← catalogue

Gerfaut — Complete

by Charles de Bernard · English · Gutenberg #3985 · 559,558 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gerfaut — Complete
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Gerfaut — Complete

Author: Charles de Bernard


        
Release date: October 30, 2004 [eBook #3985]
                Most recently updated: January 9, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3985

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERFAUT — COMPLETE ***



Produced by David Widger





GERFAUT

By CHARLES DE BERNARD



With a Preface by JULES CLARETIE, of the French Academy




CHARLES DE BERNARD

PIERRE-MARIE-CHARLES DE BERNARD DU GRAIL DE LA VILLETTE, better known by
the name of Charles de Bernard, was born in Besancon, February 24, 1804.
He came from a very ancient family of the Vivarais, was educated at
the college of his native city, and studied for the law in Dijon and
at Paris. He was awarded a prize by the ‘Jeux floraux’ for his
dithyrambics, ‘Une fete de Neron’ in 1829. This first success in
literature did not prevent him aspiring to the Magistrature, when the
Revolution of 1830 broke out and induced him to enter politics. He
became one of the founders of the ‘Gazette de Franche-Comte’ and an
article in the pages of this journal about ‘Peau de chagrin’ earned him
the thanks and the friendship of Balzac.

The latter induced him to take up his domicile in Paris and initiated
him into the art of novel-writing. Bernard had published a volume of
odes: ‘Plus Deuil que Joie’ (1838), which was not much noticed, but a
series of stories in the same year gained him the reputation of a genial
‘conteur’. They were collected under the title ‘Le Noeud Gordien’, and
one of the tales, ‘Une Aventure du Magistrat, was adapted by Sardou for
his comedy ‘Pommes du voisin’. ‘Gerfaut’, his greatest work, crowned by
the Academy, appeared also in 1838, then followed ‘Le Paravent’, another
collection of novels (1839); ‘Les Ailes d’Icare (1840); La Peau du Lion
and La Chasse aux Amants (1841); L’Ecueil (1842); Un Beau-pere (1845);
and finally Le Gentilhomme campagnard,’ in 1847. Bernard died, only
forty-eight years old, March 6, 1850.

Charles de Bernard was a realist, a pupil of Balzac. He surpasses his
master, nevertheless, in energy and limpidity of composition. His style
is elegant and cultured. His genius is most fully represented in a score
or so of delightful tales rarely exceeding some sixty or seventy pages
in length, but perfect in proportion, full of invention and originality,
and saturated with the purest and pleasantest essence of the spirit
which for six centuries in tableaux, farces, tales in prose and verse,
comedies and correspondence, made French literature the delight and
recreation of Europe. ‘Gerfaut’ is considered De Bernard’s greatest
work. The plot turns on an attachment between a married woman and the
hero of the story. The book has nothing that can justly offend, the
incomparable sketches of Marillac and Mademoiselle de Corandeuil are
admirable; Gerfaut and Bergenheim possess pronounced originality, and
the author is, so to speak, incarnated with the hero of his romance.

The most uncritical reader can not fail to notice the success with
which Charles de Bernard introduces people of rank and breeding into his
stories. Whether or not he drew from nature, his portraits of this kind
are exquisitely natural and easy. It is sufficient to say that he is
the literary Sir Joshua Reynolds of the post-revolution vicomtes and
marquises. We can see that his portraits are faithful; we must feel that
they are at the same time charming. Bernard is an amiable and spirited
‘conteur’ who excels in producing an animated spectacle for a refined
and selected public, whether he paints the ridiculousness or the misery
of humanity.

The works of Charles de Bernard in wit and urbanity, and in the peculiar
charm that wit and urbanity give, are of the best French type. To any
elevation save a lofty place in fiction they have no claim; but in that
phase of literature their worth is undisputed, and from many testimonies
it would seem that those whom they most amuse are those who are best
worth amusing.

These novels, well enough as they are known to professed students of
French literature, have, by the mere fact of their age, rather slipped
out of the list of books known to the general reader. The general reader
who reads for amusement can not possibly do better than proceed to
transform his ignorance of them into knowledge.

                    JULES CLARETIE
                  de l’Academie Francaise.
GERFAUT




BOOK 1.




CHAPTER I. THE TRAVELLER

During the first days of the month of September, 1832, a young man about
thirty years of age was walking through one of the valleys in Lorraine
originating in the Vosges mountains. A little river which, after a few
leagues of its course, flows into the Moselle, watered this wild basin
shut in between two parallel lines of mountains. The hills in the
south became gradually lower and finally dwindled away into the plain.
Alongside the plateau, arranged in amphitheatres, large square fields
stripped of their harvest lay here and there in the primitive forest; in
other places, innumerable oaks and elms had been dethroned to give
place to plantations of cherry-trees, whose symmetrical rows promised an
abundant harvest.

This contest of nature with industry is everywhere, but is more
pronounced in hilly countries. The scene changed, however, as one
penetrated farther, and little by little the influence of the soil
gained ascendancy. As the hills grew nearer together, enclosing the
valley in a closer embrace, the clearings gave way to the natural
obduracy of the soil. A little farther on they disappeared entirely. At
the foot of one of the bluffs which bordered with its granite bands the
highest plateau of the mountain, the forest rolled victoriously down to
the banks of the river.

Now came patches of forest, like solid battalions of infantry; sometimes
solitary trees appeared, as if distributed by chance upon the grassy
slopes, or scaling the summit of the steepest rocks like a body of bold
sharpshooters. A little, unfrequented road, if one can judge from the
scarcity of tracks, ran alongside the banks of the stream, climbing up
and down hills; overcoming every obstacle, it stretched out in almost a
straight line. One might compare it to those strong characters who mark
out a course in life and imperturbably follow it. The river, on the
contrary, like those docile and compliant minds that bend to agreeable
emergencies, described graceful curves, obeying thus the caprices of the
soil which served as its bed.

At a first glance, the young man who was walking alone in the midst of
this picturesque country seemed to have nothing remarkable in his dress;
a straw hat, a blue blouse and linen trousers composed his costume.
It would have been very natural to take him for an Alsatian peasant
returning to his village through the Vosges’s rough pathways; but a more
attentive glance quickly dispelled this conjecture. There is something
in the way in which a person wears the plainest costume which betrays
the real man, no matter how he may be clothed. Thus, nothing could be
more modest than this traveller’s blouse, but the absence on collar
and sleeves of the arabesques in white or red thread, the pride of all
village dandies, was sufficient for one to realize that this was not a
fancy costume.

His expressive, but not handsome face was dark, it is true, but it did
not look as if wind or sun had contributed to its complexion; it seemed
rather to have lost by a sedentary life something of the southern
carnation, which had ended by blending these warmer tints into a
dead uniform pallor. Finally, if, as one may suppose after different
diagnoses, this person had the slightest desire to play the role of
Tyrcis or Amintas, his white hand, as carefully cared for as a pretty
woman’s, would have been sufficient to betray him. It was evident that
the man was above his costume; a rare thing! The lion’s ears pierced the
ass’s skin this time.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon; the sky, which had been overcast
all the morning, had assumed, within a few moments, a more sombre
aspect; large clouds were rapidly moving from south to north, rolled one
over another by an ominous wind. So the traveller, who had just entered
the wildest part of the valley, seemed very little disposed to admire
its fine vegetation and romantic sites. Impatient to reach the end of
his journey, or fearing the approaching storm, he quickened his steps;
but this pace was not kept long. At the end of a few moments, having
crossed a small clearing, he found himself at the entrance of a lawn
where the road divided in two directions, one continuing to skirt the
river banks, the other, broader and better built, turning to the left
into a winding ravine.

Which of these two roads should he follow? He did not know. The profound
solitude of the place made him fear that he might not meet any one who
could direct him, when the sound of a psalm vigorously chanted reached
his ears from the distance. Soon it became more distinct, and he
recognized the words, ‘In exitu Israel de Egypto’, sung at the top of
the lungs by a voice so shrill that it would have irritated the larynx
of any of the sopranos at the Opera. Its vibrating but sharp tones
resounded so clearly in the dead silence of the forest that a number of
stanzas were finished before the pious musician came in sight. At last
a drove of cattle appeared through the trees which bordered the road on
the left, walking with a slow, grave step; they were driven by a little
shepherd about nine or ten years of age, who interrupted his song from
time to time to reassemble the members of his flock with heavy blows
from his whip, thus uniting temporal cares with those of a spiritual
nature with a coolness which the most important personages might have
envied him.

“Which of these roads leads to Bergenheim?” called out the traveller
when they were near enough to speak to each other.

“Bergenheim!” repeated the child, taking off his cotton cap, which was
striped like a rainbow, and adding a few words in an unintelligible
Gallo-Germanic patois.

“You are not French, then?” asked the stranger, in a disappointed tone.

The shepherd raised his head proudly and replied:

“I am Alsatian, not French!”

The young man smiled at this trait of local patriotism so common then
in the beautiful province by the Rhine; then he thought that pantomime
might be necessary, so he pointed with his finger first at one road,
then at the other:

“There or there, Bergenheim?” asked he.

The child, in his turn, pointed silently with the tip of his whip to the
banks of the river, designating, at some distance on the other side, a
thicket of woods behind which a slight column of smoke was rising.

“The deuce!” murmured the stranger, “it seems that I have gone
astray; if the chateau is on the other side, where can I establish my
ambuscade?”

The shepherd seemed to understand the traveller’s embarrassment. Gazing
at him with his intelligent blue eyes, he traced, with the tip of his
toe in the middle of the road, a furrow across which he rounded his whip
like the arch of a bridge; then he pointed a second time up the river.

“You are an honor to your country, young fellow,” exclaimed the
stranger; “there is the material in you to make one of Cooper’s
redskins.” As he said these words he threw a piece of money into the
child’s cap and walked rapidly away in the direction indicated.

The Alsatian stood motionless for a few moments with one hand in his
blond hair and his eyes fastened upon the piece of silver which shone
like a star in the bottom of his cap; when the one whom he considered as
a model of extraordinary generosity had disappeared behind the trees, he
gave vent to his joy by heavy blows from his whip upon the backs of
the cattle, then he resumed his way, singing in a still more triumphant
tone: ‘Mantes exultaverunt ut arites’, and jumping higher himself than
all the hills and rams in the Bible.

The young man had not walked more than five minutes before he recognized
the correctness of the directions he had received. The ground which he
had passed over was a field covered with clumps of low trees; it was
easy to see by its disc-like shape that it had been formed by successive
alluvia, at the expense of the other shore, which had been incessantly
worn away by the stream. This sort of flat, level peninsula was crossed
in a straight line by the road, which deviated from the river at the
point where the two roads came together again, like the cross and string
of a bow at its extremity. The trees, becoming thinner, revealed a
perspective all the more wonderful as it was unexpected. While the
eye followed the widening stream, which disappeared in the depths of a
mountainous gorge, a new prospect suddenly presented itself on the right
upon the other shore.

A second valley, smaller than the first and in measure its vassal,
formed an amphitheatre the crest of which was bordered by a fringe of
perpendicular rocks as white as dried bones. Under this crown, which
rendered it almost inaccessible, the little valley was resplendent in
its wealth of evergreen trees, oaks with their knotty branches, and its
fresh green turf.

Taken as a whole, it was a foundation worthy of the picturesque edifice
which met one’s eye in the foreground, and at which the traveller gazed
with extreme interest.

At the junction of the two valleys stood an enormous building, half
manorial, half monastic in appearance. The shore formed, at this point,
for an extent of several hundred feet, a bluff whose edge plunged
vertically into the river. The chateau and its outbuildings rested upon
this solid base. The principal house was a large parallelogram of very
old construction, but which had evidently been almost entirely rebuilt
at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The stones, of grayish
granite which abounds in the Vosges, were streaked with blue and violet
veins, and gave the facade a sombre aspect, increased by the scarcity of
windows, some of which were ‘a la Palladio’, others almost as narrow
as loop-holes. An immense roof of red tile, darkened by rain, projected
several feet over the whole front, as is still to be seen in old cities
in the North. Thanks to this projecting weather-board, the apartments
upon the upper floor were shaded from the sun’s rays, like those persons
who have weak eyes and who protect them from a strong light by wearing a
green shade.

The view which this melancholy dwelling presented from the place where
the traveller had first seen it, was one which made it appear to the
best advantage; it seemed, from this point, to come immediately out of
the river, built as it was upon the very curb of the bluffs, at this
place at least thirty feet high. This elevation, added to that of the
building, effaced the lack of proportion of the roof and gave to the
whole a most imposing appearance; it seemed as if the rocks were a part
of the building to which it served as foundation, for the stones had
ended by assuming the same color, and it would have been difficult to
discover the junction of man’s work and that of nature, had it not been
outlined by a massive iron balcony running across the entire length of
the first story, whence one could enjoy the pleasure of line-fishing.
Two round towers with pointed roofs stood at each corner of the facade
and seemed to gaze with proud satisfaction at their own reflection in
the water.

A long line of sycamore-trees skirted the banks of the river, beginning
from the foot of the chateau, and forming the edge of a park which
extended to the back of the double valley. A little wooden bridge
connected this sort of avenue with the road the traveller had just
passed over; but the latter did not seem disposed to profit by this
silent invitation to which large raindrops gave more emphasis. He was so
absorbed in his meditation that, to arouse him, it needed the sound of a
gruff voice behind him uttering these words:

“That is what I call an ugly castle! It is hardly as good as our common
country houses around Marseilles.”

The stranger turned quickly around and found himself face to face with
a man wearing a gray cap and carrying his coat upon his shoulder, as
workmen do in the South. He held in his hand a knotty stick which
had been recently cut. The newcomer had a swarthy complexion, harsh
features, and deep-set eyes which gave his face an ugly, false
expression.

“I said an ugly castle,” continued he. “However, the cage is made for
the bird.”

“It seems, then, that you do not like its master?” said the traveller.

“The master!” repeated the workman, seizing hold of his stick with a
threatening air, “Monsieur le Baron de Bergenheim, as they say! He is
rich and a nobleman, and I am only a poor carpenter. Well, then, if you
stay here a few days, you will witness a comical ceremony; I shall make
this brigand repent.”

“Brigand!” exclaimed the stranger, in a surprised tone. “What has he
done to you?”

“Yes, brigand! you may tell him so from me. But, by the way,” continued
the workman, surveying his companion from head to foot with a searching,
defiant air, “do you happen to be the carpenter who is coming from
Strasbourg? In that case, I have a few words to say to you. Lambernier
does not allow any one to take the bread out of his mouth in that way;
do you understand?”

The young man seemed very little moved by this declaration.

“I am not a carpenter,” said he, smiling, “and I have no wish for your
work.”

“Truly, you do not look as if you had pushed a plane very often. It
seems that in your business one does not spoil one’s hands. You are a
workman about as much as I am pope.”

This remark made the one to whom it was addressed feel in as bad a humor
as an author does when he finds a grammatical error in one of his books.

“So you work at the chateau, then,” said he, finally, to change the
conversation.

“For six months I have worked in that shanty,” replied the workman; “I
am the one who carved the new woodwork, and I will say it is well done.
Well, this great wild boar of a Bergenheim turned me out of the house
yesterday as if I had been one of his dogs.”

“He doubtless had his reasons.”

“I tell you, I will crush him--reasons! Damn it! They told him I talked
too often with his wife’s maid and quarrelled with the servants, a pack
of idlers! Did he not forbid my putting my foot upon his land? I am upon
his land now; let him come and chase me off; let him come, he will see
how I shall receive him. Do you see this stick? I have just cut it in
his own woods to use it on himself!”

The young man no longer listened to the workman; his eyes were turned
toward the castle, whose slightest details he studied, as if he hoped
that in the end the stone would turn into glass and let him see the
interior. If this curiosity had any other object than the architecture
and form of the building it was not gratified. No human figure came to
enliven this sad, lonely dwelling. All the windows were closed, as if
the house were uninhabited. The baying of dogs, probably imprisoned
in their kennel, was the only sound which came to break the strange
silence, and the distant thunder, with its dull rumbling, repeated by
the echoes, responded plaintively, and gave a lugubrious character to
the scene.

“When one speaks of the devil he appears,” said the workman, suddenly,
with an emotion which gave the lie to his recent bravado; “if you
wish to see this devil incarnate of a Bergenheim, just turn your head.
Good-by.”

At these words he leaped a ditch at the left of the road and disappeared
in the bushes. The stranger also seemed to feel an impression very like
that of Lambernier’s as he saw a man on horseback advancing on a gallop.
Instead of waiting for him, he darted into the field which descended to
the river, and hid behind a group of trees.

The Baron, who was not more than thirty-three years of age, had one of
those energetic, handsome faces whose type seems to belong particularly
to old military families. His bright, blond hair and clear, blue eyes
contrasted strongly with his ruddy complexion; his aspect was severe,
but noble and imposing, in spite of his negligent dress, which showed
that indifference to matters of personal attire which becomes habitual
with country lords. His tall figure was beginning to grow stout, and
that increased his athletic appearance. He sat very erect in his saddle,
and from the way in which he straightened out his long legs against the
sides of his beast, one suspected that he could, if necessary, repeat
the Marshal de Saxe’s feats of skill. He stopped his horse suddenly at
the very spot which the two men had just vacated and called out in a
voice which would startle a regiment of cuirassiers:

“Here, Lambernier!”

The carpenter hesitated a moment, at this imperative call, between the
fear which he could not overcome and shame at fleeing from a single man
in the presence of a witness; finally this last feeling triumphed. He
returned to the edge of the road without saying a word, and stationed
himself in an insolent way face to face with the Baron, with his hat
drawn down over his ears, and grasped through precaution the knotty
stick which served him as a weapon.

“Lambernier,” said the master of the castle, in a severe tone, “your
account was settled yesterday; was it not paid in full? Is anything due
you?”

“I ask nothing of you,” replied the workman, brusquely.

“In that case, why are you wandering about my place when I forbade you?”

“I am upon the highway, nobody can prevent me from passing there.”

“You are upon my land, and you came out of my woods,” replied the Baron,
emphasizing his words with the firmness of a man who would permit no
violation of his rights as a landowner.

“The ground upon which I walk is mine,” said the workman, in his
turn, as he struck the end of his stick upon the ground as if to take
possession. This gesture attracted Bergenheim’s attention, and his eyes
flashed with a sudden light at the sight of the stick which Lambernier
held.

“You scoundrel!” he exclaimed, “you probably regard my trees also as
your own. Where did you cut that stick?”

“Go and find out,” said the workman, accompanying his reply with a
flourish of the stick.

The Baron coolly dismounted, threw the bridle over his horse’s neck,
walked up to the workman, who had taken the position of a practised
pugilist to receive him, and, without giving him time to strike, he
disarmed him with one hand by a blow which would have been sufficient to
uproot the beech rod before it was metamorphosed into a club; with the
other hand he seized the man by the collar and gave him a shaking that
it was as impossible to struggle against as if it had been caused by a
steam-engine. Obeying this irresistible force, in spite of his kicking,
Lambernier described a dozen circles around his adversary, while the
latter set these off with some of the hardest blows from green wood that
ever chastised an insolent fellow. This gymnastic exercise ended by a
sleight-of-hand trick, which, after making the carpenter pirouette for
the last time, sent him rolling head-first into a ditch, the bottom of
which, fortunately for him, was provided with a bed of soft mud. When
the punishment was over, Bergenheim remounted his horse as tranquilly as
he had dismounted it, and continued his way toward the chateau.

The young man, in the midst of the thicket where he was concealed, had
lost no detail of this rural scene. He could not help having a feeling
of admiration for this energetic representative of the feudal ages who,
with no fear of any court of justice or other bourgeois inventions,
had thus exerted over his own domains the summary justice in force in
Eastern countries.

“France has thrashed Gaul,” said he, smiling to himself; “if all our men
had this Bergenheim’s iron fist many things determined upon to-day might
be called in question. If I ever have the slightest difficulty with this
Milo de Crotona, he may be sure I shall not choose pugilism as my mode
of discussion.”

The storm now burst forth in all its fury. A dark curtain covered the
whole valley, and the rain fell in torrents. The Baron put spurs to his
horse, crossed the bridge and, entering the sycamore avenue, was soon
out of sight. Without paying any attention to Lambernier, who was
uttering imprecations at the bottom of the ditch, into which he was
sinking deeper and deeper, the stranger went to seek a less illusive
shelter than the trees under which he had taken his position; but at
this moment his attention was attracted to one side of the castle. A
window, or rather a glass door, just then opened upon the balcony, and a
young woman in a rose-colored negligee appeared upon the dark facade. It
would be impossible to imagine anything more fresh or charming than
this apparition at such a moment. Leaning upon the balustrade, the young
woman rested her face upon a hand which was as white as a lily, and her
finger smoothed with a mechanical caress the ringlets of chestnut hair
that lay upon her forehead, while her large brown eyes gazed into the
depths of the clouds from which the lightning was flashing, and with
which they vied in brilliancy. A poet would have said it was Miranda
evoked by the tempest.

