Gerfaut, entire by Charles de Bernard (page 3)

With marvelous fidelity she went over the slightest events of the day, to which by a constant effort of willpower, she had seemed so indifferent. First, she saw Gerfaut with his face covered with blood, and the thought of the terrible sensation which this sight caused her made her heart throb violently. She then recalled him as she next saw him, in the drawing-room by her husband’s side, seated in the very chair that she had left but a moment before. This trifling circumstance impressed her; she saw in this a proof of sympathetic understanding, a sort of gift of second sight which Octave possessed, and which in her eyes was so formidable a weapon. According to her ideas, he must have suspected that this was her own favorite chair and have seized it for that reason, just as he would have loved to take her in his arms.

For the first time, Clemence had seen together the man to whom she belonged and the man whom she regarded somewhat as her property. For, by one of those arrangements with their consciences of which women alone possess the secret, she had managed to reason like this: “Since I am certain always to belong to Monsieur de Bergenheim only, Octave can certainly belong to me.” An heterodoxical syllogism, whose two premises she reconciled with an inconceivable subtlety. A feeling of shame had made her dread this meeting, which the most hardened coquette could never witness without embarrassment. A woman, between her husband and her lover, is like a plant one sprinkles with ice-cold water while a ray of sunlight is trying to comfort it. The sombre and jealous, or even tranquil and unsuspecting, face of a husband has a wonderful power of repression. One is embarrassed to love under the glance of an eye that darts flashes as bright as steel; and a calm, kindly look is more terrible yet, for all jealousy seems tyrannical, and tyranny leads to revolt; but a confiding husband is like a victim strangled in his sleep, and inspires, by his very calmness, the most poignant remorse.

The meeting of these two men naturally led Clemence to a comparison which could but be to Christian’s advantage. Gerfaut had nothing remarkable about him save an intelligent, intensely clever air; there was a thoughtful look in his eyes and an archness in his smile, but his irregular features showed no mark of beauty; his face wore an habitually tired expression, peculiar to those people who have lived a great deal in a short time, and it made him look older than Christian, although he was really several years younger. The latter, on the contrary, owed to his strong constitution, fortified by country life, an appearance of blooming youth that enhanced his noble regularity of features.

In a word, Christian was handsomer than his rival, and Clemence exaggerated her husband’s superiority over her lover. Not being able to find the latter awkward or insignificant, she tried to persuade herself that he was ugly. She then reviewed in her mind all M. de Bergenheim’s good qualities, his attachment and kindness to her, his loyal, generous ways; she recalled the striking instance that Marillac had related of his bravery, a quality without which there is no hope of success for a man in the eyes of any woman. She did all in her power to inflame her imagination and to see in her husband a hero worthy of inspiring the most fervent love. When she had exhausted her efforts toward such enthusiasm and admiration, she turned round, in despair, and, burying her head in her pillow, she sobbed:

“I cannot, I cannot love him!”

She wept bitterly for a long while. As she recalled her own severity in the past regarding women whose conduct had caused scandal, she employed in her turn the harshness of her judgment in examining her own actions. She felt herself more guilty than all the others, for her weakness appeared less excusable to her. She felt that she was unworthy and contemptible, and wished to die that she might escape the shame that made her blush scarlet, and the remorse that tortured her soul.

How many such unhappy tears bathe the eyes of those who should shed only tears of joy! How many such sighs break the silence of the night! There are noble, celestial beings among women whom remorse stretches out upon its relentless brasier, but in the midst of the flames that torture them the heart palpitates, imperishable as a salamander. Is it not human fate to suffer? After Madame de Bergenheim had given vent, by convulsive sobs and stifled sighs, to her grief for this love which she could not tear from her breast, she formed a desperate resolution. From the manner in which M. de Gerfaut had taken possession of the chateau the very first day, she recognized that he was master of the situation. The sort of infatuation which Mademoiselle de Corandeuil seemed to have for him, and Christian’s courteous and hospitable habits, would give him an opportunity to prolong his stay as long as he desired. She thus compared herself to a besieged general, who sees the enemy within his ramparts.

“Very well! I will shut myself up in the fortress!” said she, smiling in spite of herself in the midst of her tears. “Since this insupportable man has taken possession of my drawing-room, I will remain in my own room; we will see whether he dares to approach that!”

She shook her pretty head with a defiant air, but she could not help glancing into the room which was barely lighted with a night lamp. She sat up and listened for a moment rather anxiously, as if Octave’s dark eyes might suddenly glisten in the obscurity. When she had assured herself that all was tranquil, and that the throbbing of her heart was all that disturbed the silence, she continued preparing her plan of defense.

She decided that she would be ill the next day and keep to her bed, if necessary, until her persecutor should make up his mind to beat a retreat. She solemnly pledged herself to be firm, courageous, and inflexible; then she tried to pray. It was now two o’clock in the morning. For some time Clemence remained motionless, and one might have thought that at least she was asleep. Suddenly she arose. Without stopping to put on her dressing-gown, she lighted a candle by the night- lamp, pushed the bolt of her door and then went to the windows, the space between them forming a rather deep projection on account of the thickness of the walls. A portrait of the Duke of Bordeaux hung there; she raised it and pressed a button concealed in the woodwork. A panel opened, showing a small empty space. The shelf in this sort of closet contained only a rosewood casket. She opened this mysterious box and took from it a package of letters, then returned to her bed with the eagerness of a miser who is about to gaze upon his treasures.

Had she not struggled and prayed? Had she not offered upon the tyrannical altar of duty as an expiation, tears, pale cheeks and a tortured soul? Had she not just taken a solemn vow, in the presence of God and herself, which should protect her against her weakness? Was she not a virtuous wife, and had she not paid dearly enough for a moment of sad happiness? Was it a crime to breathe for an instant the balmy air of love through the gratings of this prison-cell, the doors of which she had just locked with her own hand? Admirable logic for loving hearts, which, not being able to control their feelings, suffer in order to prove themselves less guilty, and clothe themselves in haircloth so that each shudder may cause a pain that condones the sin!

Being at peace with herself, she read as women read who are in love; leaning her head upon her hand, she drew out the letters, one by one, from her bosom where she had placed them. She drank with her heart and eyes the poison these passionate words contained; she allowed herself to be swayed at will by these melodies which lulled but did not benumb. When one of those invincible appeals of imploring passion awoke all the echoes of her love, and ran through her veins with a thrill, striking the innermost depths of her heart, she threw herself back and imprinted her burning lips upon the cold paper. With one letter pressed to her heart, and another pressed to her lips, she gave herself up completely, exclaiming in an inaudible voice: “I love thee! I am thine!”

The next morning, when Aline entered her sister-in law’s room, according to her usual custom, the latter was not obliged to feign the indisposition she had planned; the sensations of this sleepless night had paled her cheeks and altered her features; it would have been difficult to imagine a more complete contrast than that between these two young women at this moment. Clemence, lying upon her bed motionless and white as the sheet which covered her, resembled Juliet sleeping in her tomb; Aline, rosy, vivacious, and more petulant than usual, looked very much the madcap Mademoiselle de Corandeuil had reproached her with being. Her face was full of that still childish grace, more lovely than calm, more pleasing than impressive, which makes young girls so charming to the eye but less eloquent to the heart; for are they not fresh flowers more rich in coloring than in perfume?

Clemence could hardly stifle a sigh as she gazed at those rosy checks, those sparkling eyes, that life so full of the rich future. She recalled a time when she was thus, when grief glided over her cheeks without paling them, when tears dried as they left her eyes; she also had had her happy, careless days, her dreams of unalloyed bliss.

Aline, after presenting her face like a child who asks for a kiss, wished to tease her as usual, but, with a tired gesture, her sister-in-law begged for mercy.

“Are you ill?” asked the young girl anxiously, as she seated herself upon the edge of the bed.

Madame de Bergenheim smiled, a forced smile.

“Thank me for my poor health,” said she, “for it obliges you to do the honors; I shall doubtless not be able to go down to dinner, and you must take my place. You know that it tires my aunt to have to trouble herself about others.”

Aline made a little grimace as she replied:

“If I thought you were speaking seriously, I would go and get into my own bed at once!”

“Child! will you not in your turn be mistress of a home? Is it not necessary for you to become accustomed to it? It is an excellent opportunity, and, with my aunt as a guide, you are sure to acquit yourself well.”

These last words were spoken rather maliciously, for the young woman knew that of all the possible mentors, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil was the one whom Aline dreaded most.

“I beg of you, my kind sister,” replied the girl, clasping her hands, “do not be ill to-day. Is it the neuralgia of the day before yesterday you are suffering from? Do be a good sister, and get up and come and take a walk in the park; the fresh air will cure you, I am sure of it “

“And I shall not be obliged to preside at the dinner-table, you would add; is it not so? You selfish girl!”

“I am afraid of Monsieur de Gerfaut,” said the child, lowering her voice.

When she heard pronounced this name, so deeply agitating her, Madame de Bergenheim was silent for a moment; at last she said:

“What has Monsieur de Gerfaut done to you? Is it not downright ungrateful to be afraid of him so soon after the service he has rendered you?”

“No, I am not ungrateful,” replied the young girl quickly. “I never shall forget that I owe my life to him, for certainly, but for him, I should have been dragged into the river. But he has such black, piercing eyes that they seem to look into your very soul; and then, he is such a brilliant man! I am all the time afraid of saying something that he may laugh at. You know, some people think I talk too much; but I shall never dare open my mouth in his presence. Why do some persons’ eyes make such an impression upon one?”

Clemence lowered her own beautiful eyes and made no reply.

“His friend, Monsieur Marillac, does not frighten me one bit, in spite of his big moustache. Tell me, does not this Monsieur de Gerfaut frighten you a little too?”

“Not at all, I assure you,” replied Madame de Bergenheim, trying to smile. “But,” she continued, in order to change the conversation, “how fine you look! You have certainly some plan of conquest. What! a city gown at nine o’clock in the morning, and hair dressed as if for a ball?”

“Would you like to know the compliment your aunt just paid me?”

“Some little jest of hers, I suppose?”

“You might say some spiteful remark, for she is the hatefulest thing! She told me that blue ribbons suited red hair very badly and advised me to change one or the other. Is it true that my hair is red?”

