Gerfaut Part 15

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 a.s.sociating 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, das.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sionately 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 a.n.a.lyzing 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 Oth.e.l.lo--

"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 ill.u.s.trious 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 a.r.s.enic 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 G.o.d for us all!

You, for example, indulge in romantic love-affairs; you must have t.i.tled ladies. t.i.tles 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 inst.i.tutions."

"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 const.i.tutional 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 n.o.bility, 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 n.o.bly 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!"