The stranger parted the branches before him to get a better view; at the
same instant he was blinded by a terrible flash which lighted the whole
valley and was immediately followed by a terrific crash. When he opened
his eyes the chateau which he believed to be at the bottom of the river
stood still upright, solemn, and firm as before; but the lady in the
rose-colored gown had disappeared.




CHAPTER II. THE CASTLE OF BERGENHEIM

The appearance of the room into which the lady had precipitately
entered, when startled by the thunder, corresponded with the edifice to
which it belonged. It was a very large room, longer than it was wide,
and lighted by three windows, the middle one of which opened from top
to bottom like a door and led out upon the balcony. The woodwork and
ceiling were in chestnut, which time had polished and a skilful hand had
ornamented with a profusion of allegorical figures. The beauty of
this work of art was almost entirely concealed by a very remarkable
decoration which covered every side of the room, consisting of one
of the most glorious collections of family portraits which a country
chateau of the nineteenth century could offer.

The first of these portraits hung opposite the windows at the right of
the entrance door and was that of a chevalier in full armor, whose teeth
gleamed from under his long moustache like those of an untamed tiger.
Beginning with this formidable figure, which bore the date 1247, forty
others of about the same dimensions were placed in order according to
their dates. It seemed as if each period had left its mark upon those of
the personages it had seen live and die, and had left something of its
own character there.

There were more gallant cavaliers cut after the same pattern as the
first. Their stern, harsh faces, red beards, and broad, square military
shoulders told that by swordthrusts and broken lances they had founded
the nobility of their race. An heroic preface to this family biography!
A rough and warlike page of the Middle Ages! After these proud
men-of-arms came several figures of a less ferocious aspect, but not
so imposing. In these portraits of the fifteenth century beards had
disappeared with the sword. In those wearing caps and velvet toques,
silk robes and heavy gold chains supporting a badge of the same metal,
one recognized lords in full and tranquil possession of the fiefs won
by their fathers, landowners who had degenerated a little and preferred
mountain life in a manor to the chances of a more hazardous existence.
These pacific gentlemen were, for the most part, painted with the left
hand gloved and resting upon the hip; the right one was bare, a sort of
token of disarmament which one might take for a painter’s epigram.
Some of them had allowed their favorite dogs to share the honors of the
picture. All in this group indicated that this branch of the family had
many points of resemblance with the more illustrious faces. It was the
period of idle kings.

A half dozen solemn personages with gold-braided hats and long red robes
bordered with ermine, and wearing starched ruffles, occupied one corner
of the parlor near the windows. These worthy advisers of the Dukes
of Lorraine explained the way in which the masters of the chateau had
awakened from the torpor in which they had been plunged for several
generations, in order to participate in the affairs of their country and
enter a more active sphere.

Here the portraits assumed the proportions of history. Did not this
branch, descended from warlike stock, seem like a fragment taken from
the European annals? Was it not a symbolical image of the progress
of civilization, of regular legislation struggling against barbaric
customs? Thanks to these respectable counsellors and judges, one might
reverse the motto: ‘Non solum toga’, in favor of their race. But it did
not seem as if these bearded ancestors looked with much gratitude upon
this parliamentary flower added to their feudal crest. They appeared to
look down from the height of their worm-eaten frames upon their enrobed
descendants with that disdainful smile with which the peers of France
used to greet men of law the first time they were called to sit by their
side, after being for so long a time at their feet.

In the space between the windows and upon the remaining woodwork was a
crowd of military men, with here and there an Abbe with cross and mitre,
a Commander of Malta, and a solemn Canon, sterile branches of this
genealogical tree. Several among the military ones wore sashes and
plumes of the colors of Lorraine; others, even before the union of
this province to France, had served the latter country; there were
lieutenant-colonels of infantry and cavalry; some dressed in blue coats
lined with buff serge and little round patches of black plush, which
served as the uniform for the dragoons of the Lorraine legion.

Last of all was a young man with an agreeable face, who smiled
superciliously from under a vast wig of powdered hair; a rose was in
the buttonhole of his green cloth pelisse with orange facings, a red
sabrecache hung against his boots a little lower than the hilt of his
sabre. The costume represented a sprightly officer of the Royal Nassau
hussars. The portrait was hung on the left of the entrance door and only
separated by it from his great-grandfather of 1247, whom he might have
assisted, had these venerable portraits taken some night a fancy to
descend from their frames to execute a dance such as Hoffmann dreamed.

These two persons were the alpha and the omega of this genealogical
tree, the two extreme links of the chain-one, the root buried in the
sands of time; the other, the branch which had blossomed at the top.
Fate had created a tragical resemblance between these two lives,
separated by more than five centuries. The chevalier in coat-of-mail had
been killed in the battle of the Mansourah during the first crusade of
St. Louis. The young man with the supercilious smile had mounted the
scaffold during the Reign of Terror, holding between his lips a rose,
his usual decoration for his coat. The history of the French nobility
was embodied in these two men, born in blood, who had died in blood.

Large gilded frames of Gothic style surrounded all these portraits. At
the right, on the bottom of each picture was painted a little escutcheon
having for its crest a baronial coronet and for supports two wild men
armed with clubs. The field was red; with its three bulls’ heads in
silver, it announced to people well versed in heraldic art that they
had before them the lineaments of noble and powerful lords, squires of
Reisnach-Bergenheim, lords of Reisnach in Suabia, barons of the
Holy Empire, lords of Sapois, Labresse, Gerbamont, etc., counts of
Bergenheim, the latter title granted them by Louis XV, chevaliers of
Lorraine, etc., etc., etc.

This ostentatious enumeration was not needed in order to recognize the
kindred of all these noble personages. Had they been mingled with other
portraits, a careful observer would have promptly distinguished and
reunited them, so pronounced were the family features common to them
all. The furniture of the room was not unworthy of these proud defunct
ones. High-backed chairs and enormous armchairs, dating from the time of
Louis XIII; more modern sofas, which had been made to harmonize with
the older furniture, filled the room. They were covered with flowered
tapestry in thousands of shades, which must have busied the white hands
of the ladies of the house for two or three generations past.

The row of portraits was interrupted on one side by a large fireplace of
grayish granite, which was too high for one to hang a mirror above or
to place ornaments upon its mantel. Opposite was an ebony console inlaid
with ivory, upon which was placed one of those elegant clocks whose
delicate and original chased work has not been eclipsed by any modern
workmanship. Two large Japanese vases accompanied it; the whole was
reflected in an antique mirror which hung above the console; its edges
were bevelled, doubtless in order to cause one to admire the thickness
of the glass.

It would be impossible to imagine a stronger contrast than that of this
Gothic room with the lady in the rose-colored gown who had just entered
it so precipitately. The fire upon the hearth threw a warm light over
the old portraits, and it was heightened by the heavy, red damask
curtains which hung by the windows. The light sometimes softened,
sometimes revivified by some sudden flash of the flames, glanced over
the scowling faces and red beards, enlivening the eyes and giving a
supernatural animation to those lifeless canvases. One would have said
that the cold, grave faces looked with curiosity at the young woman with
graceful movements and cool garments, whom Aladdin’s genii seemed to
have transported from the most elegant boudoir on the Chaussee d’Antin,
and thrown, still frightened, into the midst of this strange assembly.

“You are crazy, Clemence, to leave that window open!” said at this
moment an old voice issuing from an armchair placed in a corner near the
fireplace.

The person who broke the charm of this silent scene was a woman of sixty
or seventy years of age, according to the gallantry of the calculator.
It was easy to judge that she was tall and thin as she lay, rather
than sat, in her chair with its back lowered down. She was dressed in a
yellowish-brown gown. A false front as black as jet, surmounted by a
cap with poppy-colored ribbons, framed her face. She had sharp, withered
features, and the brilliancy of her primitive freshness had been
converted into a blotched and pimpled complexion which affected above
all her nose and cheek-bones, but whose ardor had been dimmed only a
trifle by age. There was something about the whole face as crabbed,
sour, and unkind as if she had daily bathed it in vinegar. One could
read old maid in every feature! Besides, a slight observation of her
ways would have destroyed all lingering doubt in this respect.

A large, coffee-colored pug-dog was lying before the fire. This
interesting animal served as a footstool for his mistress, stretched in
her easy-chair, and recalled to mind the lions which sleep at the
foot of chevaliers in their Gothic tombs. As a pug-dog and an old maid
pertain to each other, it was only necessary, in order to divine this
venerable lady’s state, to read the name upon the golden circlet which
served as a collar for the dog: “Constance belongs to Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil.”

Before the younger lady, who was leaning upon the back of a chair,
seeming to breathe with difficulty, had time to reply, she received a
second injunction.

“But, aunt,” said she, at last, “it was a horrible crash! Did you not
hear it?”

“I am not so deaf as that yet,” replied the old maid. “Shut that window;
do you not know that currents of air attract lightning?”

Clemence obeyed, dropping the curtain to shut out the flashes of
lightning which continued to dart through the heavens; she then
approached the fireplace.

“Since you are so afraid of lightning,” said her aunt; “which, by the
way, is perfectly ridiculous in a Corandeuil, what induced you to go out
upon the balcony? The sleeve of your gown is wet. That is the way one
gets cold; afterward, there is nothing but an endless array of syrups
and drugs. You ought to change your gown and put on something warmer.
Who would ever think of dressing like that in such weather as this?”

“I assure you, aunt, it is not cold. It is because you have a habit of
always being near the fire--”

“Ah! habit! when you are my age you will not hint at such a thing. Now,
everything goes wonderfully well; you never listen to my advice--you go
out in the wind and rain with that flighty Aline and your husband, who
has no more sense than his sister; you will pay for it later. Open the
curtains, I pray; the storm is over, and I wish to read the Gazette.”

The young woman obeyed a second time and stood with her forehead pressed
against the glass. The distant rumbling of the thunder announced the end
of the storm; but a few flashes still traversed the horizon.

“Aunt,” said she, after a moment’s silence, “come and look at the
Montigny rocks; when the lightning strikes them they look like a file of
silver columns or a procession of ghosts.”

“What a romantic speech,” growled the old lady, never taking her eyes
from her paper.

“I assure you I am not romantic the least in the world,” replied
Clemence. “I simply find the storm a distraction, and here, you know,
there is no great choice of pleasures.”

“Then you find it dull?”

“Oh, aunt, horribly so!” At these words, pronounced with a heartfelt
accent, the young woman dropped into an armchair.

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil took off her eye-glasses, put the paper upon
the table and gazed for several moments at her pretty niece’s face,
which was tinged with a look of deep melancholy. She then straightened
herself up in her chair, and, leaning forward, asked in a low tone:

“Have you had any trouble with your husband?”

“If so, I should not be so bored,” replied Clemence, in a gay tone,
which she repented immediately, for she continued more calmly:

“No, aunt; Christian is kind, very kind; he is very much attached to me,
and full of good-humor and attentions. You have seen how he has allowed
me to arrange my apartments to suit myself, even taking down the
partition and enlarging the windows; and yet, you know how much he
clings to everything that is old about the house. He tries to do
everything for my pleasure. Did he not go to Strasbourg the other day to
buy a pony for me, because I thought Titania was too skittish? It would
be impossible to show greater kindness.”

“Your husband,” suddenly interrupted Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, for
she held the praise of others in sovereign displeasure, “is a Bergenheim
like all the Bergenheims present, past, and future, including your
little sister-in-law, who appears more as if she had been brought up
with boys than at the ‘Sacred Heart.’ He is a worthy son of his father
there,” said she, pointing to one of the portraits near the young
Royal-Nassau officer; “and he was the most brutal, unbearable, and
detestable of all the dragoons in Lorraine; so much so that he got
into three quarrels at Nancy in one month, and at Metz, over a game
of checkers, he killed the poor Vicomte de Megrigny, who was worth a
hundred of him and danced so well! Some one described Bergenheim as
being ‘proud as a peacock, as stubborn as a mule, and as furious as
a lion!’ Ugly race! ugly race! What I say to you now, Clemence, is
to excuse your husband’s faults, for it would be time lost to try to
correct them. However, all men are alike; and since you are Madame de
Bergenheim, you must accept your fate and bear it as well as possible.
And then, if you have your troubles, you still have your good aunt to
whom you can confide them and who will not allow you to be tyrannized
over. I will speak to your husband.”

Clemence saw, from the first words of this tirade, that she must arm
herself with resignation; for anything which concerned the Bergenheims
aroused one of the hobbies which the old maid rode with a most
complacent spite; so she settled herself back in her chair like a person
who would at least be comfortable while she listened to a tiresome
discourse, and busied herself during this lecture caressing with the tip
of a very shapely foot the top of one of the andirons.

“But, aunt,” said she at last, when the tirade was over, and she gave a
rather drawling expression to her voice, “I can not understand why you
have taken this idea into your head that Christian renders me unhappy.
I repeat it, it is impossible that one should be kinder to me than he,
and, on my side, I have the greatest respect and friendship for him.”

“Very well, if he is such a pearl of husbands, if you live so much like
turtle-doves-and, to tell the truth, I do not believe a word of it--what
causes this ennui of which you complain and which has been perfectly
noticeable for some time? When I say ennui, it is more than that; it is
sadness, it is grief? You grow thinner every day; you are as pale as
a ghost; just at this moment, your complexion is gone; you will end
by being a regular fright. They say that it is the fashion to be pale
nowadays; a silly notion, indeed, but it will not last, for complexion
makes the woman.”

The old lady said this like a person who had her reasons for not liking
pale complexions, and who gladly took pimples for roses.

Madame de Bergenheim bowed her head as if to acquiesce in this decision,
and then resumed in her drawling voice:

“I know that I am very unreasonable, and I am often vexed with myself
for having so little control over my feelings, but it is beyond my
strength. I have a tired sensation, a disgust for everything, something
which I can not overcome. It is an inexplicable physical and moral
languor, for which, for this reason, I see no remedy. I am weary and I
suffer; I am sure it will end in my being ill. Sometimes I wish I were
dead. However, I have really no reason to be unhappy. I suppose I am
happy--I ought to be happy.”

“Truly, I can not understand in the least the women of today. Formerly,
upon exciting occasions, we had a good nervous attack and all was over;
the crisis passed, we became amiable again, put on rouge and went to a
ball. Now it is languor, ennui, stomach troubles--all imagination and
humbug! The men are just as bad, and they call it spleen! Spleen! a new
discovery, an English importation! Fine things come to us from England;
to begin with, the constitutional government! All this is perfectly
ridiculous. As for you, Clemence, you ought to put an end to such
childishness. Two months ago, in Paris, you did not have any of the
rest that you enjoy here. I had serious reasons for wishing to delay my
departure; my apartment to refurnish, my neuralgia which still troubles
me--and Constance, who had just been in the hands of the doctor, was
hardly in a condition to travel, poor creature! You would listen to
nothing; we had to submit to your caprices, and now--”

“But, aunt, you admitted yourself that it was the proper thing for me
to do, to join my husband. Was it not enough, and too much, to have left
him to pass the entire winter alone here while I was dancing in Paris?”

“It was very proper, of course, and I do not blame you. But why does the
very thing you so much desired two months ago bore you so terribly
now? In Paris you talked all the time of Bergenheim, longed only
for Bergenheim, you had duties to fulfil, you wished to be with your
husband; you bothered and wore me out with your conjugal love. When back
at Bergenheim, you dream and sigh for Paris. Do not shake your head; I
am an old aunt to whom you pay no heed, but who sees clearly yet. Will
you do me the favor to tell me what it is that you regret in Paris at
this time of the year, when there are no balls or parties, and not
one human being worth visiting, for all the people you know are in the
country? Is it because--”

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil did not finish her sentence, but she put
a severity into these three words which seemed to condense all the
quintessence of prudery that a celibacy of sixty years could coagulate
in an old maid’s heart.

Clemence raised her eyes to her aunt’s face as if to demand an
explanation.

It was such a calm, steady glance that the latter could not help being
impressed by it.

“Well,” said she, softening her voice, “there is no necessity for
putting on such queenly airs; we are here alone, and you know that I am
a kind aunt to you. Now, then, speak freely--have you left anything or
any person in Paris, the remembrance of which makes your sojourn here
more tiresome than it really is? Any of your adorers of the winter?”

“What an idea, aunt! Did I have any adorers?” exclaimed Madame de
Bergenheim, quickly, as if trying to conceal by a smile the rosy flush
that mounted to her cheeks.

“And what if you should have some, child?” continued the old maid, to
whom curiosity lent an unaccustomed coaxing accent to her voice, “where
would be the harm? Is it forbidden to please? When one is of good birth,
must one not live in society and hold one’s position there? One need not
bury one’s self in a desert at twenty-three years of age, and you really
are charming enough to inspire love; you understand, I do not say,
to experience it; but when one is young and pretty conquests are made
almost unwittingly. You are not the first of the family to whom that
has happened; you are a Corandeuil. Now, then, my good Clemence, what
troubled heart is pining for you in Paris? Is it Monsieur de Mauleon?”

“Monsieur de Mauleon!” exclaimed the young woman, bursting into
laughter; “he, a heart! and a troubled one, too! Oh, aunt, you do him
honor! Monsieur de Mauleon, who is past forty-five years old and wears
stays! an audacious man who squeezes his partners’ hands in the dance
and looks at them with passionate glances! Oh! Monsieur de Mauleon!”

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil sanctioned by a slight grimace of her thin
lips her niece’s burst of gayety, when, with one hand upon her heart,
she rolled her sparkling eyes in imitation of the languishing air of her
unfortunate adorer.

“Perhaps it is Monsieur d’Arzenac?”

“Monsieur d’Arzenac is certainly very nice; he has perfect manners; it
may be that he did not disdain to chat with me; on my side, I found his
conversation very entertaining; but you may rest assured that he did not
think of me nor I of him. Besides, you know that he is engaged to marry
Mademoiselle de la Neuville.”

“Monsieur de Gerfaut?” continued Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, with the
persistency with which aged people follow an idea, and as if determined
to pass in review all the young men of their acquaintance until she had
discovered her niece’s secret.

The latter was silent a moment before replying.

“How can you think of such a thing, aunt?” said she at last, “a man with
such a bad reputation, who writes books that one hardly dares read,
and plays that it’s almost a sin to witness! Did you not hear Madame
de Pontivers say that a young woman who cared for her reputation would
permit his visits very rarely?”

“Madame de Pontivers is a prude, whom I can not endure, with her show of
little, grimaces and her pretentious, outrageous mock-modesty. Did she
not take it into her head this winter to constitute me her chaperon? I
gave her to understand that a widow forty years old was quite old
enough to go about alone! She has a mania for fearing that she may be
compromised. The idea of turning up her nose at Monsieur de Gerfaut!
What presumption! He certainly is too clever ever to solicit the honor
of being bored to death in her house; for he is clever, very clever. I
never could understand your dislike for him, nor your haughty manner of
treating him; especially, during the latter part of our stay in Paris.”

“One is not mistress of one’s dislikes or affections, aunt. But to reply
to your questions, I will say that you may rest assured that none of
these gentlemen, nor any of those whom you might name, has the slightest
effect upon my state of mind. I am bored because it probably is my
nature to need distractions, and there are none in this deserted place.
It is an involuntary disagreeableness, for which I reproach myself and
which I hope will pass away. Rest assured, that the root of the evil
does not lie in my heart.”

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil understood by the cold and rather dry tone in
which these words were spoken that her niece wished to keep her secret,
if she had one; she could not prevent a gesture of anger as she saw her
advances thus repelled, but felt that she was no wiser than when she
began the conversation. She manifested her disappointment by pushing the
dog aside with her foot--the poor thing was perfectly innocent!--and in
a cross tone, which was much more familiar than her former coaxing one,
she continued:

“Very well, since I am wrong, since your husband adores you and you him,
since, to sum it all up, your heart is perfectly tranquil and free, your
conduct is devoid of common-sense, and I advise you to change it. I warn
you that all this hypochondria, paleness, and languor are caprices which
are very disagreeable to others. There is a Provence proverb which says:
Vaillance de Blacas, prudence de Pontevez, caprice de Corandeuil. If
there was not such a saying, it should be created for you, for you have
something incomprehensible enough in your character to make a saint
swear. If anybody should know you, it is I, who brought you up. I do not
wish to reproach you, but you gave me trouble enough; you were a most
wayward, capricious, and fantastic creature, a spoiled child--”

“Aunt,” interrupted Clemence, with heightened color in her pale cheeks,
“you have told me of my faults often enough for me to know them, and, if
they were not corrected, it was not your fault, for you never spared me
scoldings. If I had not been so unfortunate as to lose my mother when I
was a baby, I should not have given you so much trouble.”