Mademoiselle de Bergenheim asked this question with so much anxiety that her sister-in-law could not repress a smile.

“You know that my aunt delights in annoying you,” said she. “Your hair is very pretty, a bright blond, very pleasant to the eye; only Justine waves it a little too tight; it curls naturally. She dresses your hair too high; it would be more becoming to you if she pushed it back from your temples a little than to wave it as much as she does. Come a little nearer to me.”

Aline knelt before Madame de Bergenheim’s bed, and the latter, adding a practical lesson to verbal advice, began to modify the maid’s work to suit her own taste.

“It curls like a little mane,” said the young girl, as she saw the trouble her sister-in-law had in succeeding; “it was my great trouble at the Sacred Heart. The sisters wished us to wear our hair plain, and I always had a terrible time to keep it in place. However, blond hair looks ugly when too plainly dressed, and Monsieur de Gerfaut said yesterday that it was the shade he liked best.”

“Monsieur de Gerfaut told you he liked blond hair best!”

“Take care; you are pulling my hair! Yes, blond hair and blue eyes. He said that when speaking of Carlo Dolci’s Virgin, and he said she was of the most beautiful Jewish type; if he intended it as a compliment to me, I am very much obliged to him. Do you think that my eyes are as blue as that of the painted Virgin’s. Monsieur de Gerfaut pretends that there is a strong resemblance.”

Madame de Bergenheim withdrew her hand so quickly that she pulled out half a dozen or more hairs from her sister-in-law’s head, and buried herself up to the chin in the bedclothes.

“Oh! Monsieur de Gerfaut knows how to pay very pretty compliments!” she said. “And you doubtless are very well pleased to resemble Carlo Dolci’s Madonna?”

“She is very pretty!–and then it is the Holy Virgin, you know–Ah! I hear Monsieur de Gerfaut’s voice in the garden.”

The young girl arose quickly and ran to the window, where, concealed behind the curtains, she could see what was going on outside without being seen herself.

“He is with Christian,” she continued. “There, they are going to the library. They must have just taken a long walk, for they are bespattered with mud. If you could only see what a pretty little cap Monsieur de Gerfaut has on!”

“Truly, he will turn her head,” thought Madame de Bergenheim, with a decided feeling of anger; then she closed her eyes as if she wished to sleep.

Gerfaut had, in fact, just returned from paying his respects to the estate. He had followed his host, who, under the pretext of showing him several picturesque sights, promenaded him, in the morning dew, through the lettuce in the kitchen garden and the underbrush in the park. But he knew through experience that all was not roses in a lover’s path; watching in the snow, climbing walls, hiding in obscure closets, imprisonment in wardrobes, were more disagreeable incidents than a quiet tete-a-tete with a husband.

He listened, therefore, complacently enough to Bergenheim’s prolix explanations, interested himself in the planting of trees, thought the fields very green, the forests admirable, the granite rocks more beautiful than those of the Alps, went into ecstasies over the smallest vista, advised the establishment of a new mill on the river, which, being navigable for rafts, might convey lumber to all the cities on the Moselle, and thus greatly increase the value of the owner’s woods. They fraternized like Glaucus and Diomede; Gerfaut hoping, of course, to play the part of the Greek, who, according to Homer, received in return for a common iron armor a gold one of inestimable value. There is always such a secret mental reservation in the lover’s mind when associating with the husband of his inamorata.

When he entered the room of his wife, whose indisposition had been reported to him, Christian’s first words were:

“This Monsieur de Gerfaut appears to be a very excellent fellow, and I shall be delighted if he will stay with us a while. It is too bad that you are ill. He is a good musician, as well as Marillac; you might have sung together. Try to get better quickly and come down to dinner.”

“I can not really tell him that Monsieur de Gerfaut has loved me for more than a year,” said Madame de Bergenheim to herself.

A moment later, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil appeared, and with a prim air seated herself beside the bed.

“Perhaps you think that I am fooled by this indisposition. I see plainly that you wish to be impolite to Monsieur de Gerfaut, for you can not endure him. It seems to me, however, that a relative of your family ought to be treated with more respect by you, above all, when you know how much I esteem him. This is unheard-of absurdity, and I shall end by speaking to your husband about it; we shall see if his intervention will not have more effect than mine.”

“You shall not do that, aunt,” Clemence interrupted, sitting up in bed and trying to take her aunt’s hand.

“If you wish that your discourteous conduct should rest a secret between us, I advise you to get rid of your neuralgia this very day. Now, you had better decide immediately–“

“This is genuine persecution,” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim, falling back upon her bed when the old lady had departed. “He has bewitched everybody! Aline, my aunt, and my husband; to say nothing of myself, for I shall end by going mad. I must end this, at any price.” She rang the bell violently.

“Justine,” said she to her maid, “do not let any one enter this room under any pretext whatsoever, and do not come in yourself until I ring; I will try to sleep.”

Justine obeyed, after closing the blinds. She had hardly gone out when her mistress arose, put on her dressing-gown and slippers with a vivacity which betokened anger; she then seated herself at her desk and began to write rapidly, dashing her pen over the satiny paper without troubling herself as to blots. The last word was ended with a dash as energetically drawn as the Napoleonic flourish.

When a young man who, according to custom, begins to read the end of his letters first finds an arabesque of this style at the bottom of a lady’s letter, he ought to arm himself with patience and resignation before he reads its contents.

CHAPTER X

PLOTS

That evening, when Gerfaut entered his room he hardly took time to place the candlestick which he held in his hand upon the mantel before he took from his waistcoat pocket a paper reduced to microscopic dimensions, which he carried to his lips and kissed passionately before opening. His eyes fell first upon the threatening flourish of the final word; this word was: Adieu!

“Hum!” said the lover, whose exaltation was sensibly cooled at this sight.

He read the whole letter with one glance of the eye, darting to the culminating point of each phrase as a deer bounds over ledges of rocks; he weighed the plain meaning as well as the innuendoes of the slightest expression, like a rabbi who comments upon the Bible, and deciphered the erasures with the patience of a seeker after hieroglyphics, so as to detach from them some particle of the idea they had contained. After analyzing and criticising this note in all its most imperceptible shades, he crushed it within his hand and began to pace the floor, uttering from time to time some of those exclamations which the Dictionnaire de l’Academie has not yet decided to sanction; for all lovers resemble the lazzaroni who kiss San-Gennaro’s feet when he acts well, but who call him briconne as soon as they have reason to complain of him. However, women are very kind, and almost invariably excuse the stones that an angry lover throws at them in such moments of acute disappointment, and willingly say with the indulgent smile of the Roman emperor: “I feel no wound!”

In the midst of this paroxysm of furious anger, two or three knocks resounded behind the woodwork.

“Are you composing?” asked a voice like that of a ventriloquist; “I am with you.”

A minute later, Marillac appeared upon the threshold, in his slippers and with a silk handkerchief tied about his head, holding his candlestick in one hand and a pipe in the other; he stood there motionless.

“You are fine,” said he, “you are magnificent, fatal and accursed–You remind me of Kean in Othello–

“Have you pray’d to-night, Desdemona?”

Gerfaut gazed at him with frowning brows, but made no reply.

“I will wager that it is the last scene in our third act,” replied the artist, placing his candlestick upon the mantel; “it seems that it is to be very tragic. Now listen! I also feel the poetical afflatus coming over me, and, if you like, we will set about devouring paper like two boa-constrictors. Speaking of serpents, have you a rattle? Ah, yes! Here is the bell-rope. I was about to say that we would have a bowl of coffee. Or rather, I will go into the kitchen myself; I am very good friends with Marianne, the cook; besides, the motto of the house of Bergenheim is liberte, libertas. Coffee is my muse; in this respect, I resemble Voltaire–“

“Marillac!” exclaimed Gerfaut, as the artist was about to leave the room. The artist turned, and meekly retraced his steps.

“You will be so good as to do me the favor of returning to your room,” said Gerfaut. “You may work or you may sleep, just as you like; between us, you would do well to sleep. I wish to be alone.”

“You say that as if you meditated an attempt upon your illustrious person. Are you thinking of suicide? Let us see whether you have some concealed weapon, some poisoned ring. Curse upon it! the poison of the Borgias! Is the white substance in this china bowl, vulgarly called sugar, by some terrible chance infamous arsenic disguised under the appearance of an honest colonial commodity?”

“Be kind enough to spare your jokes,” said Octave, as his friend poked about in all the corners of the room with an affectation of anxiety, “and, as I can not get rid of you, listen to my opinion: if you think that I brought you here for you to conduct yourself as you have for the last two days, you are mistaken.”

“What have I done?”

“You left me the whole morning with that tiresome Bergenheim on my hands, and I verily believe he made me count every stick in his park and every frog in his pond. Tonight, when that old witch of Endor proposed her infernal game of whist, to which it seems I am to be condemned daily, you-excused yourself upon the pretext of ignorance, and yet you play as good a game as I.”

“I can not endure whist at twenty sous a point.”

“Do I like it any better?”

“Well, you are a nice fellow! You have an object in view which should make you swallow all these disagreeable trifles as if they were as sweet as honey. Is it possible you would like me to play Bertrand and Raton? I should be Raton the oftener of the two!”

“But, really, what did you do all day?”

Marillac posed before the mirror, arranged his kerchief about his head in a more picturesque fashion, twisted his moustache, puffed out, through the corner of his mouth, a cloud of smoke, which surrounded his face like a London fog, then turned to his friend and said, with the air of a person perfectly satisfied with himself:

“Upon my faith, my dear friend, each one for himself and God for us all! You, for example, indulge in romantic love-affairs; you must have titled ladies. Titles turn your head and make you exclusive. You make love to the aristocracy; so be it, that is your own concern. As for me, I have another system; I am, in all matters of sentiment, what I am in politics: I want republican institutions.”

“What is all that nonsense about?”

“Let me tell you. I want universal suffrage, the cooperation of all citizens, admission to all offices, general elections, a popular government, in a word, a sound, patriotic hash. Which means regarding women that I carry them all in my heart, that I recognize between them no distinction of caste or rank. Article First of my set of laws: all women are equal in love, provided they are young, pretty, admirably attractive in shape and carriage, above all, not too thin.”

