'll build the chapel!' we said. The day set for signing the papers, we found the two old people, sitting in the lawyer's office side by side, with bowed heads. The lawyer received us, wringing his hands, and looking toward heaven with an expression of despair. They would not accept! It was no use insisting. They wanted to keep things just as they had received them from their forefathers. 'What would we do with a million?' groaned the old woman. 'We would lead a terrible life!' We tried to talk to her about the chapel, in order to persuade her; but they both fled, like people finding themselves in bad company, and afraid of being tempted."
The colonel looked once more at the dividing wall.
"Her Excellency being a born fighter, immediately had the partition raised before beginning the foundation of the castle. As you see from here, the old people can reach their property only by the beach; and on stormy days they have to enter the water up to their knees. That doesn't matter; from that time on they became more attached than ever to their land. They used to come down from the mountains every Sunday, to sit at the foot of the wall. By constantly measuring the point they succeeded in discovering an error made by the architect, who had been a trifle flustered owing to the haste enforced upon him by the Princess. He had made a mistake of eighteen inches, and half the width of the wall was on the old people's land. The peasant woman, in spite of the fact that she had a sort of superstitious fear of the majesty of the law, threatened to bring suit even though she might be forced to sell her hut and field on the mountain to fight the case. It was necessary to tear down the wall, and build it up again, half a yard farther this way. It meant some sixty thousand francs lost—nothingfor the Princess—and yet I suspect at times, that the affair may have hastened her death."
Don Marcos felt that he must pause a moment out of respect for the deceased.
"The old woman has died too," he continued, "and her husband comes here only from time to time. When he finds that one of his pine trees has fallen, through the wearing away of the soil, he sits down close beside it, just as though he were watching beside a corpse. At other times he spends hours looking at the sea and the huge rocks, as though calculating how long it would take the waves to break his property to pieces. One afternoon, going on foot from La Turbie to Roquebrune, I ran across him near his hut, where he was pasturing some sheep. With his long beard he looked like a patriarch; and he is always the same, leaning on his staff, with a dirty tam-o'shanter on his head, and a rough cape about his shoulders. Besides, he always has a pipe in his mouth, though he rarely smokes. 'The million is waiting,' I said in fun, 'whenever you want to come and get it.' He didn't seem to understand me. He smiled with a look of vague recognition, but perhaps he thought I was some one else. His gaze was fixed on Monte Carlo, a bird's-eye view of which lay at our feet. He must spend hours and weeks like that. His face looks as though it were carved of wood, or molded in terra cotta; he seldom speaks, and no one can guess the substance of his reflections. But I think that every day the same identical amazement must be renewed, and that he will die without ever recovering from his surprise. He sees the expanse of waters, which is always the same, the eternal hills, that never change, the house built by his ancestors, which was old when he was born, the olive groves, the mighty rocks ... but that city has sprung up, since he was a grown man, from a plateau coveredwith thickets, and burrowed with caves, and it is enlarged each year with new hotels, new streets, and more domes and turrets!"
The Colonel suddenly forgot the old peasant. With his fellow-countryman, Novoa, he felt quite talkative, and he imagined that his thoughts flowed more freely and vigorously, through this contact with a man of learning. Besides, he felt a certain pride in being able to talk like an old inhabitant, of the many things of which the new-comer was ignorant.
"The fortress you see over there practically belonged to us at one time," he went on, pointing to the Castle of Monaco. "For a century and a half it had a Spanish garrison. Our great Charles V"—and the old Legitimist spoke the name with a note of deep respect—"once slept there. And there, too."
Turning, he pointed out on the mountain summit of Cap-Martin the village of Roquebrune, huddled about its ruined castle.
"The archivist of the Prince of Monaco is studying the numerous letters in his possession written by our great Emperor to the Grimaldi family. When the historians of the Principality wish to establish the indisputable independence of their tiny land, they cite as the origins of the state the treaties signed at Burgos, Tordesillas, and Madrid."