Tears came into the young woman’s eyes, but she had enough control over
herself to keep them from streaming down her burning cheeks. Taking a
journal from the table, she opened it, in order to conceal her emotion
and to put an end to this conversation, which had become painful to
her. Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, on her side, carefully replaced her
eye-glasses upon her nose, and, solemnly stretching herself upon her
chair, she turned over the leaves of the ‘Gazette de France,’ which she
had neglected so long.

Silence reigned for some moments in the room. The aunt apparently read
the paper very attentively. Her niece sat motionless, with her eyes
fastened upon the yellow cover of the last number of ‘La Mode,’ which
had chanced to fall into her hands. She aroused herself at last from her
revery and carelessly turned over the leaves of the review in a manner
which showed how little interest she felt in it. As she turned the first
page a surprised cry escaped her, and her eyes were fastened upon the
pamphlet with eager curiosity. Upon the frontispiece, where the Duchesse
de Berry’s coat-of-arms is engraved, and in the middle of the shield,
which was left empty at this time by the absence of the usual fleurs de
lys, was sketched with a pencil a bird whose head was surmounted by a
baron’s coronet.

Curious to know what could have caused her niece so much surprise,
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil stretched out her neck and gazed for an
instant upon the page without seeing, at first, anything extraordinary,
but finally her glance rested upon the armorial bearings, and she
discovered the new feature added to the royal Bourbon coat-of-arms.

“A cock!” exclaimed she, after a moment’s reflection; “a cock upon
Madame’s shield! What can that mean, ‘bon Dieu’! and it is not engraved
nor lithographed; it is drawn with a pencil.”

“It is not a cock, it is a crowned gerfaut,” said Madame de Bergenheim.

“A gerfaut! How do you know what a gerfaut is? At Corandeuil, in your
grandfather’s time, there was a falconry, and I have seen gerfauts
there, but you--I tell you it is a cock, an old French cock; ugly thing!
What you take for a coronet--and it really does resemble one--is a badly
drawn cock’s comb. How did this horrid creature come to be there?
I should like to know if such pretty tricks are permitted at the
postoffice. People protest against the ‘cabinet noir’, but it is
a hundred times worse if one is permitted to outrage with impunity
peaceable families in their own homes. I mean to find out who has played
this trick. Will you be so kind as to ring the bell?”

“It really is very strange!” said Madame de Bergenheim, pulling the
bell-rope with a vivacity which showed that she shared, if not the
indignation, at least the curiosity of her aunt.

A servant in green livery appeared.

“Who went to Remiremont yesterday for the newspapers?” asked
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil.

“It was Pere Rousselet, Mademoiselle,” replied the servant.

“Where is Monsieur de Bergenheim?”

“Monsieur le Baron is playing billiards with Mademoiselle Aline.”

“Send Leonard Rousselet here.”

And Mademoiselle de Corandeuil settled herself back in her chair with
the dignity of a chancellor about to hold court.




CHAPTER III. A DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD

The servants in the castle of Bergenheim formed a family whose members
were far from living in harmony. The Baron managed his household
himself, and employed a large number of day-laborers, farm servants, and
kitchen-girls, whom the liveried servants treated with great disdain.
The rustics, on their side, resisted these privileged lackeys and called
them “coxcombs” and “Parisians,” sometimes accompanying these remarks
with the most expressive blows. Between these tribes of sworn enemies
a third class, much less numerous, found them selves in a critical
position; these were the two servants brought by Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil. It was fortunate for them that their mistress liked large,
vigorous men, and had chosen them for their broad, military shoulders;
but for that it would have been impossible for them to come out of their
daily quarrels safe and sound.

The question of superiority between the two households had been the
first apple of discord; a number of personal quarrels followed
to inflame them. They fought for their colors the whole time; the
Bergenheim livery was red, the Corandeuil green. There were two flags;
each exalted his own while throwing that of his adversaries in the mud.
Greenhorn and crab were jokes; cucumber and lobster were insults.

Such were the gracious terms exchanged every day between the two
parties. In the midst of this civil war, which was carefully concealed
from their masters’ eyes, whose severity they feared, lived one rather
singular personage. Leonard Rousselet, Pere Rousselet, as he was
generally called, was an old peasant who, disheartened with life, had
made various efforts to get out of his sphere, but had never
succeeded in doing so. Having been successively hairdresser, sexton,
school-teacher, nurse, and gardener, he had ended, when sixty years
old, by falling back to the very point whence he started. He had no
particular employment in M. de Bergenheim’s house; he went on errands,
cared for the gardens, and doctored the mules and horses; he was a tall
man, about as much at ease in his clothing as a dry almond in its shell.
A long, dark, yellow coat usually hung about the calves of his legs,
which were covered with long, blue woollen stockings, and looked more
like vine-poles than human legs; a conformation which furnished daily
jokes for the other servants, to which the old man deigned no response
save a disdainful smile, grumbling through his teeth, “Menials, peasants
without education.” This latter speech expressed the late gardener’s
scorn, for it had been his greatest grief to pass for an uneducated man;
and he had gathered from his various conditions a singularly dignified
and pretentious way of speaking.

In spite of his self-confidence, it was not without some emotion that
Leonard Rousselet responded to this call to appear in the drawing-room
before the person he most feared in the chateau. His bearing showed this
feeling when he presented himself at the drawing-room door, where he
stood as grave and silent as Banquo’s ghost. Constance arose at sight of
this fantastic figure, barked furiously and darted toward a pair of legs
for which she seemed to share the irreverence of the liveried servants;
but the texture of the blue stocking and the flesh which covered the
tibia were rather too hard morsels for the dowager’s teeth; she was
obliged to give up the attack and content herself with impotent barks,
while the old man, who would gladly have given a month’s wages to break
her jaw with the tip of his, boot, caressed her with his hand, saying,
“Softly, pretty dear! softly, pretty little creature!” in a hypocritical
tone.

This courtier-like conduct touched the old lady’s heart and softened the
severe look upon her face.

“Stop your noise, Constance,” said she, “lie down beside your mistress.
Rousselet, come nearer.”

The old man obeyed, walking across the floor with reverential bows, and
taking a position like a soldier presenting arms.

“You were the one,” said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, “who was sent to
Remiremont yesterday? Did you perform all the commissions that were
given you?”

“It is not among the impossibilities, Mademoiselle, that I may have
neglected some of them,” replied the old man, fearing to compromise
himself by a positive affirmative.

“Tell us, then, what you did.”

Leonard wiped his nose behind his hat, like a well-bred orator, and,
balancing himself upon his legs in a way not at all Bourbonic, he said:

“I went to the city that morning myself because Monsieur le Baron had
said the night before that he should hunt to-day, and that the groom was
to help Monsieur le Baron drive a wild boar out of the Corne woods.
I reached Remiremont; I went to the butcher’s; I purchased five
kilogrammes of dressed goods--”

“Of dressed goods at the butcher’s!” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim.

“I would say ten pounds of what uneducated people call pork,” said
Rousselet, pronouncing this last word in a strangled voice.

“Pass over these details,” said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil. “You went to
the post-office.”

“I went to the post-office, where I put in letters for Mademoiselle,
Madame, Monsieur le Baron, and one from Mademoiselle Aline for Monsieur
d’Artigues.”

“Aline writing to her cousin! Did you know that?” said the old aunt,
turning quickly toward her niece.

“Certainly; they correspond regularly,” replied Clemence with a smile
which seemed to say that she saw no harm in it.

The old maid shook her head and protruded her under lip, as much as to
say: We will attend to this another time.

Madame de Bergenheim, who was out of patience at this questioning,
began to speak in a quick tone which was a contrast to her aunt’s solemn
slowness.

“Rousselet,” said she, “when you took the newspapers out of the office,
did you notice whether the wrappers were intact, or whether they had
been opened?”

The good man half concealed his face in his cravat at this precise
questioning, and it was with embarrassment that he replied, after a
moment’s hesitation:

“Certainly, Madame--as to the wrappers--I do not accuse the
postmaster--”

“If the journals were sealed when you received them, you are the only
one who could have opened them.”

Rousselet straightened himself up to his full height, and, giving to his
nut-cracker face the most dignified look possible, he said in a solemn
tone:

“With due deference to you, Madame, Leonard Rousselet is well known.
Fifty-seven years old on Saint-Hubert’s day, I am incapable of opening
newspapers. When they have been read at the chateau and they send
me with them to the cure, I do not say--perhaps on my way--it is a
recreation--and then the cure is Jean Bartou, son of Joseph Bartou, the
tilemaker. But to read the newspaper before my masters have done so!
Never! Leonard Rousselet is an old man incapable of such baseness.
Baptized when a child; fifty-seven years on Saint-Hubert’s day.”

“When you speak of your pastor, do so in a more becoming manner,”
 interrupted Mademoiselle de Colrandeuil, although she herself in private
did not speak of the plebeian priest in very respectful terms. But if
Joseph Bartou’s son was always the son of Joseph Bartou to her, she
meant that he should be Monsieur le Cure to the peasants.

Madame de Bergenheim had not been much affected by Pere Rousselet’s
harangue, and shook her head impatiently, saying in an imperative tone:

“I am certain that the newspapers have been opened by you, or by some
person to whom you have given them, and I wish to know at once by whom.”

Rousselet dropped his pose of a Roman senator; passing his hand behind
his ears, a familiar gesture with people when in embarrassing positions,
he continued less emphatically:

“I stopped on my way back at La Fauconnerie, at the ‘Femme-sans-Tete
Inn’.”

“And what were you doing in a tavern?” interrupted Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil severely. “You know it is not intended that the servants in
this house should frequent taverns and such low places, which are not
respectable and corrupt the morals of the lower classes.”

“Servants! lower classes! Old aristocrat!” growled Rousselet secretly;
but, not daring to show his ill humor, he replied in a bland voice:

“If Mademoiselle had gone the same road that I did, with the same
conveyance, she would know that it is a rather thirsty stretch. I
stopped at the ‘Femme-sans-Tete’ to wash the dust down my parched
throat. Whereupon Mademoiselle Reine--the daughter of Madame Gobillot,
the landlady of the inn--Mademoiselle Reine asked me to allow her to
look at the yellow-journal in which there are fashions for ladies; I
asked her why; she said it was so that she might see how they made their
bonnets, gowns, and other finery in Paris. The frivolity of women!”

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil threw herself back in her chair and gave way
to an access of hilarity in which she rarely indulged.

“Mademoiselle Gobillot reading La Mode! Mademoiselle Gobillot talking
of gowns, shawls, and cashmeres! Clemence, what do you say to that? You
will see, she will be ordering her bonnets from Herbault! Ha! ha! This
is what is called the progress of civilization, the age of light!”

“Mademoiselle Gobillot,” said Clemence, fixing a penetrating glance upon
the old man, “was not the only one who looked at La Mode. Was there no
other person in the tavern who saw it?”

“Madame,” replied Rousselet, forced from his last refuge, “there were
two young men taking their refection, and one of them wore a beard no
longer than a goat’s. Madame will pardon me if I allow myself to use
this vulgar expression, but Madame wished to know all.”

“And the other young man?”

“The other had his facial epidermis shaved as close as a lady’s or
mine. He was the one who held the journal while his comrade was smoking
outside the door.”

Madame de Bergenheim made no further inquiries, but fell into a profound
revery. With eyes fixed upon the last number of La Mode, she seemed to
study the slightest lines of the sketch that had been made thereon, as
if she hoped to find a solution to the mystery. Her irregular breathing,
and the bright flush which tinged her usually pale cheeks, would have
denoted to an eye-witness one of those tempests of the heart, the
physical manifestations of which are like those of a fever. The pale
winter flower dying under the snow had suddenly raised its drooping head
and recovered its color; the melancholy against which the young woman
had so vainly struggled had disappeared as if by enchantment. A little
bird surmounted by a coronet, the whole rather badly sketched, was the
strange talisman that had produced this change.

“They were commercial travellers,” said the old aunt; “they always
pretend to know everything. One of them, doubtless, when reading the
well-known name of Monsieur de Bergenheim upon the wrapper, sketched the
animal in question. These gentlemen of industry usually have a rather
good education! But this is giving the affair more importance than it
merits. Leonard Rousselet,” said she, raising her voice as a judge does
in court when pronouncing his charge, “you were wrong to let anything
addressed to your master leave your hands. We will excuse you this
time, but I warn you to be more careful in future; when you go to Madame
Gobillot’s, you may say to Mademoiselle Reine, from me, that if she
wishes to read La Mode I shall be delighted to procure a subscriber to
one of our journals. You may retire now.”

Without waiting for this invitation to be repeated, Rousselet backed out
of the room like an ambassador leaving the royal presence, escorted
by Constance acting as master of ceremonies. Not having calculated the
distance, he had just bumped against the door, when it suddenly opened
and a person of extreme vivacity bounded into the middle of the room.

It was a very young and petite lady, whose perfectly developed form
predicted an inclination to stoutness in the future. She belonged to
the Bergenheim family, if one could credit the resemblance between her
characteristic features and several of the old portraits in the room;
she wore a dark-brown riding-habit, a gray hat perched on one side,
showing on the left a mass of very curly, bright blond hair. This
coiffure and the long green veil, floating at each movement like the
plume in a helmet, gave a singularly easy air to the fresh face of this
pretty amazon, who brandished, in guise of a lance, a billiard cue.

“Clemence,” she exclaimed, “I have just beaten Christian; I made the
red ball, I made the white, and then the double stroke; I made all!
Mademoiselle, I have just beaten Christian two games; is it not
glorious? He made only eighteen points in a single game. Pere Rousselet,
I have just beaten Christian! Do you know how to play billiards?”

“Mademoiselle Aline, I am absolutely ignorant of the game,” replied the
old man, with as gracious a smile as was possible, while he tried to
recover his equilibrium.

“You are needed no longer, Rousselet,” said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil;
“close the door as you go out.”

When she had been obeyed, the old maid turned gravely toward Aline,
who was still dancing about the room, having seized her sister-in-law’s
hands in order to force her to share her childish joy.

“Mademoiselle,” said she in a severe tone, “is it the custom at the
‘Sacred Heart’ to enter a room without greeting the persons who are
in it, and to jump about like a crazy person? a thing that is never
permitted even in a peasant’s house.”

Aline stopped short in the midst of her dance and blushed a trifle;
she caressed the pug dog, instead of replying, for she knew as well as
Rousselet that it was the surest way of softening the old maid’s heart.
The cajolery was lost this time.

“Do not touch Constance, I beg of you,” exclaimed the aunt, as if a
dagger had been raised against the object of her love, “do not soil
this poor beast with your hands. What dreadful thing have you on your
fingers? Have you just come out of an indigo bag?”

The young girl blushed still deeper and gazed at her pretty hands, which
were really a little daubed, and began to wipe them with an embroidered
handkerchief which she took from her pocket.

“It was the billiards,” she said, in a low voice, “it is the blue chalk
they rub the cue with in order to make good shots and caroms.”

“Make good shots! Caroms! Will you be so good as to spare us your slang
speeches,” continued Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who seemed to become
more crabbed as the young girl’s confusion increased. “What a fine
education for a young lady! and one who has just come from the ‘Sacred
Heart’! One that has taken five prizes not fifteen days ago! I really do
not know what to think of those ladies, your teachers! And now I suppose
you are going to ride. Billiards and horses, horses and billiards! It is
fine! It is admirable!”

“But, Mademoiselle,” said Aline, raising her large blue eyes, which were
on the verge of tears, “it is vacation now, and there is no wrong in my
playing a game of billiards with my brother; we have no billiards at the
‘Sacred Heart,’ and it is such fun! It is like riding; the doctor said
that it would be very healthful for me, and Christian hoped that it
might make me grow a little.”

As she said these words, the young girl glanced into the mirror in order
to see whether her brother’s hopes had been realized; for her small
stature was her sole anxiety. But this glance was as quick as a flash,
for she feared that the severe old maid would make this act of coquetry
serve as the text for another sermon.

“You are not my niece, and I am thankful for it,” continued the old
lady. “I am too old to begin another education; thank goodness, one is
quite enough! I have no authority over you, and your conduct is
your brother’s concern. The advice which I give you is entirely
disinterested; your amusements are not such as seem to me proper for
a young girl of good birth. It may be possible that it is the fashion
today, so I will say no more about it; but there is one thing more
serious, upon which I should advise you to reflect. In my youth, a young
lady never was allowed to write letters except to her father and
mother. Your letters to your cousin d’Artigues are inconsiderate--do not
interrupt me--they are inconsiderate, and I should advise you to mend
your ways.”

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil arose, and, as she had found an opportunity
to read three sermons in one forenoon, she could not say, like Titus,
“I have wasted my morning.” She left the room with a majestic step,
escorted by her dog and satisfied with herself, bestowing an ironical
curtsey on the young girl, which the latter did not think it necessary
to return.

“How hateful your aunt is!” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Bergenheim to her
sister-in-law, when they were alone. “Christian says that I must pay no
attention to her, because all women become like her if they never marry.
As for myself, I know very well that if I am an old maid I shall try
not to hurt others’ feelings--I, inconsiderate! When she can think of
nothing more to say, she scolds me about my cousin. It is hardly worth
while, for what we write about! Alphonse wrote of nothing, in his last
letter, but of the partridge he had shot and his hunting costume; he is
such a boy! But why do you not say something? You sit there speechless;
are you angry with me, too?”

She approached Clemence and was about to seat herself in her lap, when
the latter arose to avoid this loving familiarity.

“So you really have beaten Christian,” said she, in a listless tone;
“are you going for a ride now? Your habit is very becoming.”

“Truly? oh! I am so glad!” replied the young girl, planting herself
before the glass to look at her pretty figure. She pulled down her
waist, adjusted the folds of the skirt of her dress and arranged her
veil, placed her hat on her head with a little more jaunty air, turned
three quarters around to get a better view of her costume; in one word,
she went through the coquettish movements that all pretty women learn
upon entering society. On the whole, she seemed very well pleased with
her examination, for she smiled and showed a row of small teeth which
were as white as milk.

“I am sorry now,” said she, “that I did not send for a black hat; my
hair is so light that gray makes me look ugly. Do you not think so? Why
do you not reply, Clemence? One can not get a word out of you to-day; is
it because you have your neuralgia?”

“I have a trifle of it,” said Madame de Bergenheim, in order to give
some pretext for her preoccupation.

“Now, then, you ought to come with us for a ride; the fresh air will do
you good. Look how fine the weather is now; we will have a good gallop.
Will you? I will help you put on your habit, and in five minutes you
will be ready. Listen, I hear them in the yard now. I am going to tell
Christian to have your horse saddled; come.”

Aline took her sister-in-law by the hand, led her into the next room and
opened the window to see what was going on outside, where the cracking
of whips and several voices were to be heard. A servant was walking up
and down the yard leading a large horse which he had just brought from
the stable; the Baron was holding a smaller one, which bore a lady’s
saddle, while he carefully examined all the buckles. As he heard the
window open above his head, he turned and bowed to Clemence with much
chivalrous gallantry.

“You still refuse to go with us?” he asked.

“Is Aline going to ride Titania,” replied Madame de Bergenheim, making
an effort to speak; “I am sure the mare will end by playing her some
trick.”

The young girl, who had a fancy for Titania because the skittish
creature had the attraction of forbidden fruit, nudged her sister with
her elbow, and made a little grimace.

“Aline is afraid of nothing,” said the Baron; “we will enlist her with
the hussars as soon as she leaves the ‘Sacred Heart.’ Come, Aline.”

The young girl kissed the Baroness, gathered up her skirt, and in a few
moments was in the yard patting the neck of her dear brown mare.

“Up with you!” said Christian, taking his sister’s foot in one hand
while he raised her with the other, placing her in the saddle as easily
as he would a six-year-old child. Then he mounted his large horse,
saluted his wife, and the couple, starting at a trot, soon disappeared
down the avenue, which began at the gate of the courtyard.

As soon as they were out of sight, Clemence went to her room, took a
shawl from her bed, and went rapidly down a secret stairway which led
into the gardens.




CHAPTER IV. THE GALLANT IN THE GARDEN

Madame de Bergenheim’s apartments occupied the first floor of the wing
on the left side of the house. On the ground floor were the library,
a bathroom, and several guest-chambers. The large windows had a modern
look, but they were made to harmonize with the rest of the house by
means of grayish paint. At the foot of this facade was a lawn surrounded
by a wall and orange-trees planted in tubs, forming a sort of English
garden, a sanctuary reserved for the mistress of the castle, and which
brought her, as a morning tribute, the perfume of its flowers and the
coolness of its shade.

Through the tops of the fir-trees and the tuliptrees, which rose above
the group of smaller shrubs, the eye could follow the winding river
until it finally disappeared at the extremity of the valley. It was
this picturesque view and a more extensive horizon which had induced
the Baroness to choose this part of the Gothic manor for her own private
apartments.