“And what of equality?”

“So much the worse. With this eminently liberal and constitutional policy, I intend to gather all the flowers that will allow themselves to be gathered by me, without one being esteemed more fresh than another, because it belongs to the nobility, or another less sweet, because plebeian. And as field daisies are a little more numerous than imperial roses, it follows that I very often stoop. That is the reason why, at this very moment, I am up to my ears in a little rustic love affair:

Simple et naive bergerette, elle regne–“

“Stop that noise; Mademoiselle de Corandeuil’s room is just underneath.”

“I will tell you then, since I must give an account of myself, that I went into the park to sketch a few fir-trees before dinner; they are more beautiful of their kind than the ancient Fontainebleau oaks. That is for art. At dinner, I dined nobly and well. To do the Bergenheims justice, they live in a royal manner. That is for the stomach. Afterward I stealthily ordered a horse to be saddled and rode to La Fauconnerie in a trice, where I presented the expression of my adoration to Mademoiselle Reine Gobillot, a minor yet, but enjoying her full rights already. That is for the heart.”

“Indeed!”

“No sarcasm, if you please; not everybody can share your taste for princesses, who make you go a hundred leagues to follow them and then upon your arrival, only give you the tip of a glove to kiss. Such intrigues are not to my fancy.

Je suis sergent,
Brave–“

“Again, I say, will you stop that noise? Don’t you know that I have nobody on my side at present but this respectable dowager on the first floor below? If she supposes that I am making all this racket over her head we shall be deadly enemies by to-morrow.”

“Zitto, zitto, piano, piano, Senza strepito e rumore,”

replied Marillac, putting his finger to his lips and lowering his voice. “What you say is a surprise to me. From the way in which you offered your arm to Madame de Bergenheim to lead her into the drawing-room after supper, I thought you understood each other perfectly. As I was returning, for I made it my duty to offer my arm to the old lady–and you say that I do nothing for you–it seemed to me that I noticed a meeting of hands–You know that I have an eagle eye. She slipped a note into your hand as sure as my name is Marillac.”

Gerfaut took the note which he held crumpled up in his hand, and held it in the flame of one of the candles. The paper ignited, and in less than a second nothing of it remained but a few dark pieces which fell into ashes upon the marble mantel.

“You burn it! You are wrong,” said the artist; “as for me, I keep everything, letters and hair. When I am old, I shall have the letters to read evenings, and shall weave an allegorical picture with the hair. I shall hang it before my desk, so as to have before me a souvenir of the adorable creatures who furnished the threads. I will answer for it that there will be every shade in it from that of Camille Hautier, my first love, who was an albino, to this that I have here.”

As he spoke, he took out of his pocket a small parcel from which he drew a lock of coal-black hair, which he spread out upon his hand.

“Did you pull this hair from Titania’s mane?” asked Gerfaut, as he drew through his fingers the more glossy than silky lock, which he ridiculed by this ironical supposition.

“They might be softer, I admit,” replied Marillac negligently; and he examined the lock submitted to this merciless criticism as if it were simply a piece of goods, of the fineness of whose texture he wished to assure himself.

“You will admit at least that the color is beautiful, and the quantity makes up for the quality. Upon my word, this poor Reine has given me enough to make a pacha’s banner. Provincial and primitive simplicity! I know of one woman in particular who never gave an adorer more than seven of her hairs; and yet, at the end of three years, this cautious beauty was obliged to wear a false front. All her hair had disappeared.

“Are you like me, Octave? The first thing I ask for is one of these locks. Women rather like this sort of childishness, and when they have granted you that, it is a snare spread for them which catches them.”

Marillac took the long, dark tress and held it near the candle; but his movement was so poorly calculated that the hair caught fire and was instantly destroyed.

“A bad sign,” exclaimed Gerfaut, who could not help laughing at his friend’s dismayed look.

“This is a day of autos-de-fe,” said the artist, dropping into a chair; “but bah! small loss; if Reine asks to see this lock, I will tell her that I destroyed it with kisses. That always flatters them, and I am sure it will please this little field-flower. It is a fact that she has cheeks like rosy apples! On my way back I thought of a vaudeville that I should like to write about this. Only I should lay the scene in Switzerland and I should call the young woman Betty or Kettly instead of Reine, a name ending in ‘Y’ which would rhyme with Rutly, on account of local peculiarities. Will you join in it? I have almost finished the scenario. First scene–Upon the rising of the curtain, harvesters are discovered–“

“Will you do me the favor of going to bed?” interrupted Gerfaut.

“Chorus of harvesters:

Deja l’aurore
Qui se colore–“

“If you do not leave me alone, I will throw the contents of this water- pitcher at your head.”

“I never have seen you in such a surly temper. It looks indeed as if your divinity had treated you cruelly.”

“She has treated me shamefully!” exclaimed the lover, whose anger was freshly kindled at this question; “she has treated me as one would treat a barber’s boy. This note, which I just burned, was a most formal, unpleasant, insolent dismissal. This woman is a monster, do you understand me?”

“A monster! your angel, a monster!” said Marillac, suppressing with difficulty a violent outburst of laughter.

“She, an angel? I must say that she is a demon–This woman–“

“Do you not adore her?”

“I hate her, I abhor her, she makes me shudder. You may laugh, if you like!”

As he said these words, Gerfaut struck a violent blow upon the table with his fist.

“You forget that Mademoiselle de Corandeuil’s room is just beneath us,” said the artist, in a teasing way.

“Listen to me, Marillac! Your system with women is vulgar, gross, and trivial. The daisies which you gather, the maidens from whom you cut handfuls of hair excellent for stuffing mattresses, your rustic beauties with cheeks like rosy apples are conquests worthy of counter-jumpers in their Sunday clothes. That is nothing but the very lowest grade of love- making, and yet you are right, a thousand times right, and wonderfully wise compared with me.”

“You do me too much honor! So, then, you are not loved?”

“Truly, I had an idea I was, or, if I was not loved to-day, I hoped to be to-morrow. But you are mistaken as to what discourages me. I simply fear that her heart is narrow. I believe that she loves me as much as she is able to love; unfortunately, that is not enough for me.”

“It certainly seems to me that, so far, she has not shown herself madly in love with you.”

“Ah, madly! Do you know many women who love madly with their hearts and souls? You talk like a college braggart. There are conquerors like yourself who, if we are to believe them, would devour a whole convent at their breakfast. These men excite my pity. As for me, really, I have always felt that it was most difficult to make one’s self really loved. In these days of prudery, almost all women of rank appear ‘frappe a la glace’, like a bottle of champagne. It is necessary to thaw them first, and there are some of them whose shells are so frigid that they would put out the devil’s furnace. They call this virtue; I call it social servitude. But what matters the name? the result is the same.”

“But, really, are you sure that Madame de Bergenheim loves you?” asked Marillac, emphasizing the word “love” so strongly as to attract his friend’s attention.

“Sure? of course I am!” replied the latter. “Why do you ask me?”

“Because, when you are not quite so angry, I want to ask you something.” He hesitated a moment. “If you learned that she cares more for another than for you, what would you do?”

Gerfaut looked at him and smiled disdainfully.

“Listen!” said he, “you have heard me storm and curse, and you took this nonsense for genuine hatred. My good fellow! do you know why I raved in such a manner? It was because, knowing my temperament, I felt the necessity of getting angry and giving vent to what was in my heart. If I had not employed this infallible remedy, the annoyance which this note caused me would have disturbed my nerves all night, and when I do not sleep my complexion is more leaden than usual and I have dark rings under my eyes.”

“Fop!”

“Simpleton!”

“Why simpleton?”

“Do you take me for a dandy? Do you not understand why I wish to sleep soundly? It is simply because I do not wish to appear before her with a face like a ghost. That would be all that was needed to encourage her in her severity. I shall take good care that she does not discover how hard her last thrust has hit me. I would give you a one-hundred-franc note if I could secure for to-morrow morning your alderman’s face and your complexion a la Teniers.”

“Thanks, we are not masquerading just at present.

Nevertheless, all that you have said does not prove in the slightest that she loves you.”

“My dear Marillac, words may have escaped me in my anger which have caused you to judge hastily. Now that I am calm and that my remedy has brought back my nervous system to its normal state, I will explain to you my real position. She is my Galatea, I her Pygmalion. ‘An allegory as old as the world,’ you are about to say; old or not, it is my true story. I have not yet broken the marble-virtue, education, propriety, duty, prejudices–which covers the flesh of my statue; but I am nearing my goal and I shall reach it. Her desperate resistance is the very proof of my progress. It is a terrible step for a woman to take, from No to Yes. My Galatea begins to feel the blows from my heart over her heart and she is afraid–afraid of the world, of me, of her husband, of herself, of heaven and hell. Do you not adore women who are afraid of everything? She, love another! never! It is written in all eternity that she shall be mine. What did you wish to say to me?”

“Nothing, since you are so sure of her.”

“Sure–more than of my eternal life! But I wish to know what you mean.”

“But you won’t be told. just a suspicion that came to me; something that was told to me the other day; a conjecture so vague that it would be useless to dwell upon it.”

“I am not good at guessing enigmas,” said Octave, in a dry tone.

“We will speak of this again to-morrow.”

“As you like,” replied the lover, with somewhat affected indifference. “If you wish to play the part of Iago with me, I warn you I am not disposed to jealousy.”

“To-morrow, I tell you, I shall enlighten myself as to this affair; whatever the result of my inquiries may be, I will tell you the truth. After all, it was nothing but woman’s gossip.”

“Very well, take your time. But I have another favor to ask of you. Tomorrow I shall try to persuade the ladies to take a walk in the park. Mademoiselle de Corandeuil will probably not go; you must do me the favor of sticking to Bergenheim and the little sister, and gradually to walk on ahead of us, in such a way as to give me an opportunity of speaking with this cruel creature alone for a few moments; for she has given me to understand that I shall not succeed in speaking with her alone under any circumstances, and it is absolutely necessary that I should do so.”

“There will be one difficulty in the way, though–they expect about twenty persons at dinner, and all her time will probably be taken up with her duties as hostess.”

“That is true,” exclaimed Gerfaut, jumping up so suddenly that he upset his chair.