In a few words he went over the history of the little country, which came into being around a little harbor. Semitic sailors gave it the name of Melkar—the Phœnician Hercules—and the word gradually changed into the present one, Monaco. The Guelphs and Ghibellines of Genoa fought for possession of its castle, until a Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, entered the enclosure by surprise and opened the gates to his friends, making the ancient Hercules Harbor an estate of his family for alltime. "This friar, sword in hand," continued Don Marcos, "is the one that figures on both sides of the coat of arms of Monaco. From that time on the history of the Grimaldis is similar to that of all the ruling houses of those days. They made war on their neighbors, and quarreled among themselves, to the extent that brother even assassinated brother. The sailors of Monaco plied the trade of corsair, and their flag was even used to give distinction to the pirates of other countries. The alliance of the Grimaldis with Spain allowed them to use the title of Prince for the first time. Charles V addressed them in his letters as 'dear Cousins,' and gave them other honorary titles. This great rock was of exceeding importance to the Spanish Monarchs who had lands in Italy and needed to keep the route safe. The Kings of France were very anxious, on their part, to do away with this obstacle and win the Grimaldis over to their side. You must realize that for a hundred and fifty years the latter kept their agreements faithfully, and that during all this time the subsidies that had been promised them from Madrid were sent only at rare intervals. Two galleys from Monaco always figured in the rolls of the Spanish navy. Only when the decline of Austria began to cause us to lose our influence in Europe, did the Grimaldis, like people fleeing from a house that is tumbling down, abandon us. At that particular moment, Richelieu was making France a great power, and they went with him. One night amid thunder and lightning, when the garrison, composed for the most part of Italians in the service of Spain, were carelessly asleep, the French caught them unawares, disarmed them, after killing a few who tried to resist, and finally sent the remainder courteously to the Spanish Viceroy at Milan, with the notice that the alliance must be considered broken forever.
"The Grimaldis became the liege-lords of France. Later they went to Versailles, as courtiers, or served in the King's armies. During the Revolution they were persecuted, like all the other princes, and a beautiful lady of the family was guillotined. Napoleon kept them in his military following as aides-de-camp, and the long peace of the Nineteenth Century caused them to return and take up their abode once more in their tiny Principality.
"They were so poor!" Toledo went on. "They were obliged to keep up the show and pomp of a court, since in a small state where all are neighbors, the Prince has to exaggerate formality, in order to hold the people's respect. The same expenses must be defrayed as in a large nation; the maintenance of courts, administrative offices, and even a diminutive army for internal safety. And the whole Principality produced nothing but lemons and olives.... You can see for yourself how poor and how hard pressed they must have been, not knowing how to raise funds, especially since under the rule of Florestan I, the grandfather of the present Prince, there was an attempted revolution, owing to the decree of the Sovereign that the olives of the country should be pressed exclusively in the mills of his estate.
"Later under Charles III, the situation became still more difficult. The Principality was dismembered. The two cities, Menton and Roquebrune, dependencies of Monaco, full of enthusiasm for the Italian Revolution, declared their freedom, and joined the Kingdom of Savoy. Shortly after, when Napoleon III acquired the former County of Nice they fell under the control of France. And thus Monaco was isolated within French territory, with its sovereignty clearly recognized; but a sovereignty that embraced only a single city on a rocky height, a small harbor, and a little surrounding land overgrownwith parasitical vegetation; about as much ground as a peaceful citizen might cover in a morning walk. How was the tiny State to be maintained?
"It was saved by gambling. Don't imagine as some people do, that the idea originated with the Ruler of Monaco. Many German Princes had had recourse to some enterprise to support their domains. It is a German invention; but gambling on the shore of the Mediterranean, under a winter sun that seldom fails, is quite a different thing from gambling in Central Europe. At first the business was unsuccessful. They established a miserable Casino in old Monaco, opposite the Palace, in what is now the barracks of the Prince's Guard. The betting was very slight. It was necessary to come by diligence, over the Alpine heights, following the old Roman route, and to descend from La Turbie by roads that were like ravines. One had to be very anxious indeed to gamble. Later the Casino was transferred to the harbor below, where the La Condamine district is to-day: another failure. The lessees of the gaming privileges went bankrupt, and were unable to fulfill their obligations to the Prince. And then the Corniche Railway was put through, placing Monaco on the road between Paris and Italy; and all the gamblers and idlers of the world came flocking here within a few years. What a transformation!"