After crossing the lawn, the young woman opened a gate concealed by
shrubs and entered the avenue by the banks of the river. This avenue
described a curve around the garden, and led to the principal entrance
of the chateau. Night was approaching, the countryside, which had been
momentarily disturbed by the storm, had resumed its customary serenity.
The leaves of the trees, as often happens after a rain, looked as fresh
as a newly varnished picture. The setting sun cast long shadows through
the trees, and their interlaced branches looked like a forest of
boa-constrictors.

Clemence advanced slowly under this leafy dome, which became darker and
more mysterious every moment, with head bent and enveloped in a large
cashmere shawl which fell in irregular folds to the ground. Madame de
Bergenheim had one of those faces which other women would call not at
all remarkable, but which intelligent men ardently admire. At the
first glance she seemed hardly pretty; at the second, she attracted
involuntary admiration; afterward, it was difficult to keep her out
of one’s thoughts. Her features, which taken separately might seem
irregular, were singularly harmonious, and, like a thin veil which
tempers a too dazzling light, softened the whole expression. Her light
chestnut hair was arranged about the temples in ingenious waves; while
her still darker eyebrows gave, at times, an imposing gravity to her
face. The same contrast was to be found in the mouth; the short distance
which separated it from the nose would indicate, according to Lavater,
unusual energy; but the prominent underlip impregnated her smile with
enchanting voluptuousness. Her rather clearcut features, the exceeding
brilliancy of her brown eyes, which seemed like diamonds set in jet,
would, perhaps, have given to the whole rather too strong a character
had not these eyes when veiled given to their dazzling rays a glamour of
indescribable softness.

The effect produced by this face might be compared to that of a prism,
every facet of which reflects a different color. The ardor burning under
this changeable surface, which, through some sudden cause, betrayed its
presence, was so deeply hidden, however, that it seemed impossible to
fathom it completely. Was she a coquette, or simply a fashionable lady,
or a devotee? In one word, was she imbued with the most egotistical
pride or the most exalted love? One might suppose anything, but know
nothing; one remained undecided and thoughtful, but fascinated, the mind
plunged into ecstatic contemplation such as the portrait of Monna Lisa
inspires. An observer might have perceived that she had one of
those hearts, so finely strung, from which a clever hand might make
incomparable harmonies of passion gush; but perhaps he would be
mistaken. So many women have their souls only in their eyes!

Madame de Bergenheim’s revery rendered the mysterious and impenetrable
veil which usually enveloped her countenance more unfathomable yet. What
sentiment made her bend her head and walk slowly as she meditated? Was
it the ennui of which she had just complained to her aunt? Was it pure
melancholy? The monotonous ripple of the stream, the singing of the
birds in the woods, the long golden reflections under the trees, all
seemed to unite in filling the soul with sadness; but neither the
murmuring water, the singing birds, nor the sun’s splendor was paid any
attention to by Madame de Bergenheim; she gave them neither a glance nor
a sigh. Her meditation was not revery, but thought; not thoughts of the
past, but of the present. There was something precise and positive
in the rapid, intelligent glance which flashed from her eyes when she
raised them; it was as if she had a lucid foresight of an approaching
drama.

A moment after she had passed over the wooden bridge which led from the
avenue, a man wearing a blouse crossed it and followed her. Hearing the
sound of hurried steps behind her, she turned and saw, not two steps
from her, the stranger who, during the storm, had vainly tried to
attract her attention. There was a moment’s silence. The young man stood
motionless, trying to catch his breath, which had been hurried, either
by emotion or rapid walking. Madame de Bergenheim, with head thrown
back and widely opened eyes, looked at him with a more agitated than
surprised look.

“It is you,” exclaimed he, impulsively, “you whom I had lost and now
find again!”

“What madness, Monsieur!” she replied, in a low voice, putting out her
hand as if to stop him.

“I beg of you, do not look at me so! Let me gaze at you and assure
myself that it is really you--I have dreamed of this moment for so
long! Have I not paid dear enough for it? Two months passed away from
you--from heaven! Two months of sadness, grief, and unhappiness! But you
are pale! Do you suffer, too?”

“Much, at this moment.”

“Clemence!”

“Call me Madame, Monsieur de Gerfaut,” she interrupted, severely.

“Why should I disobey you? Are you not my lady, my queen?”

He bent his knee as a sign of bondage, and tried to seize her hand,
which she immediately withdrew. Madame de Bergenheim seemed to pay very
little attention to the words addressed her; her uneasy glances wandered
in every direction, into the depths of the bushes and the slightest
undulations of the ground. Gerfaut understood this pantomime. He
glanced, in his turn, over the place, and soon discovered at some
distance a more propitious place for such a conversation as theirs. It
was a semicircular recess in one of the thickets in the park. A rustic
seat under a large oak seemed to have been placed there expressly for
those who came to seek solitude and speak of love. From there, one could
see the approach of danger, and, in case of alarm, the wood offered
a secure retreat. The young man had had enough experience in gallant
strategies to seize the advantage of this position, and wended his steps
in that direction while continuing to converse. It may be that instinct
which, in a critical situation, makes us follow mechanically an unknown
impulse; it may be that the same idea of prudence had also struck her,
for Madame de Bergenheim walked beside him.

“If you could understand what I suffered,” said he, “when I found that
you had left Paris! I could not discover at first where you had gone;
some spoke of Corandeuil, others of Italy. I thought, from this hasty
departure and the care you took to conceal your abiding-place, that you
were fleeing from me. Oh! tell me that I was mistaken; or, if it is
true that you wished to separate yourself from me, say that this cruel
resolve had left your mind, and that you will pardon me for following
you! You will pardon me, will you not? If I trouble or annoy you, lay
the blame entirely upon my love, which I can not restrain, and which
drives me at times to do the most extravagant things; call it reckless,
insane love, if you will; but believe it to be true and devoted!”

Clemence replied to this passionate tirade by simply shaking her head as
a child does who hears the buzzing of a wasp and fears its sting; then,
as they reached the bench, she said with affected surprise:

“You have made a mistake, this is not your road; you should have gone
over the bridge.”

There was a little palpable insincerity in these words; for if the road
which they had taken did not lead to the bridge, neither did it lead to
the chateau, and the mistake, if there was one, was mutual.

“Listen to me, I beg of you,” replied the lover, with ‘a supplicating
glance, “I have so many things to say to you! I beg of you, grant me one
moment.”

“Afterward, will you obey me?”

“Only a few words, and I will then do all that you wish.”

She hesitated a moment; then, her conscience doubtless lulled by this
promise, she seated herself and made a gesture for M. de Gerfaut to do
likewise. The young man did not make her repeat this invitation, but
hypocritically seated himself on the farther end of the seat.

“Now, talk reasonably,” she said, in a calm tone. “I suppose that you
are on your way to Germany or Switzerland, and as you passed near me
you wished to favor me with a call. I ought to be proud of this mark
of respect from a man so celebrated as you are, although you are rather
hiding your light under this garb. We are not very strict as to dress in
the country, but, really, yours is quite unceremonious. Tell me, where
did you find that headdress?”

These last words were spoken with the careless, mocking gayety of a
young girl.

Gerfaut smiled, but he took off his cap. Knowing the importance that
women attach to little things, and what an irreparable impression an
ugly cravat or unblacked boots might produce in the most affecting
moments, he did not wish to compromise himself by a ridiculous
head-gear. He passed his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his
large, broad forehead, and said softly:

“You know very well that I am not going to Germany or Switzerland, and
that Bergenheim is the end of my journey, as it has been its aim.”

“Then will you be so good as to tell me what your intention was
in taking such a step, and whether you have realized how strange,
inconsiderate, and in every way extravagant your conduct is?”

“I have realized it; I know it. You were here, I came because there is
a loadstone within you, that is my heart’s sole attraction, and I must
follow my heart. I came because I wanted to see your beautiful eyes
again, to be intoxicated by your sweet voice, because to live away from
you is impossible for me; because your presence is as necessary to my
happiness as air to my life; because I love you. That is why I came. Is
it possible that you do not understand me, that you will not pardon me?”

“I do not wish to believe that you are speaking seriously,” said
Clemence, with increased severity. “What sort of an idea can you have
of me, if you think I will allow such conduct? And then, even if I were
foolish enough for that-which I never shall be--to what would it lead?
You know perfectly well that it is impossible for you to come to the
castle, as you are not acquainted with Monsieur de Bergenheim, and I
certainly shall not introduce you to him. My aunt is here, and she
would persecute me the whole day long with questions! Mon Dieu! how you
disturb me! how unhappy you make me!”

“Your aunt never goes out, so she will not see me, unless I am
officially received at the chateau, and then there could be no danger.”

“But the servants she brought with her, and mine, who have seen you in
her house! I tell you, the whole thing is as perilous as it is crazy,
and you will make me die of fright and chagrin.”

“If one of those servants should chance to meet me, how could he ever
recognize me in this costume? Do not fear, I shall be prudent! I
would live in a log cabin, if necessary, for the joy of seeing you
occasionally.”

Madame de Bergenheim smiled disdainfully.

“That would be quite pastoral,” she replied; “but I believe that such
disguises are seldom seen now except upon the stage. If this is a scene
out of a play, which you wish to rehearse in order to judge its effect,
I warn you that it is entirely lost upon me, and that I consider the
play itself very ill-timed, improper, and ridiculous. Besides, for a
man of talent and a romantic poet you have not exhibited any very great
imagination. It is a classical imitation, nothing better. There is
something like it in mythology, I believe. Did not Apollo disguise
himself as a shepherd?”

Nothing more is to be feared by a lover than a witty woman who does not
love or loves but half; he is obliged to wear velvet gloves in all such
sentimental controversies; he owes it to himself out of propriety first,
out of prudence afterward. For it is not a question of taking part in a
conversation for the simple pleasure of brilliant repartee; and while
he applies himself carefully to play his part well, he feels that he has
been dexterously cut to pieces with a well-sharpened knife.

Gerfaut indulged in these unpleasant reflections while gazing at Madame
de Bergenheim. Seated up on the bench as proudly as a queen upon her
throne, with shining eyes, scornful lips, and arms tightly folded under
her cashmere shawl, with that haughty gesture familiar to her, the young
woman looked as invulnerable under this light wrap as if she had been
covered with Ajax’s shield, formed, if we can credit Homer, of seven
bulls’ hides and a sheet of brass.

After gazing at this scornful face for a moment, Gerfaut glanced at his
coarse blouse, his leggings, and muddy boots. His usual dainty ways made
the details of this costume yet more shocking to him, and he exaggerated
this little disaster. He felt degraded and almost ridiculous.
The thought took away for a moment his presence of mind; he began
mechanically to twirl his hat in his hands, exactly as if he had been
Pere Rousselet himself. But instead of being hurtful to him, this
awkwardness served him better than the eloquence of Rousseau or the
coolness of Richelieu. Was it not a genuine triumph for Clemence to
reduce a man of his recognized talent, who was usually anything but
timid, to this state of embarrassment? What witty response, what
passionate speech could equal the flattery of this poet with bent head
and this expression of deep sadness upon his face?

Madame de Bergenheim continued her raillery, but in a softer tone.

“This time, instead of staying in a cabin, the god of poetry
has descended to a tavern. Have you not established your general
headquarters at La Fauconnerie?”

“How did you know that?”

“By the singular visiting-card that you drew in La Mode. Do I not know
your coat-of-arms? An expressive one, as my aunt would say.”

At these words, which probably referred to some letters, doubtless read
without very much anger, since they were thus recalled, Gerfaut took
courage.

“Yes,” said he, “I am staying at La Fauconnerie; but I can not stay
there any longer, for I think your servants make the tavern their
pleasure-ground. I must come to some decision. I have two propositions
to submit to you: the first is, that you will allow me to see you
occasionally; there are numerous promenades about here; you go out
alone, so it would be very easy.”

“Let us hear the second,” said Clemence, with a shrug of the shoulders.

“If you will not grant my first, I beg of you to persuade your aunt that
she is ill and to take her with you to Plombieres or Baden. The season
is not very far advanced; there, at least, I should be able to see you.”

“Let us end this folly,” said the Baroness; “I have listened patiently
to you; now, in your turn, listen to me. You will be sensible, will you
not? You will leave me and go. You will go to Switzerland, and return
to the Montanvert, where you met me for the first time, which I shall
always remember, if you, yourself, do not make it painful for me to do
so. You will obey me, Octave, will you not? Give me this proof of your
esteem and friendship. You know very well that it is impossible for me
to grant what you ask; believe me, it is painful to me to be forced to
refuse you. So, say farewell to me; you shall see me again next winter
in Paris. Adieu!”

She arose and extended her hand; he took it, but, thinking to profit by
the emotion betrayed by Madame de Bergenheim’s voice, he exclaimed in a
sort of transport:

“No! I will not wait until next winter to see you. I was about to submit
to your will; if you repulse me I will consult only myself; if you
repulse me, Clemence, I warn you that tomorrow I shall be in your house,
seated at your table and admitted to your drawing-room.”

“You?” “I!”

“To-morrow?”

“To-morrow.”

“And how will you do it, pray?” said she, defiantly.

“That is my secret, Madame,” he replied, coldly.

Although her curiosity was greatly aroused, Clemence felt that it
would be beneath her to ask any more questions. She replied with an
affectation of mocking indifference:

“Since I am to have the pleasure of seeing you tomorrow, I hope you will
permit me to leave you today. You know that I am not well, and it is
showing me very little attention to allow me to stand here in this wet
grass.”

She raised her skirt a trifle and extended her foot, showing her
slipper, which was really covered with pearly drops of rain. Octave
threw himself quickly upon his knees, and, taking a silk handkerchief
from his pocket, began to wipe away all traces of the storm. His action
was so rapid that Madame de Bergenheim stood for a moment motionless and
speechless, but when she felt her foot imprisoned in the hand of the
man who had just declared war against her, her surprise gave place to a
mingled feeling of impatience and anger. She drew her foot back with a
sudden movement, but unfortunately the foot went one way and the slipper
another. A fencing-master, who sees his foil carried ten steps away from
him by a back stroke, could not feel more astonishment than that felt
by Madame de Bergenheim. Her first movement was to place her foot, so
singularly undressed, upon the ground; an instinctive horror of the
damp, muddy walk made her draw it quickly back. She stood thus with one
foot lifted; the movement which she had started to make threw her off
her balance and as she was about to fall she extended her hand to find
some support. This support proved to be Octave’s head, for he still
remained upon his knees. With the usual presumption of lovers, he
believed that he had the right to give her the assistance which she
seemed to ask for, and passed his arm about the slender waist which was
bent toward him.

Clemence drew herself up at once, and with frowning brow regained her
coolness, standing upright upon one foot, like Cupid in the painting by
Gerard; like him, also, she seemed about to fly away, there was so much
airy lightness in her improvised attitude.

Many puerile incidents and ridiculous events occur in life, which it
would render impossible for the most imperturbable of mandarins to
struggle against in order to preserve his gravity. When Louis XIV,
this king so expert in courtly ways, dressed his hair alone behind his
curtains before presenting himself to the eyes of his courtiers, he
feared that this disarray of costume might compromise even his royal
majesty. So, upon such authority, if one looks upon a complete head
of hair as indispensable to the dignity of manhood, the same reasoning
should exist for the covering of one’s feet. In less than a second,
Madame de Bergenheim comprehended that in such circumstances prudish
airs would fail of their effect. Meanwhile, the agreeable side of her
position operated within her; she felt unable to keep up the show of
anger that she had wished to assume. The involuntary smile upon her lips
smoothed her forehead as a ray of sun dissipates a cloud. Thus, disposed
to clemency by reflection or fascination, it was in a very sweet and
coaxing voice that she said: “Octave, give me my slipper.” Gerfaut
gazed at the lovely face bent toward him with an expression of childish
entreaty, then he glanced with an irresolute air at the trophy which he
held in his hand. This slipper, which was as small as Cinderella’s, was
not green, but gray, the lining was of rose-colored silk, and the whole
was so pretty, coquettish, and dainty that it seemed impossible its
owner could be vexed with him if he examined it closely. “I will give it
back to you,” said he, at last, “on condition that you will allow me to
put it on for you.”

“As to that, certainly not,” said she, in a sharp tone; “I should much
prefer to leave it with you and return home as I am.”

Gerfaut shook his head and smiled incredulously.

“Think of your delicate lungs and of this terrible mud?”

Clemence drew her foot suddenly back under her skirt, concealing it
entirely from the sight of the young man, who gazed at it more than
she thought proper. Then she exclaimed, with the obstinacy of a spoiled
child:

“Very well! I will return hopping on one foot; I could hop very well
when I was young, I should be able to do so now.”

To give more weight to this observation, she took two little jumps with
a grace and sprightliness worthy of Mademoiselle Taglioni.

Octave arose.

“I have had the pleasure of seeing you waltz,” said he; “but I admit
that I shall be pleased to witness a new dance, and one executed for me
alone.”

As he said these words, he pretended to conceal the innocent object
of this dispute in his blouse. The pretty dancer saw by this that a
compromise would be necessary. Recourse to concessions is often as
fatal to women as to kings; but what can one do when every other exit is
closed? Obliged by absolute necessity to accept the conditions imposed
upon her, Clemence wished at least to cover this defeat with sufficient
dignity, and escape from an awkward position with the honors of war.

“Get down upon your knees, then,” she said, haughtily, “and put on my
slipper, since you exact it, and let this end this ridiculous scene. I
think you should be too proud to regard a maid’s privilege as a favor.”

“As a favor which a king would envy,” replied Gerfaut, in a voice as
tender as hers had been disdainful. He put one knee on the ground,
placed the little slipper upon the other and seemed to await his enemy’s
pleasure. But the latter found a new subject for complaint in the
pedestal offered her, for she said with increased severity:

“On the ground, Monsieur; and let that end it.”

He obeyed, without a reply, after giving her a reproachful glance by
which she was as much moved as by his silent obedience. She put out her
foot with a more gracious air, and thrust it into the slipper. To be a
correct historian, we must admit that this time she left it in the hands
which softly pressed it longer than was strictly necessary. When Octave
had fastened it with skill but with no haste, he bent his head and
pressed his lips to the openwork stocking, through which he could catch
a glimpse of white, satiny skin.

“My husband!” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim, as she heard the clatter
of horses’ hoofs at the end of the avenue; and without adding a word she
fled rapidly toward the chateau. Gerfaut arose from his position no less
rapidly and darted into the woods. A rustling of branches which he heard
a few steps from him made him uneasy at first, for he feared that an
invisible witness had been present at this imprudent interview; but he
was soon reassured by the silence which reigned about him.

After the Baron and his sister had passed, he crossed the avenue and
soon disappeared over the winding road on the other side of the bridge.




CHAPTER V. ART AND MUSIC

A league below the castle of Bergenheim, the village of La Fauconnerie
was situated, at the junction of several valleys the principal of which,
by means of an unfrequented road, opened communications between Lorraine
and upper Alsatia. This position had been one of some importance in the
Middle Ages, at the time when the Vosges were beset with partisans
from the two countries, always ready to renew border hostilities,
the everlasting plague of all frontiers. Upon a cliff overlooking the
village were situated the ruins which had given the village its name;
it owed it to the birds of prey [falcons, in French: ‘faucons’], the
habitual guests of the perpendicular rocks. To render proper justice to
whom it belongs, we should add that the proprietors of La Fauconnerie
had made it a point at all times to justify this appellation by customs
more warlike than hospitable; but for some time the souvenirs of their
feudal prowess had slept with their race under the ruins of the manor;
the chateau had fallen without the hamlet extending over its ruins;
from a bourg of some importance La Fauconnerie had come down to a small
village, and had nothing remarkable about it but the melancholy ruins of
the chateau.

It would be impossible to imagine anything more miserably prosaic than
the houses that bordered the road, in regular order; their one story
with its thatched roof blackened by rain; the sorry garden surrounded by
a little low wall and presenting as vegetables patches of cabbage and a
few rows of beans, gave an idea of the poverty of its inhabitants. Save
the church, which the Bishop of St.-Die had caused to be built, and the
manse that had naturally shared this fortunate privilege, only one house
rose above the condition of a thatched cottage; this was the tavern
called ‘La Femme-sans-Tete’, and kept by Madame Gobillot, an energetic
woman, who did not suggest in the least the name of her establishment,
“The Headless Woman.”

A large sign shared with the inevitable bunch of juniper, the honor
of decorating the entrance and justified an appellation one might have
regarded as disrespectful to the fair sex. The original design had been
repainted in dazzling colors by the artist charged with restoring the
church. This alliance of the profane with the sacred had, it is true,
scandalized the parish priest, but he did not dare say a word too much,
as Madame Gobillot was one of his most important parishioners. A
woman in a rose-colored dress and large panniers, standing upon very
high-heeled shoes, displayed upon this sign the rejuvenated costume
of 1750; an enormous green fan, which she held in her hand, entirely
concealed her face, and it was through this caprice of the painter that
the tavern came to have the name it bore.