“You still forget that Mademoiselle de Corandeuil’s room is beneath us.”

“The devil is playing her hand!” exclaimed the lover, as he paced the room in long strides. “I wish that during the night he would wring the neck of all these visitors. Now; then, she has her innings. Today and tomorrow this little despot’s battle of Ligny will be fought and won; but the day after to-morrow, look out for her Waterloo!”

“Good-night, my Lord Wellington,” said Marillac, as he arose and took up his candlestick.

“Good-night, Iago! Ah! you think you have annoyed me with your mysterious words and melodramatic reticence?”

“To-morrow! to-morrow!” replied the artist as he left the room.

“Ce secret-la
Se trahira.”

CHAPTER XI

A QUARREL

The next morning, before most of the inhabitants of the chateau had thought of leaving their beds, or at least their rooms, a man, on horseback, and alone, took his departure through a door opening from the stable-yard into the park. He wore a long travelling redingote trimmed with braid and fur, rather premature clothing for the season, but which the sharp cold air that was blowing at this moment made appear very comfortable. He galloped away, and continued this pace for about three- quarters of a mile, in spite of the unevenness of the road, which followed a nearly straight line over hilly ground. It would have been difficult to decide which to admire more, the horse’s limbs or the rider’s lungs; for the latter, during this rapid ride, had sung without taking breath, so to speak, the whole overture to Wilhelm Tell. We must admit that the voice in which he sang the andante of the Swiss mountaineer’s chorus resembled a reed pipe more than a hautboy; but, to make amends when he reached the presto, his voice, a rather good bass, struck the horse’s ears with such force that the latter redoubled his vigor as if this melody had produced upon him the effect of a trumpet sounding the charge on the day of battle.

The traveller, whom we have probably recognized by his musical feat, concluded his concert by stopping at the entrance to some woods which extended from the top of the rocks to the river, breaking, here and there, the uniformity of the fields. After gazing about him for some time, he left the road and, entering the woods on the right, stopped at the foot of a large tree. Near this tree was a very small brook, which took its source not far away and descended with a sweet murmur to the river, making a narrow bed in the clayey ground which it watered. Such was the modesty of its course that a little brighter green and fresher grass a few feet away from it were the only indications of its presence. Nothing was wanting to make this an idyllic place for a rendezvous, neither the protecting shade, the warbling of birds in the trees, the picturesque landscape surrounding it, nor the soft grass.

After dismounting from his steed and tying him to the branches of an oak, thus conforming to the time-honored custom of lovers, the cavalier struck his foot upon the ground three or four times to start the circulation in his legs, and then drew from his pocket a very pretty Breguet watch.

“Ten minutes past eight,” said he; “I am late and yet I am early. It looks as if the clocks at La Fauconnerie were not very well regulated.” He walked up and down with a quick step whistling with a vengeance:

“Quand je quittai la Normandie J’attends–j’attends–“

a refrain which the occasion brought to his mind. When this pastime was exhausted he had recourse to another, the nature of which proved that if the expected beauty had not punctuality for a virtue, she was not one of those little exacting creatures always ready to faint or whose delicate nerves make them intolerant of their lovers’ imperfections. Plunging his hand into one of the pockets in his redingote, the waiting cavalier drew out a sealskin case filled with Havana cigars, and, lighting one, began to smoke, while continuing his promenade.

But at the end of a few moments this palliative, like the first, had exhausted its effect.

“Twenty-five minutes past eight!” exclaimed Marillac, as he looked at his watch a second time; “I should like to know what this little miniature rose takes me for? It was hardly worth the trouble of over- straining this poor horse, who looks as wet as if he had come out of the river. It is enough to give him inflammation of the lungs. If Bergenheim were to see him sweating and panting like this in this bleak wind, he would give me a sound blowing-up. Upon my word, it is becoming comical! There are no more young girls! I shall see her appear presently as spruce and conceited as if she had been playing the finest trick in the world. It will do for once; but if we sojourn in these quarters some time yet, she must be educated and taught to say, ‘If you please’ and ‘Thanks.’ Ah! ha! she has no idea what sort of man she is dealing with! Half past eight! If she is not here in five minutes I shall go to La Fauconnerie and raise a terrible uproar. I will break every bit of crockery there is in the ‘Femme-sans-Tete’ with blows from my whip. What can I do to kill time?” He raised his head quickly, as he felt himself suddenly almost smothered under a shower of dust. This was a fatal movement for him, for his eyes received part of the libation destined for his hair. He closed them with a disagreeable sensation, after seeing Mademoiselle Reine Gobillot’s fresh, chubby face, her figure prim beyond measure in a lilac-and-green plaid gingham dress, and carrying a basket on her arm, a necessary burden to maidens of a certain class who play truant.

“What sort of breeding is this?” exclaimed Marillac, rubbing his eyes; “you have made me dance attendance for an hour and now you have blinded me. I do not like this at all, you understand.”

“How you scold me, just for a little pinch of dust!” replied Reine, turning as red as a cherry as she threw the remainder of the handful which she had taken from a mole-heap close by them.

“It is because it smarts like the devil,” replied the artist, in a milder tone, for he realized the ridiculousness of his anger; “since you have hurt me, try at least to ease the pain; they say that to blow in the eye will cure it.”

“No. I’ll do nothing of the kind–I don’t like to be spoken to harshly.”

The artist arose at once as he saw the young girl make a movement as if to go; he put his arm about her waist and half forced her to sit beside him.

“The grass is damp and I shall stain my dress,” said she, as a last resistance.

A handkerchief was at once spread upon the ground, in lieu of a carpet, by the lover, who had suddenly become very polite again.

“Now, my dear Reine,” continued he, “will you tell me why you come so late? Do you know that for an hour I have been tearing my hair in despair?”

“Perhaps the dust will make it grow again,” she replied, with a malicious glance at Marillac, whose head was powdered with brown dust as if a tobacco-box had been emptied upon it.

“Naughty girl!” he exclaimed, laughing, although his eyes looked as if he were crying; and, acting upon the principle of retaliation less odious in love than in war, he tried to snatch a kiss to punish her.

“Stop that, Monsieur Marillac! you know very well what you promised me.”

“To love you forever, you entrancing creature,” said he, in the voice of a crocodile that sighs to attract his prey.

Reine pursed up her lips and assumed important airs, but, in order to obey the feminine instinct which prescribes changing the subject of conversation after too direct an avowal, with the firm intention of returning to it later through another channel, she said:

“What were you doing just as I arrived? You were so busy you did not hear me coming. You were so droll; you waved your arms in the air and struck your forehead as you talked.”

“I was thinking of you.”

“But it was not necessary, in order to do that, to strike your head with your fist. It must have hurt you.”

“Adorable woman!” exclaimed the artist, in a passionate tone.

“Mon Dieu! how you frighten me. If I had known I would not have come here at all. I must go away directly.”

“Leave me already, queen of my heart! No! do not expect to do that; I would sooner lose my life–“

“Will you stop! what if some one should hear you? they might be passing,” said Reine, gazing anxiously about her. “If you knew how frightened I was in coming! I told mamma that I was going to the mill to see my uncle; but that horrid old Lambernier met me just as I entered the woods. What shall I do if he tells that he saw me? This is not the road to the mill. It is to be hoped that he has not followed me! I should be in a pretty plight!”

“You can say that you came to gather berries or nuts, or to hear the nightingale sing; Mother Gobillot will not think anything of it. Who is this Lambernier?”

“You know–the carpenter. You saw him at our house the other day.”

“Ah! ah!” said Marillac, with interest, “the one who was turned away from the chateau?”

“Yes, and they did well to do it, too; he is a downright bad man.”

“He is the one who told you something about Madame de Bergenheim. Tell me the story. Your mother interrupted us yesterday just as you began telling it to me.–What was it that he said?”

“Oh! falsehoods probably. One can not believe anything that he says.”

“But what did he tell you?”

“What difference does it make to you what is said about the Baroness?” replied the young girl, rather spitefully, as she saw that Marillac was not occupied in thinking of her exclusively.

“Pure curiosity. He told you then that he would tell the Baron what he knew, and that the latter would give him plenty of money to make him keep silent?”

“It makes no difference what he told me. Ask him if you wish to know. Why did you not stay at the chateau if you can think only of the Baroness? Are you in love with her?”

“I am in love with you, my dear. [The devil take me if she is not jealous now! How shall I make her talk?] I am of the same opinion as you,” he replied, in a loud voice, “that all this talk of Lambernier’s is pure calumny.”

“There is no doubt about it. He is well known about the place; he has a wicked tongue and watches everything that one does or says in order to report it at cross-purposes. Mon Dieu! suppose he should make some story out of his seeing me enter these woods!”

“Madame de Bergenheim,” continued the artist, with affectation, “is certainly far above the gossip of a scoundrel of this kind.”

Reine pursed up her lips, but made no reply.

“She has too many good qualities and virtues for people to believe anything he says.”

“Oh, as to that, there are hypocrites among the Parisian ladies as well as elsewhere,” said the young girl, with a sour look.

“Bless me!” thought Marillac, “we have it now. I’d wager my last franc that I’ll loosen her tongue.”

“Madame de Bergenheim,” he replied, emphasizing each word, “is such a good woman, so sensible and so pretty!”

“Mon Dieu! say that you love her at once, then–that’ll be plain talk,” exclaimed Reine, suddenly disengaging herself from the arm which was still about her waist. “A great lady who has her carriages and footmen in livery is a conquest to boast of! While a country girl, who has only her virtue–“

She lowered her eyes with an air of affected modesty, and did not finish her sentence.

“A virtue which grants a rendezvous at the end of three days’ acquaintance, and in the depths of the woods! That is amusing!” thought the artist.

“Still, you will not be the first of the fine lady’s lovers,” she continued, raising her head and trying to conceal her vexation under an ironical air.

“These are falsehoods.”

“Falsehoods, when I tell you that I know what I am speaking about! Lambernier is not a liar.”

“Lambernier is not a liar?” repeated a harsh, hoarse voice, which seemed to come from the cavity of the tree under which they were seated. “Who has said that Lambernier was a liar?”