The Colonel recalled once more the old peasant, who, pasturing his sheep on the Alpine slope, spent hours and hours with his eyes fixed on the marvelous city, stretching out below, on the very spot that, as a young man, he had seen covered with thickets.
"That was the beginning of Monte Carlo. Opposite the rock of Monaco, forming the other side of the harbor, there was an abandoned plateau, only some sixty years ago. Scattered about the gardens of the Square, among the tropical trees, there are still a few scraggly olivetrees left from those times. They have been spared as relics of the days of poverty. Where we now find the Casino, the large hotels, and the most elegant tea-houses, there were caves dating back to prehistoric times, which in less remote periods served as haunts for thieves. On account of the grottoes this wild plateau was nicknamedThe Caverns. Some of the things you have seen in the Anthropological Museum in Monaco, stone axes, human bones, etc., came from those caves. And the abandoned plateau, in some ten or twelve years, was converted into Monte Carlo, the great city of world fame, leaving on the heights opposite in obscurity and more or less in oblivion, the historic Monaco, which at present is merely one of its suburbs. Monte Carlo has grown so that it extends from one end of the Principality to the other; the entire national territory is covered with houses, and each year it over-flows still farther beyond the boundary line. The French part is called Beausoleil. You have only to cross the Square in front of the Casino, ascend the sloping gardens, and mount a stairway to the Boulevard du Nord, to find one of the rarest sights in Europe. One sidewalk belongs to the Prince of Monaco, and the other across the street, to the French Republic. The shopkeepers pay different taxes and obey different laws, according to whether their show windows are on the left or on the right."
Toledo remained thoughtful for a moment.
"The miracles accomplished by roulette!" he continued. "The magic power of 'red and black'! They say the Casino is a marvel of poor taste, but the walls and ceilings fairly drip with gold, as in a rich church. The theater there is the first to produce many operas that become famous throughout the world. The countless hotels are like palaces. Monte Carlo bristles with domes and turrets like an oriental city. The streets with their scrupulously clean pavements, seem like drawing-rooms.There isn't a trace of dirt. And think of the gardens! The Alps, here, form a wonderful screen; we live in a sunny shelter; almost a hothouse. But at times themistralblows, and it is cold. I don't know how it is possible for all those tropical plants that are so fresh and luxuriant, and all those trees that originate in a climate as hot as an oven, to live here. The poor old olives must be as amazed as I myself at finding themselves in such company. 'Trente et Quarante' must be a powerful fertilizer! I'm sure that if the gambling were to stop, all this tropical vegetation would vanish like a dream."
The silent Professor greeted these words with a smile.
"And what a transformation in the people!" the Colonel continued. "Notice the crowd some Sunday; none of them like workmen, all equally well dressed! The girls here copy what they see worn by the elegant society women; and imagine how many of the latter come here! You never see a beggar, nor a man in rags. To be born here means something: one's livelihood is assured. The Casino takes care of every one; there is always a place for every citizen in the gambling rooms, in the gardens, or in the theater; and if not, on the police force, in the administrative offices, or in the Prince's household—and the latter is paid for with the Company's money too. To achieve the dignity of being put in charge of a gaming table is the native's highest ambition. He may earn as much as a thousand francs a month, not counting the tips. That is more perhaps than you will ever earn, Professor. And he ends his days in a little villa he has built on the heights of Beausoleil, where he can look after his garden, with a view below of the Casino—the house of the Good Fairy that dispenses all blessings. They all have enough to live on as long as they know how to keep a silent tongue, and mind their own business. An old cab driver, whom I sometimes engage, was bold enoughone evening to talk quite frankly with me, owing to the fact that he was slightly intoxicated. His wife has been for some twenty years now in the Ladies' Section of the Casino toilets; his daughters work as cleaners; his sons are employed in the theater. They all bring in money. Moreover, the old men retire on pay, the sick are not forgotten, and the widows and orphans of every employee that dies during service are paid pensions. 'It's a great country, sir,' the driver said to me, 'the best in the world. Every one can make a living, as long as he's wise enough to keep his mouth shut, and not make trouble.' And you can depend upon it, they are all discreet. Moreover they watch one another, and are afraid of being denounced by their best friend, if they talk about the latest scandal, or a gambler's suicide. Among strangers not one of them lets on that he knows anything."