At the right of this original figure was painted, in a very appetizing
manner, a pie out of whose crust peeped a trio of woodcocks’ heads. A
little farther, upon a bed of watercresses, floated a sort of marine
monster, carp or sturgeon, trout or crocodile. The left of the sign was
none the less tempting; it represented a roast chicken lying upon its
back with its head under its wing, and raising its mutilated legs in the
air with a piteous look; it had for its companion a cluster of crabs,
of a little too fine a red to have been freshly caught. The whole was
interspersed with bottles and glasses brimful of wine. There were
stone jugs at each extremity, the sergeants of the rear-rank of this
gastronomic platoon, whose corks had blown out and were still flying
in space, while a bubbling white foam issued from their necks and
fell majestically over their sides after describing a long parabola. A
misleading sign, indeed!

A remorseful conscience, or a desire to protect herself from all
reproach of mendacity on the part of the customers, had made the owner
of the inn place a wire cupboard upon the sill of one of the windows
near the door; in which receptacle were some eggs on a plate, a bit of
bread with which David might have loaded his sling, a white glass bottle
filled with a liquid of some color intended to represent kirsch, but
which was in reality only water. This array gave a much more correct
idea of the resources of the establishment and formed a menu like an
anchorite’s repast, and even this it was difficult for the kitchen’s
resources to maintain.

A carriage-gate led into the yard and to the stables, cart-drivers being
the principal habitues of the place; another entrance, the one which
was crowned with the fantastic sign, was flanked by two stone seats and
opened directly into the kitchen, which also served as parlor for the
guests. A fireplace with an enormous mantel, under which a whole family
might warm themselves, occupied the middle of one side of the room.
There was a large oven in one corner which opened its huge mouth, the
door partly hiding the shovels and tongs employed in its service. Two or
three thoroughly smoked hams, suspended from the beams, announced
that there was no fear of a famine before the gastronomic massacres of
Middlemas. Opposite the window, a large, polished oak dresser displayed
an array of large flowered plates and little octagon-shaped glasses. A
huge kitchen kettle and some wooden chairs completed the furniture of
the room.

From the kitchen one passed into another room, where a permanent table
surrounded by benches occupied its entire length. The wall paper, once
green, was now a dirty gray; it was embellished by half a dozen black
frames representing the story of Prince Poniatowski, who shares the
honor of decorating village inns with Paul and Virginia and Wilhelm
Tell. On the upper floor-for this aristocratic dwelling had a second
story--several sleeping-rooms opened upon a long corridor, at the end of
which was a room with two beds in it. This room was very neat and clean,
and was destined for any distinguished guests whose unlucky star led
them into this deserted country.

That evening the inn presented an unaccustomed lively appearance; the
long seats, each side of the door, were occupied by rustics stripping
hemp, by some village lads, and three or four cart-drivers smoking
short pipes as black as coal. They were listening to two girls who were
singing in a most mournful way a song well known to all in this country:

          “Au chateau de Belfort
          Sont trois jolies filles, etc.”

The light from the hearth, shining through the open door, left this
group in the shadow and concentrated its rays upon a few faces in the
interior of the kitchen. First, there was Madame Gobillot in person,
wearing a long white apron, her head covered with an immense cap. She
went from oven to dresser, and from dresser to fireplace with a very
important air. A fat little servant disappeared frequently through the
dining-room door, where she seemed to be laying the cover for a feast.
With that particular dexterity of country girls, she made three trips to
carry two plates, and puffed like a porpoise at her work, while the look
of frightened amazement showed upon her face that every fibre of her
intelligence was under unaccustomed tension. Before the fire, and upon
the range, three or four stew-pans were bubbling. A plump chicken was
turning on the spit, or, rather, the spit and its victim were turned by
a bright-looking boy of about a dozen years, who with one hand turned
the handle and with the other, armed with a large cooking-ladle, basted
the roast.

But the two principal persons in this picture were a young country girl
and a young man seated opposite her, who seemed busily engaged in making
her portrait. One would easily recognize, from the airs and elegance of
the young woman, that she was the daughter of the house, Mademoiselle
Reine Gobillot, the one whose passion for fashion-plates had excited
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil’s anger. She sat as straight and rigid
upon her stool as a Prussian corporal carrying arms, and maintained an
excessively gracious smile upon her lips, while she made her bust more
prominent by drawing back her shoulders as far as she could.

The young painter, on the contrary, was seated with artistic abandon,
balancing himself upon a two-legged chair with his heels resting against
the mantel; he was dressed in a black velvet coat, and a very small Tam
O’Shanter cap of the same material covered the right side of his head,
allowing a luxuriant crop of brown hair to be seen upon the other side.
This head-dress, accompanied by long moustaches and a pointed beard
covering only his chin, gave the stranger’s face the mediaeval look
he probably desired. This travelling artist was sketching in an album
placed upon his knees, with a freedom which indicated perfect confidence
in his own talents. A cigar, skilfully held in one corner of his mouth,
did not prevent him from warbling between each puff some snatches of
Italian airs of which he seemed to possess a complete repertoire. In
spite of this triple occupation he sustained a conversation with the
ease of a man who, like Caesar, could have dictated to three secretaries
at once if necessary.

          “Dell’ Assiria, ai semidei
          Aspirar--”

“I have already asked you not to purse up your mouth so, Mademoiselle
Reine; it gives you a Watteau air radically bourgeois.”

“What sort of air does it give me?” she asked, anxiously.

“A Watteau, Regence, Pompadour air. You have a large mouth, and we will
leave it natural, if you please.”

“I have a large mouth!” exclaimed Reine, blushing with anger; “how
polite you are!”

And she pinched up her lips until she reduced them to nearly the size of
Montmorency cherries.

“Stop this vulgar way of judging of art, queen of my heart. Learn that
there is nothing more appetizing than a large mouth. I do not care for
rosebud mouths!”

“If it is the fashion!” murmured the young girl, in a pleased tone,
as she spread out horizontally her vermillion lips, which might have
extended from ear to ear, not unlike--if we can credit that slanderer,
Bussy-Rabutin-the amorous smile of Mademoiselle de la Valliere.

“Why did you not let me put on my gold necklace?

“That would have given my portrait a smarter look. Sophie Mitoux had
hers painted with a coral comb and earrings. How shabby this style is!”

“I beg of you, my good Reine, let me follow my own fancy; an artist is a
being of inspiration and spontaneity. Meanwhile, you make your bust too
prominent; there is no necessity for you to look as if you had swallowed
a whale. L’art n’est pas fait pour toi, tu n’en as pas besoin. Upon my
word, you have a most astonishing bust; a genuine Rubens.”

Madame Gobillot was an austere woman, though an innkeeper, and watched
over her daughter with particular care, lest any ill-sounding or
insiduous expression should reach her child’s ear. Considering the
company which frequented the house, the task was not easy. So she was
shocked at the young man’s last words, and although she did not quite
understand his meaning, for that very reason she thought she scented a
concealed poison more dangerous for Mademoiselle Reine than the awful
words used by the drivers. She dared not, however, show her displeasure
to a customer, and one who seemed disposed to spend money freely; and,
as usual in such circumstances, she vented her displeasure upon the
persons immediately under her charge.

“Hurry now, Catherine! Will you never finish setting the table? I told
you before to put on the Britannia; these gentlemen are used to eating
with silver. Listen to me when I am talking to you. Who washed these
glasses? What a shame! You are as afraid of water as a mad-dog. And you!
what are you staring at that chicken for, instead of basting it? If
you let it burn you shall go to bed without any supper. If it is not
provoking!” she continued, in a scolding tone, visiting her stewpans one
after another, “everything is dried up; a fillet that was as tender as
it could be will be scorched! This is the third time that I have diluted
the gravy. Catherine! bring me a dish. Now, then, make haste.”

“One thing is certain,” interrupted the artist, “that Gerfaut is making
a fool of me. I do not see what can have become of him. Tell me, Madame
Gobillot, are you certain that an amateur of art and the picturesque,
travelling at this hour, would not be eaten by wolves or plundered by
robbers in these mountains?”

“Our mountains are safe, Monsieur,” replied the landlady, with offended
dignity; “except for the pedler who was assassinated six months ago and
whose body was found in the Combe-aux-Renards--”

“And the driver who was stopped three weeks ago in the Fosse,” added
Mademoiselle Reine; “the thieves did not quite kill him, but he is still
in the hospital at Remiremont.”

“Oh! that is enough to make one’s hair stand on end! This is worse than
the forest of Bondy! Truly, if I knew what direction my friend took this
morning, I would follow him with my pistols.”

“Here is Fritz,” said Madame Gobillot. “He met a stranger in the woods
who gave him ten sous for telling him the way to Bergenheim. From his
description, it seems that it must be the gentleman you speak of. Tell
us about it, Fritz.”

The child related in his Alsatian patois his meeting of the afternoon,
and the artist was convinced that it was Gerfaut he had met.

“He must be wandering in the valley,” said he, “dreaming about our play.
But did you not say something about Bergenheim? Is there a village near
here by that name?”

“There is a chateau of that name, Monsieur, and it is about a league
from here as you go up the river.”

“And does this chateau happen to belong to the Baron de Bergenheim--a
large, blond, good-looking fellow, with rather reddish moustache?”

“That’s the picture of its owner, only that the Baron does not wear
a moustache now, not since he left the service. Do you know him,
Monsieur?”

“Yes, I know him! Speaking of service, I once rendered him one which was
of some account. Is he at the castle?”

“Yes, Monsieur, and his lady also.”

“Ah! his wife, too. She was a Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, of Provence.
Is she pretty?”

“Pretty,” said Mademoiselle Gobillot, pursing up her lips, “that depends
upon tastes. If a person likes a face as white as a ghost, she is. And,
then, she is so thin! It certainly can not be very difficult to have a
slender waist when one is as thin as that.”

“Not everybody can have rosy cheeks and a form like an enchantress,”
 said the painter, in a low voice, as he looked at his model in a
seductive manner.

“There are some people who think that Monsieur’s sister is prettier than
Madame,” observed Madame Gobillot.

“O mother! how can you say that?” exclaimed Reine with a disdainful air.
“Mademoiselle Aline! A child of fifteen! She certainly is not wanting in
color; her hair is such a blond, such a red, rather! It looks as if it
were on fire.”

“Do not say anything against red hair, I beg of you,” said the artist,
“it is an eminently artistic shade, which is very popular.”

“With some it may be so, but with Christians! It seems to me that black
hair--”

“When it is long and glossy like yours, it is wonderful,” said the young
man, darting another killing glance. “Madame Gobillot, would you mind
closing that door? One can not hear one’s self think here. I am a
little critical, so far as music is concerned, and you have two sopranos
outside who deafen me with their shrieks.”

“It is Marguerite Mottet and her sister. Since our cure has taken to
teaching them, they bore us to death, coming here and singing their fine
songs. One of these days I shall notify them to leave.”

As she said these words, Madame Gobillot went to close the door in order
to please her guest; as soon as her back was turned, the latter leaned
forward with the boldness of a Lovelace and imprinted a very loving kiss
upon the rosy cheek of Mademoiselle Reine, who never thought of drawing
back until the offence was committed.

The sole witness to this incident was the little kitchen drudge, whose
blue eyes had been fastened upon the artist’s moustache and beard for
some time. They seemed to plunge him into a deep admiration. But at this
unexpected event his amazement was so complete that he dropped his spoon
into the ashes.

“Eh! mein herr, do you wish to go to bed without your supper, as has
been promised you?” said the young man, while the beautiful Reine was
trying to recover her countenance. “Now, then, sing us a little song
instead of staring at me as if I were a giraffe. Your little cook has
a nice voice, Madame Gobillot. Now, then, mein herr, give us a little
German lied. I will give you six kreutzers if you sing in tune, and a
flogging if you grate upon my ears.”

He arose and put his album under his arm.

“And my portrait?” exclaimed the young girl, whose cheek was still
burning from the kiss she had just received.

The painter drew near her, smiling, and said in a mysterious tone:

“When I make a portrait of a pretty person like you, I never finish it
the first day. If you will give me another sitting in the morning before
your mother arises I promise to finish this sketch in a way that will
not be displeasing to you.”

Mademoiselle Reine saw that her mother was watching her, and walked away
with no reply save a glance which was not discouraging.

“Now, then! You droll little fellow!” exclaimed the artist, as he
whirled on one foot; “triple time; one, two, begin.”

The child burst into an Alsatian song in a high, ringing voice.

“Wait a moment! What devilish key are you singing that in? La, la, la,
la; mi, in E major, key of four sharps. By Jove, my little man! here is
a fellow who sings B’s and C’s away up in the clouds; an E sharp, too!”
 he continued, with astonishment, while the singer made a hold upon the
keynote an octave higher in a voice as clear as a crystal.

The artist threw into the fire the cigar which he had just lighted, and
began pacing the kitchen floor, paying no more attention to Mademoiselle
Reine, who felt a little piqued at seeing herself neglected for a
kitchen drudge.

“A rare voice,” said he, as he took a great stride; “per Bacco, a very
rare voice. Added to that, he sings very deep; two octaves and a half, a
clear, ringing tone, the two registers are well united. He would make an
admirable ‘primo musico’. And the little fellow has a pretty face, too.
After supper I will make him wash his face, and I will sketch it. I am
sure that in less than a year’s study, he could make his debut with the
greatest success. By Jove! I have an idea! Why does not that Gerfaut
return? Now, then, he would do very well for ‘Pippo’ in La Gazza, or for
Gemma in Wilhelm Tell. But we must have a role for him to make his debut
in. What subject could we take properly to introduce a child’s part? Why
does not that Gerfaut come? A child, girl or boy; a boy part would be
better. ‘Daniel,’ of course; viva ‘Daniel!’ ‘The Chaste Suzannah,’ opera
in three acts. Madame Begrand would be fine as Suzannah. By Jove! if
Meyerbeer would only take charge of the score! That falls to him by
right as a compatriot. Then, that would give him an opportunity to break
lances with Mehul and Rossini. If that fool of a Gerfaut would only
come! Let us see what would be the three characters: Soprano, Suzannah;
contralto, David; the old men, two basses; as for the tenor, he would
be, of course, Suzannah’s husband. There would be a superb entrance for
him upon his return from the army, ‘cavatina guerriera con cori’. Oh!
that terrible Gerfaut! the wolves must have devoured him. If he were
here, we would knock off the thing between our fruit and cheese.”

Just at that moment the door opened suddenly. “Is supper ready?” asked a
deep voice.

“Eh, here he is, the dear friend!

            “O surprise extreme!
             Grand Dieu! c’est lui-meme--

alive and in the flesh.”

“And hungry,” said Gerfaut, as he dropped into a chair near the fire.

“Would you like to compose an opera in three acts, The Chaste Suzannah,
music by Meyerbeer?”

“I should like some supper first. Madame Gobillot, I beseech you, give
me something to eat. Thanks to your mountain air, I am almost starved.”

“But, Monsieur, we have been waiting two hours for you,” retorted the
landlady, as she made each stewpan dance in succession.

“That is a fact,” said the artist; “let us go into the dining-room,
then.

          “Gia la mensa a preparata.”

“While supping, I will explain my plans to you. I have just found a
Daniel in the ashes--”

“My dear Marillac, drop your Daniel and Suzannah,” replied Gerfaut, as
he sat down to the table; “I have something much more important to talk
to you about.”




BOOK 2.




CHAPTER VI. GERFAUT’S STORY

While the two friends are devouring to the very last morsel the feast
prepared for them by Madame Gobillot, it may not be out of place to
explain in a few words the nature of the bonds that united these two
men.

The Vicomte de Gerfaut was one of those talented beings who are the
veritable champions of an age when the lightest pen weighs more in the
social balance than our ancestors’ heaviest sword. He was born in
the south of France, of one of those old families whose fortune had
diminished each generation, their name finally being almost all that
they had left. After making many sacrifices to give their son an
education worthy of his birth, his parents did not live to enjoy the
fruits of their efforts, and Gerfaut became an orphan at the time when
he had just finished his law studies. He then abandoned the career of
which his father had dreamed for him, and the possibilities of a red
gown bordered with ermine. A mobile and highly colored imagination,
a passionate love for the arts, and, more than all, some intimacies
contracted with men of letters, decided his vocation and launched him
into literature.

The ardent young man, without a murmur or any misgivings, drank to
the very dregs the cup poured out to neophytes in the harsh career of
letters by editors, theatrical managers, and publishers. With some,
this course ends in suicide, but it only cost Gerfaut a portion of his
slender patrimony; he bore this loss like a man who feels that he is
strong enough to repair it. When his plans were once made, he followed
them up with indefatigable perseverance, and became a striking example
of the irresistible power of intelligence united to will-power.
Reputation, for him, lay in the unknown depths of an arid and rocky
soil; he was obliged, in order to reach it, to dig a sort of artesian
well. Gerfaut accepted this heroic labor; he worked day and night
for several years, his forehead, metaphorically, bathed in a painful
perspiration alleviated only by hopes far away. At last the untiring
worker’s drill struck the underground spring over which so many noble
ones breathlessly bend, although their thirst is never quenched. At this
victorious stroke, glory burst forth, falling in luminous sparks, making
this new name--his name--flash with a brilliancy too dearly paid for not
to be lasting.

At the time of which we speak, Octave had conquered every obstacle
in the literary field. With a versatility of talent which sometimes
recalled Voltaire’s “proteanism,” he attacked in succession the most
difficult styles. Besides their poetic value, his dramas had this
positive merit, the highest in the theatre world they were money-makers;
so the managers greeted him with due respect, while collaborators
swarmed about him. The journals paid for his articles in their weight
in gold; reviews snatched every line of his yet unfinished novels; his
works were illustrated by Porret and Tony Johannot--the masters of
the day--and shone resplendent behind the glass cases in the Orleans
gallery. Gerfaut had at last made a place for himself among that
baker’s dozen of writers who call themselves, and justly, too, the
field-marshals of French literature, of which Chateaubriand was then
commander-in-chief.

What was it that had brought such a person a hundred leagues from the
opera balcony, to put on a pretty woman’s slipper? Was the fair lady one
of those caprices, so frequent and fleeting in an artist’s thoughts, or
had she given birth to one of those sentiments that end by absorbing the
rest of one’s life?

The young man seated opposite Gerfaut was, physically and morally, as
complete a contrast to him as one could possibly imagine. He was one
of the kind very much in request in fashionable society. There is not
a person who has not met one of these worthy fellows, destined to make
good officers, perfect merchants, and very satisfactory lawyers,
but who, unfortunately, have been seized with a mania for notoriety.
Ordinarily they think of it on account of somebody else’s talent.
This one is brother to a poet, another son-in-law to a historian; they
conclude that they also have a right to be poet and historian in their
turn. Thomas Corneille is their model; but we must admit that very few
of our writers reach the rank attained by Corneille the younger.

Marillac was train-bearer to Gerfaut, and was rewarded for this bondage
by a few bribes of collaboration, crumbs that fall from the rich man’s
table. They had been close friends since they both entered the law
school, where they were companions in folly rather than in study.
Marillac also had thrown himself into the arena of literature; then,
different fortunes having greeted the two friends’ efforts, he had
descended little by little from the role of a rival to that of an
inferior. Marillac was an artist, talent accepted, from the tip of his
toes to the sole of his boots, which he wished to lengthen by pointed
toes out of respect for the Middle Ages; for he excelled above
all things in his manner of dressing, and possessed, among other
intellectual merits, the longest moustache in literature.

If he had not art in his brain, to make up for it he always had its name
at his tongue’s end. Vaudeville writing or painting, poetry or music, he
dabbled in all these, like those horses sold as good for both riding
and driving, which are as bad in the saddle as in front of a tilbury.
He signed himself “Marillac, man of letters”; meanwhile, aside from his
profound disdain for the bourgeois, whom he called vulgar, and for
the French Academy, to which he had sworn never to belong, one
could reproach him with nothing. His penchant for the picturesque in
expression was not always, it is true, in the most excellent taste, but,
in spite of these little oddities, his unfortunate passion for art, and
his affection for the Middle Ages, he was a brave, worthy, and happy
fellow, full of good qualities, very much devoted to his friends,
above all to Gerfaut. One could, therefore, pardon him for being a
pseudo-artist.

“Will your story be a long one?” said he to the playwright, when
Catherine had conducted them after supper to the double-bedded room,
where they were to pass the night.

“Long or short, what does it matter, since you must listen to it?”

“Because, first, I would make some grog and fill my pipe; otherwise, I
would content myself with a cigar.”

“Take your pipe and make your grog.”

“Here!” said the artist, running after Catherine, “don’t rush downstairs
so. You are wanted. Fear nothing, interesting maid; you are safe with
us; but bring us a couple of glasses, brandy, sugar, a bowl, and some
hot water.”