At the same moment, the carpenter in person suddenly appeared upon the scene. He stood before the amazed pair with his brown coat thrown over his shoulders, as usual, and his broad-brimmed gray hat pulled down over his ears, gazing at them with his deep, ugly eyes and a sardonic laugh escaping from his lips.

Mademoiselle Reine uttered a shriek as if she had seen Satan rise up from the ground at her feet; Marillac rose with a bound and seized his whip.

“You are a very insolent fellow,” said he, in his ringing bass voice.” Go your way!”

“I receive no such orders,” replied the workman, in a tone which justified the epithet which had just been bestowed upon him; “we are upon public ground, and I have a right to be here as well as you.”

“If you do not take to your heels at once,” said the artist, becoming purple with rage, “I will cut your face in two.”

“Apples are sometimes cut in two,” said Lambernier, sneeringly advancing his face with an air of bravado. “My face is not afraid of your whip; you can not frighten me because you are a gentleman and I am a workman! I snap my fingers at bourgeois like–“

This time he did not have time to finish his comparison; a blow from the whip cut him in the face and made him reel in spite of himself.

“By heaven!” he exclaimed, in a voice like thunder, “may I lose my name if I do not polish you off well!”

He threw his coat on the grass, spat, in his hands and rubbed them together, assuming the position of an athlete ready for a boxing-bout.

Mademoiselle Gobillot, arose, trembling with fright at this demonstration, and uttered two or three inarticulate cries; but, instead of throwing herself between the combatants in the approved style, she ran away as fast as she could.

Although the weapons of the adversaries were not of a nature to spill blood upon the turf, there was something warlike about their countenances which would have done honor to ancient paladins. Lambernier squatting upon his legs, according to the rules of pugilism, and with his fists on a level with his shoulders, resembled, somewhat, a cat ready to bound upon its prey. The artist stood with his body thrown backward, his legs on a tension, his chin buried up to his moustache in the fur collar of his coat, with whip lowered, watching all his adversary’s movements with a steady eye. When he saw the carpenter advancing toward him, he raised his arm and gave him on the left side a second lash from his whip, so vigorously applied that the workman beat a retreat once more, rubbing his hands and roaring:

“Thunder! I’ll finish you–“

He put his hands in his trousers’ pockets and drew out one of those large iron compasses such as carpenters use, and opened it with a rapid movement. He then seized it in the centre and was thus armed with a sort of double-pointed stiletto, which he brandished with a threatening gesture.

Marillac, at this sight, drew back a few paces, passed his whip to his left hand and, arming himself with his Corsican poniard, placed himself in a position of defence.

“My friend,” said he, with perfect deliberation, “my needle is shorter than yours, but it pricks better. If you take one step nearer me, if you raise your hand, I will bleed you like a wild boar.”

Seeing the firm attitude of the artist, whose solid figure seemed to denote rather uncommon vigor, and whose moustache and sparkling eyes gave him a rather formidable aspect at this moment; above all, when he saw the large, sharp blade of the poniard, Lambernier stopped.

“By the gods!” exclaimed Marillac, who saw that his bold looks had produced their effect, “you are a Provencal, and I a Gascon. You have a quick hand, comrade–“

“But, by Jove! you are the one who has the quick hand; you struck me with your whip as if I had been a horse. You have put my eye almost out. Do you imagine that I am well provided for like yourself and have nothing to do but to flirt with girls? I need my eyes in order to work, by God! Because you are a bourgeois and I am a workman–“

“I am not more of a bourgeois than you,” replied the artist, rather glad to see his adversary’s fury exhaust itself in words, and his attitude assume a less threatening character; “pick up your compass and return to your work. Here,” he added, taking two five-franc pieces from his pocket. “You were a little boorish and I a little hasty. Go and bathe your eyes with a glass of wine.”

Lambernier scowled and his eyes darted ugly, hateful glances. He hesitated a moment, as if he were thinking what he had better do, and was weighing his chances of success in case of a hostile resolve. After a few moments’ reflection, prudence got the better of his anger. He closed his compass and put it in his pocket, but he refused the silver offered him.

“You are generous,” said he, with a bitter smile; “five francs for each blow of the whip! I know a good many people who would offer you their cheek twelve hours of the day at that price. But I am not one of that kind; I ask nothing of nobody.”

“If Leonardo da Vinci could have seen this fellow’s face just now,” thought the artist, “he would not have had to seek so long for his model for the face of Judas. Only for my poniard, my fate would have been settled. This man was ready to murder me.”

“Listen, Lambernier,” said he, “I was wrong to strike you, and I would like to atone for it. I have been told that you were sent away from the chateau against your will. I am intimate enough with Monsieur de Bergenheim to be useful to you; do you wish me to speak to him for you?”

The carpenter stood motionless in his place, with his eyes fixed upon his adversary while the latter was preparing his horse to mount, eyes which seemed filled with hatred to their very depths. His face suddenly changed its expression and became abjectly polite when he heard himself addressed anew. He shook his head two or three times before replying.

“Unless you are the very devil,” he said, “I defy you to make this gentleman say yes when he has once said no. He turned me away like a dog; all right. Let them laugh that win. It was that old idiot of a Rousselet and that old simpleton of a coachman of Mademoiselle de Corandeuil’s who told tales about me. I could tell tales also if I liked.”

“But what motive could they have to send you away?” continued Marillac, “you are a clever workman. I have seen your work at the chateau; there are some rooms yet unfinished; there must have been some very grave reason for their not employing you just at the moment when they needed you most.”

“They said that I talked with Mademoiselle Justine, and Madame caused me to be discharged. She is mistress there, is she not? But I am the one to make her repent for it.”

“And how can you make her repent for it?” asked the artist, whose curiosity, left ungratified by Mademoiselle Reine, was growing more and more excited, “what can you have in common with Madame la Baronne?”

“Because she is a lady and I am a workman, you mean? All the same, if I could only whisper two or three words in her ear, she would give me more gold than I have earned since I worked at the chateau, I am sure of it.”

“By the powers! if I were in your place, I would say those words to her this very day.”

“So as to be thrown out by that band of idle fellows in their red coats. None of that for me. I have my own scheme; let them laugh that win!.”

As he repeated this proverb, the workman uttered his usual sardonic laugh.

“Lambernier,” said the artist, in a serious tone, “I have heard of certain very strange speeches that you have made within the last few days. Do you know that there is a punishment by law for those who invent calumnies?”

“Is it a calumny, when one can prove what he says?” replied the carpenter, with assurance.

“What is it that you undertake to prove?” exclaimed Marillac, suddenly.

“Eh! you know very well that if Monsieur le Baron–” he did not continue, but with a coarse gesture he finished explaining his thoughts.

“You can prove this?”

“Before the courts, if necessary.”

“Before the courts would not amount to very much for you; but if you will cease this talk and never open your mouth about all this, whatever it may be, and will give to me, and me only, this proof of which you speak, I will give you ten napoleons.”

For a moment Lambernier gazed at the artist with a singularly penetrating glance.

“So you have two sweethearts, then–one from the city and one from the country, a married woman and this poor girl,” said he, in a jeering tone; “does little Reine know that she is playing second fiddle?”

“What do you mean to insinuate?”

“Oh! you are more clever than!”

The two men looked at each other in silence, trying to read each other’s thoughts.

“This is a lover of Madame de Bergenheim,” thought Lambernier, with the barefaced impudence of his kind; “if I were to tell him what I know, my vengeance would be in good hands, without my taking the trouble to commit myself.”

“Here is a sneaking fellow who pretends to be deucedly strong in diplomacy,” said Marillac to himself; “but he is revengeful and I must make him explain himself.”

“Ten napoleons are not to be found every day,” continued the carpenter, after a moment’s silence; “you may give them to me, if you like, in a week.”

“You will be able to prove to me, then, what you have said,” replied Marillac, with hesitation, blushing in spite of himself at the part he was playing at that moment, upon the odious side of which he had not looked until now. “Bah!” said he to himself, in order to quiet his conscience, “if this rascal really knows anything it is much better that I should buy the secret than anybody else. I never should take advantage of it, and I might be able to render the lady a service. Is it not a gentleman’s sworn duty to devote himself to the defence of an imprudent beauty who is in danger?”

“I will bring you the proof you want,” said the carpenter.

“When?”

“Meet me Monday at four o’clock in the afternoon at the cross-roads near the corner of the Come woods.”

“At the end of the park?”

“Yes, a little above the rocks.”

“I will be there. Until then, you will not say a word to anybody?”

“That is a bargain, since you buy the goods I have for sale–“

“Here is some money to bind the trade,” replied the artist. And he handed him the silver pieces he still held in his hand; Lambernier took them this time without any objections, and put them in his pocket.

“Monday, at four o’clock!”

“Monday, at four o’clock!” repeated Marillac, as he mounted his horse and rode away in great haste as if eager to take leave of his companion. He turned when he reached the road, and, looking behind him, saw the workman standing motionless at the foot of the tree.

“There is a scamp,” thought he, “whose ball and chain are waiting for him at Toulon or Brest, and I have just concluded a devilish treaty with him. Bah! I have nothing to reproach myself with. Of two evils choose the least; it remains to be seen whether Gerfaut is the dupe of a coquette or whether his love is threatened with some catastrophe; at all events, I am his friend, and I ought to clear up this mystery and put him on his guard.”

“Ten francs to-day, and ten napoleons Monday,” said Lambernier as, with an eye in which there was a mixture of scorn and hatred, he watched the traveller disappear. “I should be a double idiot to refuse. But this does not pay for the blows from your whip, you puppy; when we have settled this affair of the fine lady, I shall attend to you.”

CHAPTER XII

AN INHARMONIOUS MUSICALE

The visitors referred to in the conversation between the two friends arrived at the castle at an early hour, according to the custom in the country, where they dine in the middle of the day. Gerfaut saw from his chamber, where he had remained like Achilles under his tent, half a dozen carriages drive one after another up the avenue, bringing the guests announced by Marillac. Little by little the company scattered through the gardens in groups; four or five young girls under Aline’s escort hurried to a swing, to which several good-natured young men attached themselves, and among them Gerfaut recognized his Pylades. During this time Madame de Bergenheim was doing the honors of the house to the matrons, who thought this amusement too youthful for their age and preferred a quiet walk through the park. Christian, on his side, was explaining methods of improvements to gentlemen of agricultural and industrial appearance, who seemed to listen to him with great interest. Three or four others had taken possession of the billiard-table; while the more venerable among the guests had remained in the parlor with Mademoiselle de Corandeuil.