“They want some hot water,” cried the servant, rushing into the kitchen
with a frightened look; “can they be ill at this hour?”

“Give the gentlemen what they want, you little simpleton!” replied
Mademoiselle Reine; “they probably want to concoct some of their Paris
drinks.”

When all the articles necessary for the grog were on the table, Marillac
drew up an old armchair, took another chair to stretch his legs upon,
replaced his cap with a handkerchief artistically knotted about his
head, his boots with a pair of slippers, and, finally, lighted his pipe.

“Now,” said he, as he seated himself, “I will listen without moving an
eyelid should your story last, like the creation, six days and nights.”

Gerfaut took two or three turns about the room with the air of an orator
who is seeking for a beginning to a speech.

“You know,” said he, “that Fate has more or less influence over our
lives, according to the condition of mind in which we happen to be. In
order that you may understand the importance of the adventure I am about
relating to you, it will be necessary for me to picture the state of
mind which I was in at the time it happened; this will be a sort of
philosophical and psychological preamble.”

“Thunder!” interrupted Marillac, “if I had known that, I would have
ordered a second bowl.”

“You will remember,” continued Gerfaut, paying no attention to this
pleasantry, “the rather bad attack of spleen which I had a little over a
year ago?”

“Before your trip to Switzerland?”

“Exactly.”

“If I remember right,” said the artist, “you were strangely cross and
whimsical at the time. Was it not just after the failure of our drama at
the Porte Saint-Martin?”

“You might also add of our play at the Gymnase.”

“I wash my hands of that. You know very well that it only went as far as
the second act, and I did not write one word in the first.”

“And hardly one in the second. However, I take the catastrophe upon
my shoulders; that made two perfect failures in that d----d month of
August.”

“Two failures that were hard to swallow,” replied Marillac, “We can say,
for our consolation, that there never were more infamous conspiracies
against us, above all, than at the Gymnase. My ears ring with the hisses
yet! I could see, from our box, a little villain in a dress coat, in
one corner of the pit, who gave the signal with a whistle as large as a
horse-pistol. How I would have liked to cram it down his throat!” As he
said these words, he brought his fist down upon the table, and made the
glasses and candles dance ‘upon it.

“Conspiracy or not, this time they judged the play aright. I believe it
would be impossible to imagine two worse plays; but, as Brid Oison
says, ‘These are things that one admits only to himself’; it is always
disagreeable to be informed of one’s stupidity by an ignorant audience
that shouts after you like a pack of hounds after a hare. In spite of my
pretension of being the least susceptible regarding an author’s
vanity of all the writers in Paris, it is perfectly impossible to be
indifferent to such a thing--a hiss is a hiss. However, vanity aside,
there was a question of money which, as I have a bad habit of spending
regularly my capital as well as my income, was not without its
importance. It meant, according to my calculation, some sixty
thousand francs cut off from my resources, and my trip to the East was
indefinitely postponed.

“They say, with truth, that misfortunes never come singly. You know
Melanie, whom I prevented from making her debut at the Vaudeville? By
taking her away from all society, lodging her in a comfortable manner
and obliging her to work, I rendered her a valuable service. She was
a good girl, and, aside from her love for the theatre and a certain
indolence that was not without charm, I did not find any fault in her
and grew more attached to her every day. Sometimes after spending long
hours with her, a fancy for a retired life and domestic happiness would
seize me. Gentlemen with brains are privileged to commit foolish acts at
times, and I really do not know what I might have ended in doing, had I
not been preserved from the danger in an unexpected manner.

“One evening, when I arrived at Melanie’s, I found the bird had flown.
That great ninny of a Ferussac, whom I never had suspected, and had
introduced to her myself, had turned her head by making capital out
of her love for the stage. As he was about to leave for Belgium, he
persuaded her to go there and dethrone Mademoiselle Prevost. I have
since learned that a Brussels banker revenged me by taking this Helene
of the stage away from Ferussac. Now she is launched and can fly with
her own wings upon the great highway of bravos, flowers, guineas--”

“And wreck and ruin,” added Marillac. “Here’s to her health!”

“This triple disappointment of pride, money, and heart did not cause, I
hope you will believe me, the deep state of melancholy into which I soon
fell; but the malady manifested itself upon this occasion, for it had
been lurking about me for a long time, as the dormant pain of a wound is
aroused if one pours a caustic upon its surface.

“There is some dominant power in each individual which is developed at
the expense of the other faculties, above all when the profession one
chooses suits his nature. The vital powers thus condensed manifest
themselves externally, and gush out with an abundance which would become
impossible if all the faculties were used alike, and if life filtered
away, so to speak. To avoid such destruction, and concentrate life upon
one point, in order to increase the action, is the price of talent and
individuality. Among athletes, the forehead contracts according as the
chest enlarges; with men of thought, it is the brain which causes the
other organs to suffer, insatiable vampire, exhausting at times the last
drop of blood in the body which serves as its victim. This vampire was
my torturer.

“For ten years I had crowded romance upon poetry, vaudeville upon drama,
literary criticism upon leader; I proved, through my own self, in
a physical way, the phenomena of the absorption of the senses by
intelligence. Many times, after several nights of hard work, the chords
of my mind being too violently stretched, they relaxed and gave only
indistinct harmony. Then, if I happened to resist this lassitude of
nature demanding repose, I felt the pressure of my will exhausting the
sources at the very depths of my being. It seemed to me that I dug out
my ideas from the bottom of a mine, instead of gathering them upon the
surface of the brain. The more material organs came to the rescue of
their failing chief. The blood from my heart rushed to my head to revive
it; the muscles of my limbs communicated to the fibres of the brain
their galvanic tension. Nerves turned into imagination, flesh into life.
Nothing has developed my materialistic beliefs like this decarnation of
which I had such a sensible, or rather visible perception.

“I destroyed my health with these psychological experiments, and the
abuse of work perhaps shortened my life. When I was thirty years old
my face was wrinkled, my cheeks were pallid, and my heart blighted and
empty. For what result, grand Dieu! For a fleeting and fruitless renown!

“The failure of my two plays warned me that others judged me as I judged
myself. I recalled to mind the Archbishop of Granada, and I thought
I could hear Gil Blas predicting the failure of my works. We can not
dismiss the public as we can our secretary; meanwhile, I surrendered to
a too severe justice in order to decline others’ opinions. A horrible
thought suddenly came into my mind; my artistic life was ended, I was
a worn-out man; in one word, to picture my situation in a trivial but
correct manner, I had reached the end of my rope.

“I could not express to you the discouragement that I felt at this
conviction. Melanie’s infidelity was the crowning touch. It was not my
heart, but my vanity which had been rendered more irritable by recent
disappointments. This, then, was the end of all my ambitious dreams! I
had not enough mind left, at thirty years of age, to write a vaudeville
or to be loved by a grisette!

“One day Doctor Labanchie came to see me.

“‘What are you doing there’ said he, as he saw me seated at my desk.

“‘Doctor,’ said I, reaching out my hand to him, ‘I believe that I am a
little feverish.’

“‘Your pulse is a little rapid,’ said he, after making careful
examination, ‘but your fever is more of imagination than of blood.’

“I explained to him my condition, which was now becoming almost
unendurable. Without believing in medicine very much, I had confidence
in him and knew him to be a man who would give good advice.

“‘You work too much,’ said he, shaking his head. ‘Your brain is put to
too strong a tension. This is a warning nature gives you, and you will
make a mistake if you do not follow it. When you are sleepy, go to bed;
when you are tired, you must have rest. It is rest for your brain that
you now need. Go into the country, confine yourself to a regular and
healthy diet: vegetables, white meat, milk in the morning, a very
little wine, but, above all things, no coffee. Take moderate exercise,
hunt--and avoid all irritating thoughts; read the ‘Musee des familles’
or the ‘Magasin Pittoresque’. This regime will have the effect of a
soothing poultice upon your brain, and before the end of six months you
will be in your normal condition again.’

“‘Six months!’ I exclaimed. ‘You wretch of a doctor, tell me, then, to
let my beard and nails grow like Nebuchadnezzar. Six months! You do not
know how I detest the country, partridges, rabbits and all. For heaven’s
sake, find some other remedy for me.’

“‘There is homoeopathy,’ said he, smiling. ‘Hahnemann is quite the
fashion now.’

“‘Let us have homoeopathy!’

“‘You know the principles of the system: ‘Similia similibus!’ If you
have fever, redouble it; if you have smallpox, be inoculated with a
triple dose. So far as you are concerned, you are a little used up and
‘blase’, as we all are in this Babylon of ours; have recourse, then, as
a remedy, to the very excesses which have brought you into this state.
Homoeopathize yourself morally. It may cure you, it may kill you; I wash
my hands of it.’

“The doctor was joking, I said to myself after he had left. Does he
think that passions are like the Wandering Jew’s five sous, that there
is nothing to do but to put your hand in your pocket and take them out
at your convenience when necessary. However, this idea, strange as it
seemed, struck me forcibly. I decided to try it.

“The next day at seven o’clock in the evening, I was rolling along the
road to Lyons. Eight days later, I was rowing in a boat on Lake Geneva.
For a long time I had wanted to go to Switzerland, and it seemed as if I
could not have chosen a better time. I hoped that the fresh mountain air
and the soft pure breezes from the lakes would communicate some of their
calm serenity to my heart and brain.

“There is something in Parisian life, I do not know what, so exclusive
and hardening, that it ends by making one irresponsive to sensations of
a more simple order.

“‘My kingdom for the gutter in the Rue du Bac!’ I exclaimed with Madame
de Stael from the height of the Coppet terrace. The spectacle of nature
interests only contemplative and religious minds powerfully. Mine was
neither the one nor the other. My habits of analysis and observation
make me find more attraction in a characteristic face than in a
magnificent landscape; I prefer the exercising of thought to the
careless gratification of ecstasy, the study of flesh and soul to
earthly horizons, of human passions to a perfectly pure atmosphere.

“I met at Geneva an Englishman, who was as morose as myself. We vented
our spleen in common and were both bored together. We travelled thus
through the Oberland and the best part of Valais; we were often rolled
up in our travelling robes in the depths of the carriage, and fast
asleep when the most beautiful points of interest were in sight.

“From Valais we went to Mont-Blanc, and one night we arrived at
Chamounix--”

“Did you see any idiots in Valais?” suddenly interrupted Marillac, as he
filled his pipe the second time.

“Several, and they were all horrible.”

“Do you not think we might compose something with an idiot in it? It
might be rather taking.”

“It would not equal Caliban or Quasimodo; will you be so kind as to
spare me just now these efforts of imagination, and listen to me, for I
am reaching the interesting part of my story?”

“God be praised!” said the artist, as he puffed out an enormous cloud of
smoke.

“The next day the Englishman was served with tea in his bedroom, and
when I asked him to go to the ‘Mer de Glace’ he turned his head toward
the wall; so, leaving my phlegmatic companion enveloped in bedclothes up
to his ears, I started alone for the Montanvert.

“It was a magnificent morning, and small parties of travellers, some on
foot, others mounted, skirted the banks of the Arve or climbed the sides
of the mountain. They looked like groups of mice in the distance, and
this extreme lessening in size made one comprehend, better than anything
else, the immense proportions of the landscape. As for myself, I was
alone: I had not even taken a guide, this was too favorite a resort
for tourists, for the precaution to be necessary. For a wonder, I felt
rather gay, with an elasticity of body and mind which I had not felt in
some time.

“I courageously began climbing the rough pathway which led to the Mer de
Glace, aiding myself with a long staff, which I had procured at the inn.

“At every step I breathed with renewed pleasure the fresh, pure, morning
air; I gazed vaguely at the different effects of the sun or mist, at the
undulations of the road, which sometimes rose almost straight up in the
air, sometimes followed a horizontal line, while skirting the open abyss
at the right. The Arve, wending its course like a silvery ribbon, seemed
at times to recede, while the ridges of the perpendicular rocks stood
out more plainly. At times, the noise of a falling avalanche was
repeated, echo after echo. A troupe of German students below me were
responding to the voice of the glaciers by a chorus from Oberon.
Following the turns in the road, I could see through the fir-trees, or,
rather, at my feet, their long Teutonic frock-coats, their blond beards,
and caps about the size of one’s fist. As I walked along, when the path
was not too steep, I amused myself by throwing my stick against the
trunks of the trees which bordered the roadside; I remember how pleased
I was when I succeeded in hitting them, which I admit was not very
often.

“In the midst of this innocent amusement, I reached the spot where the
reign of the Alpine plants begins. All at once I saw, above me, a rock
decked with rhododendrons; these flowers looked like tufts of oleanders
through the dark foliage of the fir-trees, and produced a charming
effect. I left the path in order to reach them sooner, and when I had
gathered a bouquet, I threw my staff and at the same time uttered a
joyous cry, in imitation of the students, my companions on this trip.

“A frightened scream responded to mine. My staff in its flight had
crossed the path and darted into an angle in the road. At that same
moment, I saw a mule’s head appear with ears thrown back in terror, then
the rest of its body, and upon its back a lady ready to fall into the
abyss. Fright paralyzed me. All aid was impossible on account of the
narrowness of the road, and this stranger’s life depended upon her
coolness and the intelligence of her beast. Finally the animal seemed
to regain its courage and began to walk away, lowering its head as if
it could still hear the terrible whistle of the javelin in his ears.
I slipped from the rock upon which I stood and seized the mule by the
bridle, and succeeded in getting them out of a bad position. I led the
animal in this way for some distance, until I reached a place where the
path was broader, and danger was over.

“I then offered my apologies to the person whose life I had just
compromised by my imprudence, and for the first time took a good look
at her. She was young and well dressed; a black silk gown fitted her
slender form to perfection; her straw hat was fastened to the saddle,
and her long chestnut hair floated in disorder over her pale cheeks.
As she heard my voice, she opened her eyes, which in her fright she had
instinctively closed; they seemed to me the most beautiful I had ever
seen in my life.

“She looked at the precipice and turned away with a shudder. Her glance
rested upon me, and then upon the rhododendrons which I held in my hand.

“The frightened expression on her face was replaced immediately by one
of childish curiosity.

“‘What pretty flowers!’ she exclaimed, in a fresh, young voice. ‘Are
those rhododendrons, Monsieur?’

“I presented her my bouquet without replying; as she hesitated about
taking it, I said:

“‘If you refuse these flowers, Madame, I shall not believe that you have
pardoned me.’

“By this time, the persons who were with her had joined us. There were
two other ladies, three or four men mounted upon mules, and several
guides. At the word rhododendron, a rather large, handsome fellow,
dressed in a pretentious style, slipped from his mule and climbed the
somewhat steep precipice in quest of the flowers which seemed to be so
much in favor. When he returned, panting for breath, with an enormous
bunch of them in his hand, the lady had already accepted mine.

“‘Thank you, Monsieur de Mauleon,’ said she, with a rather scornful air;
‘offer your flowers to these ladies.’ Then, with a slight inclination of
the head to me, she struck her mule with her whip, and they rode away.

“The rest of the company followed her, gazing at me as they passed,
the big, fashionable fellow especially giving me a rather impertinent
glance. I did not try to pick a quarrel with him on account of this
discourteous manifestation. When the cavalcade was at some distance, I
went in search of my stick, which I found under a tree on the edge of
the precipice; then I continued climbing the steep path, with my eyes
fastened upon the rider in the black silk gown, her hair flying in the
wind and my bouquet in her hand.

“A few moments later, I reached the pavilion at the Montanvert, where
I found a gay company gathered together, made up principally of English
people. As for myself, I must admit the frivolous, or, rather mundane,
bent of my tastes; the truly admirable spectacle presented to my eyes
interested me much less than the young stranger, who at this moment was
descending with the lightness of a sylph the little road which led to
the Mer de Glace.

“I do not know what mysterious link bound me to this woman. I had met
many much more beautiful, but the sight of them had left me perfectly
indifferent. This one attracted me from the first. The singular
circumstances of this first interview, doubtless, had something to do
with the impression. I felt glad to see that she had kept my bouquet;
she held it in one hand, while she leaned with the other upon a staff
somewhat like my own. The two other ladies, and even the men had stopped
on the edge of the ice.

“Monsieur de Mauleon wished to fulfil his duties as escort, but at the
first crevasse he had also halted without manifesting the slightest
desire to imitate the chamois. The young woman seemed to take a
malicious pleasure in contemplating her admirer’s prudent attitude, and,
far from listening to the advice he gave her, she began to run upon
the ice, bounding over the crevasses with the aid of her stick. I was
admiring her lightness and thoughtlessness, but with an uneasy feeling,
when I saw her suddenly stop. I instinctively ran toward her. An
enormous crevasse of great depth lay at her feet, blue at its edges and
dark in its depths. She stood motionless before this frightful gulf with
hands thrown out before her in horror, but charmed like a bird about to
be swallowed by a serpent. I knew the irresistible effect upon nervous
temperaments of this magnetic attraction toward an abyss. I seized her
by the arm, the suddenness of the movement made her drop her staff and
flowers, which fell into the depths of the chasm.

“I tried to lead her away, but after she had taken a few steps, I felt
her totter; she had grown pale; her eyes were closed. I threw my arm
about her, in order to support her and turned her face toward the north;
the cold air striking her revived her, and she soon opened her beautiful
brown eyes. I do not know what sudden tenderness seized me then, but
I pressed this lovely creature within my grasp, and she remained in my
arms unresistingly. I felt that I loved her already.

“She remained for a moment with her languishing eyes fixed on mine,
making no response, perhaps not even having heard me. The shouts of
her party, some of whom were coming toward her, broke the charm. With a
rapid movement, she withdrew from my embrace, and I offered her my arm,
just as if we were in a drawing-room and I was about to lead her out
for a dance; she took it, but I did not feel elated at this, for I could
feel her knees waver at every step. The smallest crevasse, which she had
crossed before with such agility, now inspired her with a horror which
I could divine by the trembling of her arm within mine. I was obliged
to make numerous detours in order to avoid them, and thus prolonged the
distance, for which I was not sorry. Did I not know that when we reached
our destination, the world, that other sea of ice, was going to take her
away from me, perhaps forever? We walked silently, occasionally making
a few trivial remarks, both deeply embarrassed. When we reached the
persons who awaited her, I said, as she disengaged my arm:

“‘You dropped my flowers, Madame; will it be the same with your memory
of me?’

“She looked at me, but made no reply. I loved this silence. I bowed
politely to her and returned to the pavilion, while she related her
adventure to her friends; but I am quite sure she did not tell all the
details.

“The register for travellers who visit the Montan-Vert is a mixture of
all nationalities, and no tourist refuses his tribute; modest ones write
down their names only. I hoped in this way to learn the name of the
young traveller, and I was not disappointed. I soon saw the corpulent
Monsieur de Mauleon busily writing his name upon the register in
characters worthy of Monsieur Prudhomme; the other members of the little
party followed his example. The young woman was the last to write down
her name. I took the book in my turn, after she had left, and with
apparent composure I read upon the last line these words, written in a
slender handwriting:

“Baroness Clemence de Bergenheim.”




CHAPTER VII. GERFAUT ASKS A FAVOR

“The Baroness de Bergenheim!” exclaimed Marillac. “Ah! I understand it
all now, and you may dispense with the remainder of your story. So this
was the reason why, instead of visiting the banks of the Rhine as we
agreed, you made me leave the route at Strasbourg under the pretext of
walking through the picturesque sites of the Vosges. It was unworthy of
you to abuse my confidence as a friend. And I allowed myself to be led
by the nose to within a mile of Bergenheim!”

“Peace,” interrupted Gerfaut; “I have not finished. Smoke and listen.

“I followed Madame de Bergenheim as far as Geneva. She had gone there
from here with her aunt, and had availed herself of this journey to
visit Mont Blanc. She left for her home the next day without my meeting
her again; but I preserved her name, and it was not unknown to me. I had
heard it spoken in several houses in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and I
knew that I should certainly have an opportunity of meeting her during
the winter.

“So I remained at Geneva, yielding to a sensation as new as it was
strange. It first acted upon my brain whose ice I felt melting away,
and its sources ready to gush forth. I seized my pen with a passion not
unlike an access of rage. I finished in four days two acts of a drama
that I was then writing. I never had written anything more vigorous or
more highly colored. My unconstrained genius throbbed in my arteries,
ran through my blood, and bubbled over as if it wished to burst forth.
My hand could not keep even with the course of my imagination; I was
obliged to write in hieroglyphics.

“Adieu to the empty reveries brought about by spleen, and to the
meditations ‘a la Werther’! The sky was blue, the air pure, life
delightful--my talent was not dead.

“After this first effort, I slackened a little! Madame de Bergenheim’s
face, which I had seen but dimly during this short time, returned to me
in a less vaporous form; I took extreme delight in calling to mind the
slightest circumstances of our meeting, the smallest details of her
features, her toilette, her manner of walking and carrying her head.
What had impressed me most was the extreme softness of her dark eyes,
the almost childish tone of her voice, a vague odor of heliotrope with
which her hair was perfumed; also the touch of her hand upon my arm.
I sometimes caught myself embracing myself in order to feel this last
sensation again, and then I could not help laughing at my thoughts,
which were worthy of a fifteen-year-old lover.

“I had felt so convinced of my powerlessness to love, that the thought
of a serious passion did not at first enter my mind. However, a
remembrance of my beautiful traveller pervaded my thoughts more and
more, and threatened to usurp the place of everything else. I then
subjected myself to a rigid analysis; I sought for the exact location
of this sentiment whose involuntary yoke I already felt; I persuaded
myself, for some time yet, that it was only the transient excitement of
my brain, one of those fevers of imagination whose fleeting titillations
I had felt more than once.

“But I realized that the evil, or the good--for why call love an
evil?--had penetrated into the most remote regions of my being, and I
realized the energy of my struggle like a person entombed who tries to
extricate himself. From the ashes of this volcano which I had believed
to be extinct, a flower had suddenly blossomed, perfumed with the most
fragrant of odors and decked with the most charming colors. Artless
enthusiasm, faith in love, all the brilliant array of the fresh
illusions of my youth returned, as if by enchantment, to greet this
new bloom of my life; it seemed to me as if I had been created a second
time, since I was aided by intelligence and understood its mysteries
while tasting of its delights. My past, in the presence of this
regeneration, was nothing more than a shadow at the bottom of an abyss.
I turned toward the future with the faith of a Mussulman who kneels with
his face toward the East--I loved!

“I returned to Paris, and applied to my friend Casorans, who knows the
Faubourg Saint-Germain from Dan to Beersheba.

“‘Madame de Bergenheim,’ he said to me, ‘is a very popular society
woman, not very pretty, perhaps, rather clever, though, and very
amiable. She is one of our coquettes of the old nobility, and with her
twenty-four carats’ virtue she always has two sufferers attached to her
chariot, and a third on the waiting-list, and yet it is impossible for
one to find a word to say against her behavior. Just at this moment,
Mauleon and d’Arzenac compose the team; I do not know who is on the
waiting-list. She will probably spend the winter here with her aunt,
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, one of the hatefullest old women on the
Rue de Varennes. The husband is a good fellow who, since the July
revolution, has lived upon his estates, caring for his forests and
killing wild boars without troubling himself much about his wife.’

“He then told me which houses these ladies frequented, and left me,
saying with a knowing air:

“‘Take care, if you intend to try the power of your seductions upon the
little Baroness; whoever meddles with her smarts for it!’

“This information from a viper like Casorans satisfied me in every way.
Evidently the place was not taken; impregnable, that was another thing.

“Before Madame de Bergenheim’s return, I began to show myself
assiduously at the houses of which my friend had spoken. My position
in the Faubourg Saint-Germain is peculiar, but good, according to my
opinion. I have enough family ties to be sustained by several should I
be attacked by many, and this is the essential point. It is true that,
thanks to my works, I am regarded as an atheist and a Jacobin; aside
from these two little defects, they think well enough of me. Besides, it
is a notorious fact that I have rejected several offers from the present
government, and refused last year the ‘croix d’honneur’; this makes
amends and washes away half my sins. Finally, I have the reputation
of having a certain-knowledge of heraldry, which I owe to my uncle,
a confirmed hunter after genealogical claims. This gains me a respect
which makes me laugh sometimes, when I see people who detest me greet me
as cordially as the Cure of Saint-Eustache greeted Bayle, for fear that
I might destroy their favorite saint. However, in this society, I am
no longer Gerfaut of the Porte-Saint-Martin, but I am the Vicomte de
Gerfaut. Perhaps, with your bourgeois ideas, you do not understand--”

“Bourgeois!” exclaimed Marillac, bounding from his seat, “what are
you talking about? Do you wish that we should cut each other’s
throats before breakfast to-morrow? Bourgeois! why not grocer? I am an
artist--don’t you know that by this time?”

“Don’t get angry, my dear fellow; I meant to say that in certain places
the title of a Vicomte has still a more powerful attraction than you,
with your artistic but plebeian ideas, would suppose in this year of our
Lord 1832.”

“Well and good. I accept your apology.”

“A vicomte’s title is a recommendation in the eyes of people who still
cling to the baubles of nobility, and all women are of this class. There
is something, I know not what, delicate and knightly in this title,
which suits a youngish bachelor. Duke above all titles is the one that
sounds the best. Moliere and Regnard have done great harm to the title
of marquis. Count is terribly bourgeois, thanks to the senators of the
empire. As to a Baron, unless he is called Montmorency or Beaufremont,
it is the lowest grade of nobility; vicomte, on the contrary, is above
reproach; it exhales a mixed odor of the old regime and young France;
then, don’t you know, our Chateaubriand was a vicomte.

“I departed from my subject in speaking of nobility. I accidentally
turned over one day to the article upon my family in the Dictionnaire de
Saint-Allais; I found that one of my ancestors, Christophe de Gerfaut,
married, in 1569, a Mademoiselle Yolande de Corandeuil.

“‘O my ancestor! O my ancestress!’ I exclaimed, ‘you had strange
baptismal names; but no matter, I thank you. You are going to serve
me as a grappling iron; I shall be very unskilful if at the very first
meeting the old aunt escapes Christophe.’

“A few days later I went to the Marquise de Chameillan’s, one of
the most exclusive houses in the noble Faubourg. When I enter her
drawing-room, I usually cause the same sensation that Beelzebub would
doubtless produce should he put his foot into one of the drawing-rooms
in Paradise. That evening, when I was announced, I saw a certain
undulation of heads in a group of young women who were whispering to
one another; many curious eyes were fastened upon me, and among these
beautiful eyes were two more beautiful than all the others: they were
those of my bewitching traveller.

“I exchanged a rapid glance with her, one only; after paying my respects
to the mistress of the house, I mingled with a crowd of men, and
entered into conversation with an old peer upon some political question,
avoiding to look again toward Madame de Bergenheim.

“A moment later, Madame de Chameillan came to ask the peer to play
whist; he excused himself, he could not remain late.

“‘I dare not ask you to play with Mademoiselle de Corandeuil,’ said
she, turning toward me; ‘besides, I understand too well that it is to my
interest and the pleasure of these ladies, not to exile you to a whist
table.’

“I took the card which she half offered me with an eagerness which might
have made her suppose that I had become a confirmed whist expert during
my voyage.

“Mademoiselle de Corandeuil certainly was the ugly, crabbed creature
that Casorans had described; but had she been as frightful as the
witches in Macbeth I was determined to make her conquest. So I began
playing with unusual attention. I was her partner, and I knew from
experience the profound horror which the loss of money inspires in old
women. Thank heaven, we won! Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who has an
income of one hundred thousand francs, was not at all indifferent to the
gain of two or three louis. She, therefore, with an almost gracious air,
congratulated me, as we left the table, upon my manner of playing.

“‘I would willingly contract an alliance, offensive and defensive with
you,’ said she to me.

“‘The alliance is already contracted, Mademoiselle,’ said I, seizing the
opportunity.

“‘How is that, Monsieur?’ she replied, raising her head with a dignified
air, as if she were getting ready to rebuke some impertinent speech.

“I also gravely straightened up and gave a feudal look to my face.

“‘Mademoiselle, I have the honor of belonging to your family, a little
distantly, to be sure; that is what makes me speak of an alliance
between us as a thing already concluded. One of my ancestors, Christophe
de Gerfaut, married Mademoiselle Yolande de Corandeuil, one of your
great-grand-aunts, in 1569.’

“‘Yolande is really a family name,’ replied the old lady, with the
most affable smile that her face would admit; ‘I bear it myself. The
Corandeuils, Monsieur, never have denied their alliances, and it is a
pleasure for me to recognize my relationship with such a man as you. We
address by the title of cousin relatives as far back as 1300.’

“‘I am nearer related to you by three centuries,’ I replied, in my most
insinuating voice; ‘may I hope that this good fortune will authorize me
to pay my respects to you?’

“Mademoiselle de Corandeuil replied to my ‘tartuferie’ by granting me
permission to call upon her. My attention was not so much absorbed in
our conversation that I did not see in a mirror, during this time, the
interest with which Madame de Bergenheim watched my conversation with
her aunt; but I was careful not to turn around, and I let her take her
departure without giving her a second glance.

“Three days later, I made my first call. Madame de Bergenheim received
my greeting like a woman who had been warned and was, therefore,
prepared. We exchanged only one rapid, earnest glance, that was all.
Availing myself of the presence of other callers, numerous enough to
assure each one his liberty, I began to observe, with a practised eye,
the field whereon I had just taken my position.

“Before the end of the evening, I recognized the correctness of
Casorans’s information. Among all the gentlemen present I found only
two professed admirers: Monsieur de Mauleon, whose insignificance was
notorious, and Monsieur d’Arzenac, who appeared at first glance as if
he might be more to be feared. D’Arzenac, thanks to an income of ten
thousand livres, beside being a man of rank, occupies also one of the
finest positions that one could desire; he is not unworthy of his name
and his fortune. Irreproachable in morals as in manners; sufficiently
well informed; of an exquisite but reserved politeness; understanding
perfectly the ground that he is walking upon; making also more advances
than is customary among the pachas of modern France, he was, without
doubt, the flower of the flock in Mademoiselle de Corandeuil’s
drawing-room. In spite of all these advantages, an attentive examination
showed me that his passion was hopeless. Madame de Bergenheim received
his attentions very kindly--too kindly. She usually listened to him with
a smile in which one could read gratitude for the devotion he lavished
upon her. She willingly accepted him as her favorite partner in the
galop, which he danced to perfection. His success stopped there.

“At the end of several days, the ground having been carefully explored
and the admirers, dangerous and otherwise, having been passed in review,
one after another, I felt convinced that Clemence loved nobody.

“‘She shall love me,’ said I, on the day I reached this conclusion. In
order to formulate in a decisive manner the accomplishment of my desire,
I relied upon the following propositions, which are to me articles of
faith.

“No woman is unattainable, except when she loves another. Thus, a woman
who does not love, and who has resisted nine admirers, will yield to
the tenth. The only question for me was to be the tenth. Here began the
problem to be solved.

“Madame de Bergenheim had been married only three years; her husband,
who was good-looking and young, passed for a model husband; if these
latter considerations were of little importance, the first was of great
weight. According to all probability, it was too soon for any serious
attack. Without being beautiful, she pleased much and many; a second
obstacle, since sensibility in women is almost always developed in
inverse ratio to their success. She had brains; she was wonderfully
aristocratic in all her tastes.

“Last, being very much the fashion, sought after and envied, she was
under the special surveillance of pious persons, old maids, retired
beauties in one word, all that feminine mounted police, whose eyes,
ears, and mouths seem to have assumed the express mission of annoying
sensitive hearts while watching over the preservation of good morals.

“This mass of difficulties, none of which escaped me, traced as many
lines upon my forehead as if I had been commanded to solve at once
all the propositions in Euclid. She shall love me! these words flashed
unceasingly before my eyes; but the means to attain this end? No
satisfactory plan came to me. Women are so capricious, deep, and
unfathomable! It is, with them, the thing soonest done which is soonest
ended! A false step, the least awkwardness, a want of intelligence, a
quarter of an hour too soon or too late! One thing only was evident:
it needed a grand display of attractions, a complete plan of gallant
strategy; but, then, what more?

“That earthly paradise of the Montanvert was far from us, where I had
been able in less time than it would take to walk over a quadrille, to
expose her to death, to save her afterward, and finally to say to her ‘I
love you!’ Passion in drawing-rooms is not allowed those free, dramatic
ways; flowers fade in the candle-light; the oppressive atmosphere of
balls and fetes stifles the heart, so ready to dilate in pure mountain
air. The unexpected and irresistible influence of the glacier would have
been improper and foolish in Paris. There, an artless sympathy,
stronger than social conventions, had drawn us to each other--Octave and
Clemence. Here, she was the Baroness de Bergenheim, and I the Vicomte
de Gerfaut. I must from necessity enter the ordinary route, begin the
romance at the first page, without knowing how to connect the prologue
with it.

“What should be my plan of campaign?

“Should I pose as an agreeable man, and try to captivate her attention
and good graces by the minute attentions and delicate flattery which
constitute what is classically called paying court? But D’Arzenac
had seized this role, and filled it in such a superior way that all
competition would be unsuccessful. I saw where this had led him. It
needed, in order to inflame this heart, a more active spark than foppish
gallantry; the latter flatters the vanity without reaching the heart.

“There was the passionate method--ardent, burning, fierce love. There
are some women upon whom convulsive sighs drawn from the depths of the
stomach, eyebrows frowning in a fantastic manner, and eyes in which only
the whites are to be seen and which seem to say: ‘Love me, or I will
kill you!’ produce a prodigious effect. I had myself felt the power
of this fascination while using it one day upon a softhearted blond
creature who thought it delightful to have a Blue-Beard for a lover.
But the drooping corners of Clemence’s mouth showed at times an ironical
expression which would have cooled down even an Othello’s outbursts.

“‘She has brains, and she knows it,’ said I to myself; ‘shall I attack
her in that direction?’ Women rather like such a little war of words; it
gives them an opportunity for displaying a mine of pretty expressions,
piquant pouts, fresh bursts of laughter, graceful peculiarities of which
they well know the effect. Should I be the Benedict to this Beatrice?
But this by-play would hardly fill the prologue, and I very much wished
to reach the epilogue.

“I passed in review the different routes that a lover might take to
reach his end; I recapitulated every one of the more or less infallible
methods of conquering female hearts; in a word, I went over my tactics
like a lieutenant about to drill a battalion of recruits. When I had
ended I had made no farther advance than before.

“‘To the devil with systems!’ exclaimed I; ‘I will not be so foolish as
wilfully to adopt the role of roue when I feel called upon to play the
plain role of true lover. Let those who like play the part of Lovelace!
As for myself, I will love; upon the whole, that is what pleases best.’
And I jumped headlong into the torrent without troubling myself as to
the place of landing.

“While I was thus scheming my attack, Madame de Bergenheim was upon
her guard and had prepared her means of defence. Puzzled by my reserve,
which was in singular contrast with my almost extravagant conduct at our
first meeting, her woman’s intelligence had surmised, on my part, a plan
which she proposed to baffle. I was partly found out, but I knew it and
thus kept the advantage.

“I could not help smiling at the Baroness’s clever coquetry, when I
decided to follow the inspirations of my heart, instead of choosing
selfish motives as my guide. Every time I took her hand when dancing
with her, I expected to feel a little claw ready to pierce the cold
glove. But, while waiting for the scratch, it was a very soft, velvety
little hand that was given me; and I, who willingly lent myself to her
deception, did not feel very much duped. It was evident that the sort
of halo which my merited or unmerited reputation had thrown over me had
made me appear to her as a conquest of some value, a victim upon whom
one could lavish just enough flowers in order to bring him to the
sacrificial altar. In order to wind the first chain around my neck,
Mauleon and D’Arzenac, ‘a tutti quanti’, were sacrificed for me without
my soliciting, even by a glance, this general disbandment. I could
interpret this discharge. I saw that the fair one wished to concentrate
all her seductions against me, so as to leave me no means of escape;
people neglect the hares to hunt for the deer. You must excuse my
conceit.

“This conduct wounded me at first, but I afterward forgave her, when
a more careful examination taught me to know this adorable woman’s
character. Coquetry was with her not a vice of the heart or of an
unscrupulous mind; having nothing better to do, she enjoyed it as a
legitimate pastime, without giving it any importance or feeling any
scruples. Like all women, she liked to please; her success was sweet to
her vanity; perhaps flattery turned her head at times, but in the midst
of this tumult her heart remained in perfect peace. She found so little
danger for herself in the game she played that it did not seem to her
that it could be very serious for others. Genuine love is not common
enough in Parisian parlors for a pretty woman to conceive any great
remorse at pleasing without loving.

“Madame de Bergenheim was thus, ingenuously, unsuspectingly, a matchless
coquette. Never having loved, not even her husband, she looked upon
her little intriguing as one of the rights earned on the day of her
marriage, the same as her diamonds and cashmeres. There was something
touching in the sound of her voice and in her large, innocent eyes which
she sometimes allowed to rest upon mine, without thinking to turn them
away, and which said, ‘I have never loved.’ As for myself, I believed it
all; one is so happy to believe!

“Far from being annoyed at the trap she laid for me, I, on the contrary,
ran my head into it and presented my neck to the yoke with a docility
which must have amused her, I think; but I hoped not to bear it alone.
A coquette who coolly flaunts her triumphs to the world resembles those
master-swimmers who, while spectators are admiring the grace of their
poses, are struck by an unexpected current; the performer is sometimes
swept away and drowned without his elegant strokes being of much service
to him. Throw Celimene into the current of genuine passion--I do not
mean the brutality of Alceste--I will wager that coquetry will be swept
away by love. I had such faith in mine that I thought to be able to
fix the moment when I should call myself victorious and sure of being
obeyed.

“You know that sadness and ennui were considered etiquette last winter,
in a certain society, which was thrown into mourning by the July
revolution. Reunions were very few; there were no balls or soirees;
dancing in drawing-rooms to the piano was hardly permissible, even
with intimate friends. When once I was installed in Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil’s drawing-room upon a friendly footing, this cessation of
worldly festivities gave me an opportunity to see Clemence in a rather
intimate way.

“It would take too long to tell you now all the thousand and one little
incidents which compose the history of all passions. Profiting by her
coquetry, which made her receive me kindly in order to make me expiate
my success afterward, my love for her was soon an understood thing
between us; she listened to me in a mocking way, but did not dispute
my right to speak. She ended by receiving my letters, after being
constrained to do so through a course of strategies in which, truly, I
showed incredible invention. I was listened to and she read my letters;
I asked for nothing more.

“My love, from the first, had been her secret as well as mine; but every
day I made to sparkle some unexpected facet of this prism of a thousand
colors. Even after telling her a hundred times how much I adored her,
my love still had for her the attraction of the unknown. I really had
something inexhaustible in my heart, and I was sure, in the end, to
intoxicate her with this philtre, which I constantly poured out and
which she drank, while making sport of it like a child.

“One day I found her thoughtful and silent. She did not reply to me with
her usual sprightliness during the few moments that I was able to talk
with her; the expression of her eyes had changed; there was something
deeper and less glowing in their depths; instead of dazzling me by their
excessive splendor, as had often happened to me before, they seemed to
soften as they rested on mine; she kept her eyelids a trifle lowered, as
if she were tired of being gazed at by me. Her voice, as she spoke, had
a low, soft sound, a sort of inexplicable something which came from the
very depths of her soul. She never had looked at me with that glance or
spoken to me in that tone before. Upon that day I knew that she loved
me.

“I returned to my home unutterably happy, for I loved this woman with a
love of which I believed myself incapable.

“When I met Madame de Bergenheim again, I found her completely
changed toward me; an icy gravity, an impassible calm, an ironical and
disdainful haughtiness had taken the place of the delicious abandon of
her former bearing. In spite of my strong determination to allow myself
to love with the utmost candor, it was impossible for me to return to
that happy age when the frowning brows of the beautiful idol to whom we
paid court inspired us with the resolve to drown ourselves. I could not
isolate myself from my past experiences. My heart was rejuvenated, but
my head remained old. I was, therefore, not in the least discouraged by
this change of humor, and the fit of anger which it portended.

“‘Now,’ said I to myself, ‘there is an end to coquetry, it is beaten on
all sides; it is gone, never to return. She has seen that the affair is
a little too deep for that, and the field not tenable. She will erect
barriers in order to defend herself and will no longer attack.’ Thus we
pass from the period of amiable smiles, sweet glances, and half-avowals
to that of severity and prudery, while waiting for the remorse and
despair of the denouement. I am sure that at this time she called to
her help all her powers of resistance. From that day she would retreat
behind the line of duty, conjugal fidelity, honor, and all the other
fine sentiments which would need numbering after the fashion of Homer.
At the first attack, all this household battalion would make a furious
sortie; should I succeed in overthrowing them and take up my quarters in
the trenches, there would then be a gathering of the reserve force,
and boiling oil or tar would rain upon my head, representing virtue,
religion, heaven, and hell.”

“A sort of conjugal earthquake,” interrupted Marillac.

“I calculated the strength and approximate duration of these means of
defence. The whole thing appeared to me only a question of time, a few
days or weeks at most--so long on the husband’s account, so long on the
father confessor’s account. I deserved to be boxed on the ears for my
presumption; I was.