“Have you a pair of clean trousers?” asked Marillac, hastily entering his friend’s room as the first bell rang for dinner. An enormous green stain upon one of his knees was all the explanation necessary on this subject.

“You, lose no time,” said Gerfaut, as he opened a drawer in his closet. “Which of these rustic beauties has had the honor of seeing you on your knees at her feet?”

“It was that confounded swing! Silly invention! To sacrifice one’s self to please little girls! If I am ever caught at it again I’ll let you know! Your selfish method is a better, one. By the way, Madame de Bergenheim asked me, with a rather sly look, whether you were ill and whether you would not come down to dinner?”

“Irony!”

“It: seemed like it. The lady smiled in a decidedly disagreeable manner. I am not timid, but I would rather write a vaudeville in three acts than to be obliged to make a declaration to her if she had that impish smile on her lips. She has a way of protruding her under lip-ugh! do you know you are terribly slender? Will you let me cut the band of your trousers? I never could dance with my stomach compressed in this manner.”

“What about this secret you were to reveal to me?” Gerfaut interrupted, with a smile which seemed to denote perfect security.

Marillac looked at his friend with a grave countenance, then began to laugh in an embarrassed manner.

“We will leave serious matters until to-morrow,” he replied. “The essential thing to-day is to make ourselves agreeable. Madame de Bergenheim asked me a little while ago whether we would be kind enough to sing a few duets? I accepted for us both. I do not suppose that the inhabitants of this valley have often heard the duet from Mose with the embellishments a la Tamburini:

Palpito a quello aspetto, ‘Gemo nel suo dolor.’

Would you prefer that or the one from ‘Il Barbiere’? although that is out of date, now.”

“Whatever pleases you, but do not split my head about it in advance. I wish that music and dancing were at the bottom of the Moselle.”

“With all my heart, but not the dinner. I gave a glance into the dining- room; it promises to be very fine. Now, then, everybody has returned to the house; to the table!”

The time has long since passed when Paris and the province formed two regions almost foreign to each other. To-day, thanks to the rapidity of communication, and the importations of all kinds which reach the centre from the circumference without having time to spoil on the way, Paris and the rest of France are only one immense body excited by the same opinions, dressed in the same fashions, laughing at the same bon mot, revolutionized by the same opinions.

Provincial customs have almost entirely lost their peculiarities; a drawing-room filled with guests is the same everywhere. There are sometimes exceptions, however. The company gathered at the Bergenheim chateau was an example of one of those heterogeneous assemblies which the most exclusive mistress of a mansion can not avoid if she wishes to be neighborly, and in which a duchess may have on her right at the table the village mayor, and the most elegant of ladies a corpulent justice of the peace who believes he is making himself agreeable when he urges his fair neighbor to frequent potations.

Madame de Bergenheim had discovered symptoms of haughty jealousy among her country neighbors, always ready to feel themselves insulted and very little qualified to make themselves agreeable in society. So she resolved to extend a general invitation to all those whom she felt obliged to receive, in order to relieve herself at once of a nuisance for which no pleasure could prove an equivalent. This day was one of her duty days.

Among these ladies, much more gorgeously than elegantly attired, these healthy young girls with large arms, and feet shaped like flat-irons, ponderous gentlemen strangled by their white cravats and puffed up in their frock-coats, Gerfaut, whose nervous system had been singularly irritated by his disappointment of the night before, felt ready to burst with rage. He was seated at the table between two ladies, who seemed to have exhausted, in their toilettes, every color in the solar spectrum, and whose coquettish instincts were aroused by the proximity of a celebrated writer. But their simperings were all lost; the one for whom they were intended bore himself in a sulky way, which fortunately passed for romantic melancholy; this rendered him still more interesting in the eyes of his neighbor on the left, a plump blonde about twenty-five years old, fresh and dimpled, who doted upon Lord Byron, a common pretension among pretty, buxom women who adore false sentimentality.

With the exception of a bow when he entered the drawing-room, Octave had not shown Madame de Bergenheim any attention. The cold, disdainful, bored manner in which he patiently endured the pleasures of the day exceeded even the privilege for boorish bearing willingly granted to gentlemen of unquestionable talent. Clemence, on the contrary, seemed to increase in amiability and liveliness. There was not one of her tiresome guests to whom she did not address some pleasant remark, not one of those vulgar, pretentious women to whom she was not gracious and attentive; one would have said that she had a particular desire to be more attractive than usual, and that her lover’s sombre air added materially to her good humor.

After dinner they retired to the drawing-room where coffee was served. A sudden shower, whose drops pattered loudly against the windows, rendered impossible all plans for amusement out of doors. Gerfaut soon noticed a rather animated conversation taking place between Madame de Bergenheim, who was somewhat embarrassed as to how to amuse her guests for the remainder of the afternoon, and Marillac, who, with his accustomed enthusiasm, had constituted himself master of ceremonies. A moment later, the drawing-room door opened, and servants appeared bending under the burden of an enormous grand piano which was placed between the windows. At this sight, a tremor of delight ran through the group of young girls, while Octave, who was standing in one corner near the mantel, finished his Mocha with a still more melancholy air.

“Now, then!” said Marillac, who had been extremely busy during these preparations, and had spread a dozen musical scores upon the top of the piano, “it is agreed that we shall sing the duet from Mose. There are two or three little boarding-school misses here whose mothers are dying for them to show off. You understand that we must sacrifice ourselves to encourage them. Besides, a duet for male voices is the thing to open a concert with.”

“A concert! has Madame de Bergenheim arranged to pasture us in this sheepfold in order to make use of us this evening?” replied Gerfaut, whose ill-humor increased every moment.

“Five or six pieces only, afterward they will have a dance. I have an engagement with your diva; if you wish for a quadrille and have not yet secured your number, I should advise you to ask her for it now, for there are five or six dandies who seem to be terribly attentive to her. After our duet I shall sing the trio from La Date Blanche, with those young ladies who have eyes as round as a fish’s, and apricot-colored gowns on– those two over there in the corner, near that pretty blonde who sat beside you at table and ogled you all the time. She had already bored me to death! I do not know whether I shall be able to hit my low ‘G’ right or not. I have a cataclysm of charlotte-russe in my stomach. Just listen:

‘A cette complaisance!–‘”

Marillac leaned toward his friend and roared in his ear the note supposed to be the “G” in question.

“Like an ophicleide,” said Gerfaut, who could not help laughing at the importance the artist attached to his display of talent.

“In that case I shall risk my great run at the end of the first solo. Two octaves from ‘E’ to ‘E’! Zuchelli was good enough to give me a few points as to the time, and I do it rather nicely.”

“Madame would like to speak to Monsieur,” said a servant, who interrupted him in the midst of his sentence.

“Dolce, soave amor,” warbled the artist, softly, as he responded to the call from the lady of the house, trying to fix in his mind that run, which he regarded as one of the most beautiful flowers in his musical crown.

Everybody was seated, Madame de Bergenheim sat at the piano and Marillac stood behind her. The artist selected one of the scores, spread it out on the rack, turned down the corners so that during the execution he might not be stopped by some refractory leaf, coughed in his deep bass voice, placed himself in such a manner as to show the side of his head which he thought would produce the best effect upon the audience, then gave a knowing nod to Gerfaut, who still stood gloomy and isolated in a far corner.

“We trespass upon your kindness too much, Monsieur,” said Madame de Bergenheim to him, when he had responded to this mute invitation; and as she struck a few chords, she raised her dark, brown eyes to his. It was the first glance she had given him that day; from coquetry, perhaps, or because sorrow for her lover had softened her heart, or because she felt remorse for the extreme harshness of her note the night before, we must admit that this glance had nothing very discouraging in it. Octave bowed, and spoke a few words as coldly polite as he would have spoken to a woman sixty years of age.

Madame de Bergenheim lowered her eyes and endeavored to smile disdainfully, as she struck the first bars of the duet.

The concert began. Gerfaut had a sweet, clear, tenor voice which he used skilfully, gliding over dangerous passages, skipping too difficult ones which he thought beyond his execution, singing, in fact, with the prudence of an amateur who can not spend his time studying runs and chromatic passages four hours daily. He sang his solo with a simplicity bordering upon negligence, and even substituted for the rather complicated passage at the end a more than modest ending.

Clemence, for whom he had often sung, putting his whole soul into the performance, was vexed with this affectation of indifference. It seemed to her as if he ought, for her sake, to make more of an effort in her drawing-room, whatever might be their private quarrel; she felt it was a consideration due to her and to which his numerous homages had accustomed her. She entered this new grievance in a double-entry book, which a woman always devotes to the slightest actions of the man who pays court to her.

Marillac, on the contrary, was grateful to his friend for this indifference of execution, for he saw in it an occasion to shine at his expense. He began his solo ‘E il ciel per noi sereno,’ with an unusual tension of the larynx, roaring out his low notes. Except for the extension being a little irregular and unconnected, he did not acquit himself very badly in the first part. When he reached his final run, he took a long breath, as if it devolved upon him to set in motion all the windmills in Montmartre, and started with a majestic fury; the first forty notes, while they did not resemble Mademoiselle Grisi’s pearly tones, ascended and descended without any notable accident; but at the last stages of the descent, the singer’s breath and voice failed him at the same moment, the “A” came out weak, the “G” was stifled, the “F” resembled the buzzing of a bee, and the “E” was absent!

Zuchelli’s run was like one of those Gothic staircases which show an almost complete state of preservation upon the upper floor, but whose base, worn by time, leaves a solution of continuity between the ground and the last step.

Madame de Bergenheim waited the conclusion of this dangerous run, not thinking to strike the final chord; the only sound heard was the rustling of the dilettante’s beard, as his chin sought his voice in vain in the depths of his satin cravat, accompanied by applause from a benevolent old lady who had judged of the merit of the execution by the desperate contortions of the singer.

“D–n that charlotte-russe!” growled the artist, whose face was as red as a lobster.

The rest of the duet was sung without any new incident, and gave general satisfaction.

“Madame, your piano is half a tone too low,” said the basso, with a reproachful accent.

“That is true,” replied Clemence, who could not restrain a smile; “I have so little voice that I am obliged to have my piano tuned to suit it. You can well afford to pardon me for my selfishness, for you sang like an angel.”

Marillac bowed, partly consoled by this compliment, but thinking to himself that a hostess’s first duty was to have her piano in tune, and not to expose a bass singer to the danger of imperilling his low “E” before an audience of forty.

“Madame, can I be of any more service to you?” asked Gerfaut, as he leaned toward Madame de Bergenheim, with one of his coldest smiles.

“I do not wish to impose further upon your kindness, Monsieur,” said she, in a voice which showed her secret displeasure.

The poet bowed and walked away.

Then Clemence, upon general request, sang a romance with more taste than brilliancy, and more method than expression. It seemed as if Octave’s icy manner had reacted upon her, in spite of the efforts she had made at first to maintain a cheerful air. A singular oppression overcame her; once or twice she feared her voice would fail her entirely. When she finished, the compliments and applause with which she was overwhlemed seemed so insupportable to her that it was with difficulty she could restrain herself from leaving the room. While exasperated by her weakness, she could not help casting a glance in Octave’s direction. She could not catch his eye, however, as he was busy talking with Aline. She felt so lonely and deserted at this moment, and longed so for this glance which she could not obtain, that tears of vexation filled her eyes.

“I was wrong to write him as I did,” thought she; “but if he really loved me, he would not so quickly resign himself to obeying me!”

A woman in a drawing-room resembles a soldier on a breastwork; self- abnegation is the first of her duties; however much she may suffer, she must present as calm and serene a countenance as a warrior in the hour of danger, and fall, if necessary, upon the spot, with death in her heart and a smile upon her lips. In order to obey this unwritten law, Madame de Bergenheim, after a slight interruption, seated herself at the piano to accompany three or four young girls who were each to sing in turn the songs that they had been drilled on for six months.

Marillac, who had gone to strengthen his stomach with a glass of rum, atoned for his little mishap, in the trio from La Dame Blanche, and everything went smoothly. Finally, to close this concert (may heaven preserve us from all exhibitions of this kind!), Aline was led to the piano by her brother, who, like all people who are not musical, could not understand why one should study music for years if not from love for the art. Christian was fond of his little sister and very proud of her talents. The poor child, whose courage had all disappeared, sang in a fresh, trembling little voice, a romance revised and corrected at her boarding-school. The word love had been replaced by that of friendship, and to repair this slight fault of prosody, the extra syllable disappeared in a hiatus which would have made Boileau’s blond wig stand on end. But the Sacred Heart has a system of versification of its own which, rather than allow the dangerous expression to be used, let ultra- modesty destroy poetry!

This sample of sacred music was the final number of the concert; after that, they began dancing, and Gerfaut invited Aline. Whether because he wished to struggle against his ill-humor, or from kindness of heart because he understood her emotion, he began to talk with the young girl, who was still blushing at her success. Among his talents, Octave possessed in a peculiar degree that of adapting his conversation to the age, position, and character of his companions. Aline listened with unconcealed pleasure to her partner’s words; the elasticity of her step and a sort of general trembling made her seem like a flower swaying to the breeze, and revealed the pleasure which his conversation gave her. Every time her eyes met Octave’s penetrating glance they fell, out of instinctive modesty. Each word, however indifferent it might be, rang in her ears sweet and melodious; each contact with his hand seemed to her like a tender pressure.

Gerfaut experienced a feeling of melancholy as he noticed how this fresh, innocent rose brightened up at each word he uttered, and he thought:

“She would love me as I want to be loved, with all her heart, mind, and soul. She would kneel before my love as before an altar, while this coquette–“

He glanced in the direction where Madame de Bergenheim was dancing with Marillac, and met her gaze fixed full upon him. The glance which he received was rapid, displeased, and imperious. It signified clearly: “I forbid you to speak thus to your partner.”

Octave, at that moment; was not disposed to obedience. After glancing over the quadrille, as if it were by mere chance that his eyes had met Clemence’s, he turned toward Aline and redoubled his amiability:

A moment later, he received, not directly, but through the medium of the mirror–that so often indiscreet confidant–a second glance more sombre and threatening than before.

“Very good,” said he, to himself, as he led the young girl to her seat; “we are jealous. That alters the situation. I know now where the ramparts are the weakest and where to begin my attack.”

No other incident marked the day. The guests left at nightfall, and the society was reduced to the usual members of the household. Octave entered his room after supper, humming an Italian air, evidently in such good spirits that his friend was quite surprised.

“I give it up, I can not understand your conduct,” said the latter; “you have been as solemn as an owl all day, and now here you are as gay as a lark; have you had an understanding?”

“I am more vexed than ever.”

“And you enjoy being so?”

“Very much.”

“Ah! you are playing ‘who loses wins!'”

“Not exactly; but as my good sentiments lead to nothing, I hope to conduct myself in such a disagreeable way as to force this capricious creature to adore me.”

“The devil! that is clever. Besides, it is a system as good as any other. Women are such extraordinary creatures!”

“Woman,” said Octave, “resembles a pendulum, whose movement is a continual reaction; when it moves to the right, it has to go to the left in order to return to the right again, and so on. Suppose virtue is on one side and love on the other, and the feminine balance between them, the odds are that, having moved to the right in a violent manner, it will return none the less energetically to the left; for the longer a vibration has been, the greater play the contrary vibration has. In order to hasten the action of this pendulum I am about to attach to it– to act as extra balance-weight–a little anguish which I ought to have employed sooner.”

“Why make her suffer, since you believe that she loves you?”

“Why? Because she drives me to it. Do you fancy that I torture her willingly; that I take pleasure in seeing her cheeks grow pale from insomnia and her eyes show traces of tears? I love her, I tell you; I suffer and weep with her. But I love her, and I must make sure of her love. If she will leave but a road full of brambles and sharp stones for me to reach her, must I give up the struggle just because I run the risk by taking her with me, of wounding her charming feet? I will cure them with my kisses!”

“Listen to me! I am not in love; I am an artist. If I have some peculiar ideas, it is not my fault. And you, in your character of docile lover, have you decided to yield?”

“Morally.”

“Very well! after all, you are right. The science of love resembles those old signs upon which one reads: ‘Here, hair is dressed according to one’s fancy.’ If this angel wishes her hair pulled, do it for her.”

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

I believed it all; one is so happy to believe! It is a terrible step for a woman to take, from No to Yes Lady who requires urging, although she is dying to sing Let them laugh that win!
Let ultra-modesty destroy poetry
Misfortunes never come single
No woman is unattainable, except when she loves another These are things that one admits only to himself Topics that occupy people who meet for the first time You are playing ‘who loses wins!’

GERFAUT

By CHARLES DE BERNARD

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER XIII

MONSIEUR DE BERGENHEIM

Some men in society marry too soon, a great number too late, a small and fortunate proportion at an opportune time. Young men in the country, of good family, are usually established in marriage by their parents as early as possible. When the family council finds an heiress who answers all the conditions of the programme laid out, they begin by giving the victim his cue. Provided the young lady has not a positively crooked nose, arms too red, and too uncouth a waist–sometimes even notwithstanding these little misfortunes–the transaction is concluded without any difficulty.

Clemence and Christian should be placed in the first rank of privileged couples of this kind. The most fastidious old uncle or precise old dowager could not discover the slightest pretense for criticism. Age, social position, wealth, physical endowments, all seemed united by a chance as rare as fortunate. So Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who had very high pretensions for her niece, made no objection upon receiving the first overtures. She had not, at this time, the antipathy for her future nephew’s family which developed later. The Bergenheims were in her eyes very well-born gentleman.

A meeting took place at the Russian Embassy. Bergenheim came in uniform; it was etiquette to do so, as the minister of war was present; but at the same time, of course, there was a little vanity on his part, for his uniform showed off his tall, athletic figure to the best advantage. Christian was certainly a very handsome soldier; his moustache and eyebrows were of a lighter tint than his complexion, and gave him that martial air which pleases women. Clemence could find no reason for a refusal. The way in which she had been brought up by her aunt had not rendered her so happy but that she often desired to change her situation. Like the greater number of young girls, she consented to become a wife so as not to remain a maiden; she said yes, so as not to say no.

As to Christian, he was in love with his wife as nine out of ten cavalry officers know how to love, and he seemed perfectly satisfied with the sentiment that he received in return for this sudden affection. A few successes with young belles, for whom an epaulette has an irresistible attraction, had inspired Baron de Bergenheim with a confidence in himself the simplicity of which excused the conceit. He persuaded himself that he pleased Clemence because she suited him exactly.

There are singers who pretend to read music at sight; give them a score by Gluck–“I beg your pardon,” they will say, “my part is written here in the key of ‘C’ and I sing only in the key of ‘G’!” How many men do not know even the key of ‘G’ in matters of love! Unfortunately for him, Bergenheim was one of that number. After three years of married life, he had not divined the first note in Clemence’s character. He decided in his own mind, at the end of a few months, that she was cold, if not heartless. This discovery, which ought to have wounded his vanity, inspired him, on the contrary, with a deeper respect for her; insensibly this reserve reacted upon himself, for love is a fire whose heat dies out for want of fuel, and its cooling off is more sudden when the flame is more on the surface than in the depths.

The revolution of 1830 stopped Christian’s career, and gave further pretexts for temporary absences which only added to the coolness which already existed between husband and wife. After handing in his resignation, the Baron fixed his residence at his chateau in the Vosges mountains, for which he shared the hereditary predilection of his family. His tastes were in perfect harmony with this dwelling, for he had quickly become the perfect type of a country gentleman, scorning the court and rarely leaving his ancestral acres. He was too kind-hearted to exact that his wife should share his country tastes and retired life. The unlimited confidence which he had in her, a loyalty which never allowed him to suppose evil or suspect her, a nature very little inclined to jealousy, made him allow Clemence the greatest liberty. The young woman lived at will in Paris with her aunt, or at Bergenheim with her husband, without a suspicious thought ever entering his head. Really,–what had he to fear? What wrong could she reproach him with? Was he not full of kindness and attention toward her? Did he not leave her mistress of her own fortune, free to do as she liked, to gratify every caprice? He thus lived upon his faith in the marriage contract, with unbounded confidence and old-fashioned loyalty.