“A combat is necessary in order to secure a victory. In spite of all my
efforts and ruses, it was not possible for me to fight this combat;
I did not succeed, in spite of all my challenges, in shattering, as I
expected, this virtuous conjugal fortress. Madame de Bergenheim still
persisted in her systematic reserve, with incredible prudence and
skill. During the remainder of the winter, I did not find more than one
opportunity of speaking to her alone. As I was a permanent fixture every
evening in her aunt’s parlors, she entered them only when other guests
were there. She never went out alone, and in every place where I was
likely to meet her I was sure to find a triple rampart of women erected
between us, through which it was impossible to address one word to her.
In short, I was encountering a desperate resistance; and, yet, she loved
me! I could see her cheeks gradually grow pale; her brilliant eyes often
had dark rings beneath them, as if sleep had deserted her. Sometimes,
when she thought she was not observed, I surprised them fastened upon
me; but she immediately turned them away.

“She had been coquettish and indifferent; she was now loving but
virtuous.

“Spring came. One afternoon I went to call upon Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil, who had been ill for several days. I was received, however,
probably through some mistake of the servants. As I entered the room I
saw Madame de Bergenheim; she was alone at her embroidery, seated upon
a divan. There were several vases of flowers in the windows, whose
curtains only permitted a soft, mysterious light to penetrate the room.
The perfume from the flowers, the sort of obscurity, the solitude in
which I found her, overcame me for a moment; I was obliged to pause in
order to quiet the beating of my heart.

“She arose as she heard my name announced; without speaking or laying
down her work, she pointed to a chair and seated herself; but instead of
obeying her, I fell upon my knees before her and seized her hands, which
she did not withdraw. It had been impossible for me to say another word
to her before, save ‘I love you!’ I now told her of all my love. Oh! I
am sure of it, my words penetrated to the very depth of her heart, for
I felt her hands tremble as they left mine. She listened without
interrupting me or making any reply, with her face bent toward me as if
she were breathing the perfume of a flower. When I begged her to answer
me, when I implored her for one single word from her heart, she
withdrew one of her hands, imprisoned within mine, and placed it upon
my forehead, pushing back my head with a gesture familiar to women. She
gazed at me thus for a long time; her eyes were so languishing under
their long lashes, and their languor was so penetrating, that I closed
mine, not being able to endure the fascination of this glance any
longer.

“A shiver which ran over her and which went through me also, like an
electric shock, aroused me. When I opened my eyes I saw her face bathed
in tears. She drew back and repelled me. I arose impetuously, seated
myself by her side and took her in my arms.

“‘Am I not a wretched, unhappy woman?’ said she, and fell upon my
breast, sobbing.

“‘Madame la Comtesse de Pontiviers,’ announced the servant, whom I would
willingly have assassinated, as well as the visiting bore who followed
in his footsteps.

“I never saw Madame de Bergenheim in Paris again. I was obliged to go to
Bordeaux the next day, on account of a lawsuit which you know all about.
Upon my return, at the end of three weeks, I found she had left. I
finally learned that she had come to this place, and I followed her.
That is the extent of my drama.

“Now you know very well that I have not related this long story to you
for the sole pleasure of keeping you awake until one o’clock in the
morning. I wanted to explain to you that it was really a serious thing
for me, so that you might not refuse to do what I wish to ask of you.”

“I think I understand what you are aiming at,” said Marillac, rather
pensively.

“You know Bergenheim; you will go to see him to-morrow. He will invite
you to pass a few days with him; you will stay to dinner. You will see
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, in whose presence you will speak my name as
you refer to our journey; and before night, my venerable cousin of 1569
shall send me an invitation to come to see her.”

“I would rather render you any other service than this,” replied the
artist, walking up and down the room in long strides. “I know very well
that in all circumstances bachelors should triumph over husbands, but
that does not prevent my conscience from smiting me. You know that I
saved Bergenheim’s life?”

“Rest assured that he runs no very great danger at present. Nothing will
result from this step save the little enjoyment I shall take in annoying
the cruel creature who defied me today. Is it agreed?”

“Since you insist upon it. But then, when our visit is ended, shall we
go to work at our drama or upon ‘The Chaste Suzannah’ opera in three
acts? For, really, you neglected art terribly for the sake of your love
affairs.”

“The Chaste Suzannah or the whole Sacred History we shall put into
vaudeville, if you exact it. Until to-morrow, then.”

“Until to-morrow.”




CHAPTER VIII. A LOVER’S RUSE

It was three o’clock in the afternoon; the drawing-room of the Chateau
de Bergenheim presented its usual aspect and occupants. The fire on the
hearth, lighted during the morning, was slowly dying, and a beautiful
autumn sun threw its rays upon the floor through the half-opened
windows. Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, stretched on the couch before the
fireplace with Constance at her feet, was reading, according to her
habit, the newspapers which had just arrived. Madame de Bergenheim
seemed very busily occupied with a piece of tapestry in her lap; but
the slow manner in which her needle moved, and the singular mistakes
she made, showed that her mind was far away from the flowers she was
working. She had just finished a beautiful dark lily, which contrasted
strangely with its neighbors, when a servant entered.

“Madame,” said he, “there is a person here inquiring for Monsieur le
Baron de Bergenheim.”

“Is Monsieur de Bergenheim not at home?” asked Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil.

“Monsieur has gone to ride with Mademoiselle Aline.”

“Who is this person?”

“It is a gentleman; but I did not ask his name.”

“Let him enter.”

Clemence arose at the servant’s first words and threw her work upon a
chair, making a movement as if to leave the room; but after a moment’s
reflection, she resumed her seat and her work, apparently indifferent as
to who might enter.

“Monsieur de Marillac,” announced the lackey, as he opened the door a
second time.

Madame de Bergenheim darted a rapid glance at the individual who
presented himself, and then breathed freely again.

After setting to rights his coiffure ‘a la Perinet’, the artist entered
the room, throwing back his shoulders. Tightly buttoned up in his
travelling redingote, and balancing with ease a small gray hat, he bowed
respectfully to the two ladies and then assumed a pose a la Van Dyke.

Constance was so frightened at the sight of this imposing figure that,
instead of jumping at the newcomer’s legs, as was her custom, she
sheltered herself under her mistress’s chair, uttering low growls; at
first glance the latter shared, if not the terror, at least the aversion
of her dog. Among her numerous antipathies, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil
detested a beard. This was a common sentiment with all old ladies, who
barely tolerated moustaches: “Gentlemen did not wear them in 1780,” they
would say.

Marillac’s eyes turned involuntarily toward the portraits, and other
picturesque details of a room which was worthy the attention of a
connoisseur; but he felt that the moment was not opportune for indulging
in artistic contemplation, and that he must leave the dead for the
living.

“Ladies,” said he, “I ought, first of all, to ask your pardon for thus
intruding without having had the honor of an introduction. I hoped to
find here Monsieur de Bergenheim, with whom I am on very intimate terms.
I was told that he was at the chateau.”

“My husband’s friends do not need to be presented at his house,” said
Clemence; “Monsieur de Bergenheim probably will return soon.” And with a
gracious gesture she motioned the visitor to a seat.

“Your name is not unknown to me,” said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil in
her turn, having succeeded in calming Constance’s agitation. “I remember
having heard Monsieur de Bergenheim mention you often.”

“We were at college together, although I am a few years younger than
Christian.”

“But,” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim, struck by some sudden thought,
“there is more than a college friendship between you. Are you not,
Monsieur, the person who saved my husband’s life in 1830?”

Marillac smiled, bowed his head, and seated himself. Mademoiselle
de Corandeuil herself could not but graciously greet her nephew’s
preserver, had he had a moustache as long as that of the Shah of Persia,
who ties his in a bow behind his neck.

After the exchange of a few compliments, Madame de Bergenheim, with the
amiability of a mistress of the house who seeks subjects of conversation
that may show off to best advantage the persons she receives, continued:

“My husband does not like to talk of himself, and never has told us the
details of this adventure, in which he ran such great danger. Will you
be kind enough to gratify our curiosity on this point?”

Marillac, among his other pretensions, had that of being able to relate
a story in an impressive manner. These words were as pleasing to
his ears as the request for a song is to a lady who requires urging,
although she is dying to sing.

“Ladies,” said he, crossing one leg over the other and leaning upon
one arm of his chair, “it was on the twenty-eighth of July, 1830; the
disastrous decrees had produced their effects; the volcano which--”

“Pardon me, Monsieur, if I interrupt you,” said Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil, quickly; “according to my opinion, and that of many others,
the royal decrees you speak of were good and necessary. The only mistake
of Charles Tenth was not to have fifty thousand men around Paris to
force their acceptance. I am only a woman, Monsieur, but if I had had
under my command twenty cannon upon the quays, and as many upon the
boulevards, I assure you that your tricolored flag never should have
floated over the Tuileries.”

“Pitt and Cobourg!” said the artist between his teeth, as, with an
astonished air, he gazed at the old lady; but his common-sense told
him that republicanism was not acceptable within this castle. Besides,
remembering the mission with which he was charged, he did not think
his conscience would feel much hurt if he made a little concession of
principles and manoeuvred diplomatically.

“Madame,” replied he, “I call the decrees disastrous when I think of
their result. You will certainly admit that our situation to-day ought
to make everybody regret the causes which brought it about.”

“We are exactly of the same opinion regarding that point, Monsieur,”
 said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, resuming her serenity.

“The open volcano beneath our feet,” continued Marillac, who still stuck
to his point, “warned us by deep rumblings of the hot lava which was
about to gush forth. The excitement of the people was intense. Several
engagements with the soldiers had already taken place at different
points. I stood on the Boulevard Poissonniere, where I had just taken
my luncheon, and was gazing with an artist’s eye upon the dramatic
scene spread out before me. Men with bare arms and women panting with
excitement were tearing up the pavements or felling trees. An omnibus
had just been upset; the rioters added cabriolets, furniture, and casks
to it; everything became means of defence. The crashing of the trees as
they fell, the blows of crowbars on the stones, the confused roaring of
thousands of voices, the Marseillaise sung in chorus, and the irregular
cannonading which resounded from the direction of the Rue Saint-Denis,
all composed a strident, stupefying, tempestuous harmony, beside which
Beethoven’s Tempest would have seemed like the buzzing of a bee.

“I was listening to the roaring of the people, who were gnawing at their
chains before breaking them, when my eyes happened to fall upon a window
of a second-floor apartment opposite me. A man about sixty years of age,
with gray hair, a fresh, plump face, an honest, placid countenance, and
wearing a mouse-colored silk dressing-gown, was seated before a small,
round table. The window opened to the floor, and I could see him in this
frame like a full-length portrait. There was a bowl of coffee upon the
table, in which he dipped his roll as he read his journal. I beg your
pardon, ladies, for entering into these petty details, but the habit of
writing--”

“I assure you, Monsieur, your story interests me very much,” said Madame
de Bergenheim, kindly.

“A King Charles spaniel, like yours, Mademoiselle, was standing near the
window with his paws resting upon it; he was gazing with curiosity
at the revolution of July, while his master was reading his paper and
sipping his coffee, as indifferent to all that passed as if he had been
in Pekin or New York.

“‘Oh, the calm of a pure, sincere soul!’ I exclaimed to myself, at
the sight of this little tableau worthy of Greuze; ‘oh, patriarchal
philosophy! in a few minutes perhaps blood will flow in the streets, and
here sits a handsome old man quietly sipping his coffee.’ He seemed like
a lamb browsing upon a volcano.”

Marillac loved volcanoes, and never lost an opportunity to bring one in
at every possible opportunity.

“Suddenly a commotion ran through the crowd; the people rushed in every
direction, and in an instant the boulevard was empty. Plumes waving from
high caps, red-and-white flags floating from the ends of long lances,
and the cavalcade that I saw approaching through the trees told me the
cause of this panic. A squadron of lancers was charging. Have you ever
seen a charge of lancers?”

“Never!” said both of the ladies at once.

“It is a very grand sight, I assure you. Fancy, ladies, a legion of
demons galloping along upon their horses, thrusting to the right and
left with long pikes, whose steel points are eighteen inches long. That
is a charge of lancers. I beg you to believe that I had shown before
this the mettle there was in me, but I will not conceal from you that at
this moment I shared with the crowd the impression which the coming of
these gentlemen made. I had only time to jump over the sidewalk and
to dart up a staircase which ran on the outside of a house, every door
being closed. I never shall forget the face of one of those men who
thrust the point of a lance at me, long enough to pierce through six men
at once. I admit that I felt excited then! The jinn having passed--”

“The--what?” asked Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who was not familiar with
Eastern terms.

“I beg a thousand pardons, it was a poetical reminiscence. The lancers,
having rushed through the boulevard like an avalanche, a laggard rider,
a hundred steps behind the others, galloped proudly by, erect in
his stirrups and flourishing his sword. Suddenly the report of a gun
resounded, the lancer reeled backward, then forward, and finally fell
upon his horse’s neck; a moment later he turned in his saddle and lay
stretched upon the ground, his foot caught in the stirrup; the horse,
still galloping, dragged the man and the lance, which was fastened to
his arm by a leather band.”

“How horrible!” said Clemence, clasping her hands.

Marillac, much pleased with the effect of his narration, leaned back in
his chair and continued his tale with his usual assurance.

“I looked to the neighboring roofs to discover whence came this shot;
as I was glancing to the right and left I saw smoke issuing through the
blinds of the room on the second floor, which had been closed at the
approach of the lancers.

“‘Good God!’ I exclaimed; ‘it must be this handsome old man in the
mouse-colored silk dressing-gown who amuses himself by firing upon the
lancers, as if they were rabbits in a warren!’

“Just then the blinds were opened, and the strange fellow with the
unruffled countenance leaned out and gazed with a smiling face in the
direction the horse was taking, dragging his master’s body after him.
The patriarch had killed his man between two sips of his coffee.”

“And that is the cowardly way in which members of the royal guard were
assassinated by the ‘heroes’ of your glorious insurrection!” exclaimed
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, indignantly.

“When the troops had passed,” Marillac continued, “the crowd returned,
more excited and noisy than ever. Barricades were erected with wonderful
rapidity; two of those were on the boulevard close to the place where I
was. I saw a horseman suddenly bound over the first; he wore a tuft of
red-and-white feathers in his hat. I saw that it was a staff officer,
doubtless carrying some despatch to headquarters. He continued his
way, sabre in its sheath, head erect, proud and calm in the midst of
insulting shouts from the crowd; stones were thrown at him and sticks
at his horse’s legs; he looked as if he were parading upon the Place du
Carrousel.

“When he reached the second barricade, he drew his horse up, as if it
were merely a question of jumping a hurdle in a steeplechase just then
I saw the window on the first floor open again. ‘Ah! you old rascal!’
I exclaimed. The report of a gun drowned my voice; the horse which had
just made the leap, fell on his knees; the horseman tried to pull him
up, but after making one effort the animal fell over upon his side. The
ball had gone through the steed’s head.”

“It was that poor Fidele that I gave your husband,” said Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil, who was always very sentimental in the choice of names she
gave to animals.

“He merited his name, Mademoiselle, for the poor beast died for his
master, for whom the shot was in tended. Several of those horrible
faces, which upon riot days suddenly appear as if they came out of the
ground, darted toward the unhorsed officer. I, and several other young
men who were as little disposed as myself to allow a defenceless man to
be slaughtered, ran toward him. I recognized Christian as I approached;
his right leg was caught under the horse, and he was trying to unsheath
his sword with his left hand. Sticks and stones were showered at him.
I drew out the sword, which his position prevented him from doing, and
exclaimed as I waved it in the air: ‘The first rascal who advances, I
will cut open like a dog.’

“I accompanied these words with a flourish which kept the cannibals at a
distance for the time being.

“The young fellows who were with me followed my example. One took a
pickaxe, another seized the branch of a tree, while others tried to
release Christian from his horse. During this time the crowd increased
around us; the shouts redoubled: ‘Down with the ordinances! These are
disguised gendarmes! Vive la liberte!--We must kill them! Let’s hang the
spies to the lamp-posts!’

“Danger was imminent, and I realized that only a patriotic harangue
would get us out of the scrape. While they were releasing Christian, I
jumped upon Fidele so as to be seen by all and shouted:

“‘Vive la liberte!’

“‘Vive la liberte!’ replied the crowd.

“‘Down with Charles Tenth! Down with the ministers! Down with the
ordinances!’

“‘Down!’ shouted a thousand voices at once.

“You understand, ladies, this was a sort of bait, intended to close the
mouths of these brutes.

“‘We are all citizens, we are all Frenchmen,’ I continued; ‘we must not
soil our hands with the blood of one of our disarmed brothers. After
a victory there are no enemies. This officer was doing his duty in
fulfilling his chief’s commands; let us do ours by dying, if necessary,
for our country and the preservation of our rights.’

“‘Vive la liberte! vive la liberte!’ shouted the crowd. ‘He is right;
the officer was doing his duty. It would be assassination!’ exclaimed
numerous voices.

“‘Thanks, Marillac,’ said Bergenheim to me, as I took his hand to lead
him away, availing ourselves of the effect of my harangue; ‘but do not
press me so hard, for I really believe that my right arm is broken; only
for that, I should ask you to return me my sword that I might show this
rabble that they can not kill a Bergenheim as they would a chicken.’

“‘Let him cry: Vive la Charte!’ roared out a man, with a ferocious face.

“‘I receive orders from nobody,’ Christian replied, in a very loud
voice, as he glared at him with eyes which would have put a rhinoceros
to flight.”

“Your husband is really a very brave man,” said Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil, addressing Clemence.

“Brave as an old warrior. This time he pushed his courage to the verge
of imprudence; I do not know what the result might have been if the
crowd had not been dispersed a second time by the approach of the
lancers, who were returning through the boulevard. I led Bergenheim into
a cafe; fortunately, his arm was only sprained.” Just at this moment
Marillac’s story was interrupted by a sound of voices and hurried steps.
The door opened suddenly, and Aline burst into the room with her usual
impetuosity.

“What has happened to you, Aline?” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim,
hurrying to her sister’s side. The young girl’s riding-habit and hat
were covered with splashes of mud.

“Oh, nothing,” replied the young girl, in a broken voice; “it was
only Titania, who wanted to throw me into the river. Do you know where
Rousselet is? They say it is necessary to bleed him; and he is the only
one who knows how to do it.”

“Whom do you mean, child? Is my husband wounded?” asked Clemence,
turning pale.

“No, not Christian; it is a gentleman I do not know; only for him I
should have been drowned. Mon Dieu! can not Rousselet be found?”

Aline left the room in great agitation. They all went over to the
windows that opened out into the court, whence the sound of voices
seemed to arise, and where they could hear the master’s voice thundering
out his commands. Several servants had gone to his assistance: one of
them held Titania by the bridle; she was covered with foam and mud, and
was trembling, with distended nostrils, like a beast that knows it has
just committed a wicked action. A young man was seated upon a stone
bench, wiping away blood which streamed from his forehead. It was
Monsieur de Gerfaut.

At this sight Clemence supported herself against the framework of the
window, and Marillac hurriedly left the room.

Pere Rousselet, who had at last been found in the kitchen, advanced
majestically, eating an enormous slice of bread and butter.

“Good heavens! have you arrived at last?” exclaimed Bergenheim. “Here
is a gentleman this crazy mare has thrown against a tree, and who has
received a violent blow on the head. Do you not think it would be the
proper thing to bleed him?”

“A slight phlebotomy might be very advantageous in stopping the
extravasation of blood in the frontal region,” replied the peasant,
calling to his aid all the technical terms he had learned when he was a
hospital nurse.

“Are you sure you can do this bleeding well?”

“I’ll take the liberty of saying to Monsieur le Baron that I
phlebotomized Perdreau last week and Mascareau only a month ago, without
any complaint from them.”

“Indeed! I believe you,” sneered the groom, “both are on their last
legs.”

“I am neither Perdreau nor Mascareau,” observed the wounded man with a
smile.

Rousselet drew himself up at full height, with the dignity of a man of
talent who scorns to reply to either criticism or mistrust.

“Monsieur,” said Gerfaut, turning to the Baron, “I am really causing you
too much trouble. This trifle does not merit the attention you give it.
I do not suffer in the least. Some water and a napkin are all that
I need. I fancy that I resemble an Iroquois Indian who has just been
scalped; my pride is really what is most hurt,” he added, with a smile,
“when I think of the grotesque sight I must present to the ladies whom I
notice at the window.”

“Why, it is Monsieur de Gerfaut!” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Corandeuil,
toward whom he raised his eyes.

Octave bowed to her with a gracious air. His glance wandered from the
old lady to Clemence, who did not seem to have the strength to leave
the window. M. de Bergenheim, after hurriedly greeting Marillac, finally
yielded to the assurance that a surgeon was unnecessary, and conducted
the two friends to his own room, where the wounded man could find
everything that he needed.

“What the devil was the use in sending me as ambassador, since you were
to make such a fine entrance upon the stage?” murmured Marillac in his
friend’s ear.

“Silence!” replied the latter as he pressed his hand; “I am only behind
the 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/3985