According to general opinion, Madame de Bergenheim was a very fortunate woman, to whom virtue must be so easy that it could hardly be called a merit. Happiness, according to society, consists in a box at the Opera, a fine carriage, and a husband who pays the bills without frowning. Add to the above privileges, a hundred thousand francs’ worth of diamonds, and a woman has really no right to dream or to suffer. There are, however, poor, loving creatures who stifle under this happiness as if under one of those leaden covers that Dante speaks of; they breathe, in imagination, the pure, vital air that a fatal instinct has revealed to them; they struggle between duty and desire; they gaze, like captive doves and with a sorrowful eye, upon the forbidden region where it would be so blissful to soar; for, in fastening a chain to their feet, the law did not bandage their eyes, and nature gave them wings; if the wings tear the chain asunder, shame and misfortune await them! Society will never forgive the heart that catches a glimpse of the joys it is unacquainted with; even a brief hour in that paradise has to be expiated by implacable social damnation and its everlasting flames.

CHAPTER XIV

GERFAUT’S ALLEGORY

There almost always comes a moment when a woman, in her combat against love, is obliged to call falsehood to the help of duty. Madame de Bergenheim had entered this terrible period, in which virtue, doubting its own strength, does not blush to resort to other resources. At the moment when Octave, a man of experience, was seeking assistance in exciting her jealousy, she was meditating a plan of defence founded upon deceit. In order to take away all hope from her lover, she pretended a sudden affection for her husband, and in spite of her secret remorse she persisted in this role for two days; but during the night her tears expiated her treachery. Christian greeted his wife’s virtuous coquetry with the gratitude and eagerness of a husband who has been deprived of love more than he likes. Gerfaut was very indignant at the sight of this perfidious manoeuvre, the intention of which he immediately divined; and his rage wanted only provocation to break out in full force.

One evening they were all gathered in the drawing-room with the exception of Aline, whom a reprimand from Mademoiselle de Corandeuil had exiled to her room. The old lady, stretched out in her chair, had decided to be unfaithful to her whist in favor of conversation. Marillac, leaning his elbows upon a round table, was negligently sketching some political caricatures, at that time very much the fashion, and particularly agreeable to the Legitimist party. Christian, who was seated near his wife, whose hand he was pressing with caressing familiarity, passed from one subject to another, and showed in his conversation the overwhelming conceit of a happy man who regards his happiness as a proof of superiority.

Gerfaut, standing, gazed gloomily at Clemence, who leaned toward her husband and seemed to listen eagerly to his slightest word. Bergenheim was a faithful admirer of the classics, as are all country gentlemen, who introduce a sentiment of propriety into their literary opinions and prefer the ancient writers to the modern, for the reason that their libraries are much richer in old works than in modern books. The Baron unmercifully sacrificed Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, whom he had never read, upon the altar of Racine and Corneille, of which he possessed two or three editions, and yet it would have embarrassed him to recite half a dozen verses from them. Marillac boldly defended the cause of contemporary literature, which he considered as a personal matter, and poured out a profusion of sarcastic remarks in which there was more wit than good taste.

“The gods fell from Olympus, why should they not also fall from Parnassus?” said the artist, finally, with a triumphant air. “Say what you will, Bergenheim, your feeble opposition will not prevail against the instincts of the age. The future is ours, let me tell you, and we are the high priests of the new religion; is it not so, Gerfaut?”

At these words, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil shook her head, gravely.

“A new religion!” said she; “if this pretension should be verified you would only be guilty of heresy, and, without allowing myself to be taken in, I can understand how elevated minds and enthusiastic hearts might be attracted by the promises of a deceptive Utopia; but you, gentlemen, whom I believe to be sincere, do you not see to what an extent you delude yourselves? What you call religion is the most absolute negation of religious principles; it is the most distressing impiety ornamented with a certain sentimental hypocrisy which has not even the courage frankly to proclaim its principles.”

“I swear to you, Mademoiselle, that I am religious three days out of four,” replied Marillac; “that is something; there are some Christians who are pious only on Sunday.”

“Materialism is the source from which modern literature takes its inspiration,” continued the old lady; “and this poisonous stream not only dries up the thoughts which would expand toward heaven, but also withers all that is noble in human sentiment. To-day, people are not content to deny God, because they are not pure enough to comprehend Him; they disown even the weakness of the heart, provided they have an exalted and dignified character. They believe no longer in love. All the women that your fashionable writers tell us about are vulgar and sometimes unchaste creatures, to whom formerly a gentleman would have blushed to give one glance or to offer a supper. I say this for your benefit, Monsieur de Gerfaut, for in this respect you are far from being irreproachable; and I could bring forth your books to support my theory. If I accuse you of atheism, in love, what have you to say in reply?”

Carried away by one of those impulsive emotions which men of imagination can not resist, Octave arose and said:

“I should not deny such an accusation. Yes, it is a sad thing, but true, and only weak minds recoil from the truth: reality exists only in material objects; all the rest is merely deception and fancy. All poetry is a dream, all spiritualism a fraud! Why not apply to love the accommodating philosophy which takes the world as it is, and does not throw a savory fruit into the press under the pretext of extracting I know not what imaginary essence? Two beautiful eyes, a satin skin, white teeth, and a shapely foot and hand are of such positive and inestimable value! Is it not unreasonable, then, to place elsewhere than in them all the wealth of love? Intellect sustains its owner, they say; no, intelligence kills. It is thought that corrupts sensation and causes suffering where, but for that, joy would reign supreme.

“Thought! accursed gift! Do we give or ask a thought of the rose whose perfume we breathe? Why not love as we breathe? Would not woman, considered simply as a perfectly organized vegetation, be the queen of creation? Why not enjoy her perfume as we bend before her, leaving her clinging to the ground where she was born and lives? Why tear her from the earth, this flower so fresh, and have her wither in our hands as we raise her up like an offering? Why make of so weak and fragile a creature a being above all others, for whom our enthusiasm can find no name, and then discover her to be but an unworthy angel?

“Angel! yes, of course, but an angel of the Earth, not of Heaven; an angel of flesh, not of light! By dint of loving, we love wrongly. We place our mistress too high and ourselves too low; there is never a pedestal lofty enough for her, according to our ideas. Fools! Oh! reflection is always wise, but desire is foolish, and our conduct is regulated by our desire. We, above all, with our active, restless minds, blase in many respects, unbelieving in others and disrespectful in the remainder, soar over life as over an impure lake, and look at everything with contempt, seeking in love an altar before which we can humble our pride and soften our disdain.

“For there is in every man an insurmountable need to fall on his knees before no matter what idol, if it remains standing and allows itself to be adored. At certain hours, a prayerbell rings in the depth of the heart, the sound of which throws him upon his knees as it cries: ‘Kneel!’ And then the very being who ignores God in His churches and scorns kings upon their thrones, the being who has already exhausted the hollow idols of glory and fame, not having a temple to pray in, makes a fetich for himself in order to have a divinity to adore, so as not to be alone in his impiety, and to see, above his head when he arises, something that shall not be empty and vacant space. This man seeks a woman, takes all that he has, talent passion, youth, enthusiasm, all the wealth of his heart, and throws them at her feet like the mantle that Raleigh spread out before Elizabeth, and he says to this woman: ‘Walk, O my queen; trample under your blessed feet the heart of your adoring slave!’ This man is a fool, is he not? For when the queen has passed, what remains upon the mantle? Mud!”

Gerfaut accompanied these words with such a withering glance that the one for whom they were intended felt her blood freeze in her veins, and withdrew the hand her husband had kept till then in his; she soon arose and seated herself at the other side of the table, under the pretext of getting nearer the lamp to work, but in reality in order to withdraw from Christian’s vicinity. Clemence had expected her lover’s anger, but not his scorn; she had not strength to endure this torture, and the conjugal love which had, not without difficulty, inflamed her heart for the last few days, fell to ashes at the first breath of Octave’s indignation.

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil greeted the Vicomte’s words indulgently; for, from consummate pride, she separated herself from other women.

“So then,” said she, “you pretend that if to-day love is painted under false and vulgar colors, the fault is the model’s, not the artist’s.”

“You express my thought much better than I could have done it myself,” said Gerfaut, in an ironical tone; “where are the angels whose portraits are called for?”

“They are in our poetical dreams,” said Marillac, raising his eyes to the ceiling with an inspired air.

“Very well! tell us your dreams then, instead of copying a reality which it is impossible for you to render poetic, since you yourselves see it without illusions.”

Gerfaut smiled bitterly at this suggestion, artlessly uttered by the Baron.

“My dreams,” he replied, “I should tell them to you poorly indeed, for the first blessing of the awakening is forgetfulness, and to-day I am awake. However, I remember how I allowed myself to be once overcome by a dream that has now vanished, but still emits its luminous trail in my eyes. I thought I had discovered, under a beautiful and attractive appearance, the richest treasure that the earth can bestow upon the heart of man; I thought I had discovered a soul, that divine mystery, deep as the ocean, ardent as a flame, pure as air, glorious as heaven itself, infinite as space, immortal as eternity! It was another universe, where I should be king. With what ardent and holy love I attempted the conquest of this new world, but, less fortunate than Columbus, I met with shipwreck instead of triumph.”

Clemence, at this avowal of her lover’s defeat, threw him a glance of intense contradiction, then lowered her eyes, for she felt her face suffused with burning blushes.

When he entered his room that night, Gerfaut went straight to the window. He could see in the darkness the light which gleamed in Clemence’s room.

“She is alone,” said he to himself; “certainly heaven protects us, for in the state of exasperation I am in, I should have killed them both.”

CHAPTER XV

DECLARATION OF WAR

Far from rejoicing at this moment in the triumph he had just obtained, Gerfaut fell into one of those attacks of disenchantment, during which, urged on by some unknown demon, he unmercifully administered to himself his own dreaded sarcasm. Being unable to sleep, he arose and opened his window again, and remained with his elbows resting upon the sill for some