The Enemies of Women Part 44

As he walked about the anteroom before entering the gaming halls, he saw beside a column, a group of French officers, all of whom were convalescents. Denied the permission to go any further, because of their uniform, they were standing there, looking with a certain envy on the civilians. A few of them were standing erect, without any visible infirmity, with the sharp features of an eagle, aquiline nose, bold eyes, and wild mustache. Others, with youthful faces, were bent over like ailing men, leaning on canes, and wearing wrinkled uniforms much too large for their sunken chests. Each time they decided to move their legs they made a long pause as though to muster every bit of their will power available. Some of them had come to Monaco as incurables, after a long captivity in Germany. The rest came from hospitals on the firing line. On the faces of all of them was an expression of joyous bewilderment at finding themselves in this corner of the earth, that was like a Paradise, where people seemed to have forgotten the rest of the world, and women's eyes followed them with enigmatic glances, half amorous and half maternal!

One of the soldiers raised his hand to his cap to salute the Prince. The latter looked at the yellowish color of his _kepis_, then at his uniform which was of the same color, and at the multi-colored line of decorations. It was Martinez, the lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, who was saluting him with a certain timidity, but pleased at the same time that his comrades were seeing him on friendly terms with the famous personage, who was so much talked about on the Riviera.

Michael returned his greeting mechanically and went on. That moment remained fixed in his memory all his life. Age and the discretion that accompanies it seemed to fall from him like dry bark from a tree in springtime. He felt as though he were back in his youth. For a few moments he was the same Captain Lubimoff of the imperial Guards, who had trampled on obstacles and braved scandal when any one opposed his will.

He turned to look at the group of officers from a distance. That little insignificant Lieutenant, who looked like a bookkeeper, promoted by mobilization, was his enemy! It seemed as though he were seeing him for the first time. Lost among his companions he appeared even more insignificant than when he visited Villa Sirena.

Michael remained motionless, with his glance fixed on the group. "You are going to do something foolish," admonished a voice within him. And there pa.s.sed through his memory the image of stern Saldana, kindly and tolerant with the weak, like every one who is sure of his strength. He recalled one of his sayings which had never before crossed his mind: "A gentleman must be kind and never take unfair advantage of his strength."

He was sure that his father had said that to him when he was a child.

But immediately the duality of his inner being expressed itself through another voice which was stronger and more imperious, a woman's voice like that of the other counselor of his youth: "Spend; don't deny yourself anything, put yourself above everybody; always remember that you are a Lubimoff." And he saw the dead Princess, not the Mary Stuart with her theatrical mourning robes, but the dominating and still beautiful woman, the one who had overwhelmed her husband "the hero"

with her rage, and turned the Paris residence upside down.

Suddenly he found himself near the group of officers, and again his eyes met those of Martinez. The latter came toward him with a smile of interrogation. Michael realized that he had beckoned to the soldier, without being aware of what he was doing, through an impulse of will which seemed entirely detached from his reason.

"So much the worse! Let's get through with the business!"

With a certain haste, he took the young man toward the vestibule of the Casino as though anxious to avoid the presence of the groups who were filling the anteroom.

"Lieutenant, I have something to say to you.... I must ... ask a favor of you."

He stammered, not knowing how to express the command which he himself felt was absurd.

This vacillation, together with the trembling in his voice, finally irritated him.

They stopped beside the gla.s.s door at the entrance. Martinez was no longer smiling, as he gazed in amazement at the hard look and the pallor of the Prince.

"In a word," the latter said resolutely; "what I have to ask you is that you pay fewer visits at the house of the d.u.c.h.ess de Delille. If you should refrain entirely from going to see her, it would be even better."

And he paused, breathing with a certain freedom, after having expressed this demand.

An expression of amazement gradually took possession of Martinez' face.

He hesitated for a moment, with his eyes fixed on Lubimoff's. No, it was not a jest: the hostile look of this man who had always treated him with amiable indifference, the sharpness of his tone, and a certain trembling of his right hand, indicated that he had expressed his real thoughts, and that behind these thoughts lay enormous depths of hatred against him.

His surprise caused him to talk with timidity. He visited the d.u.c.h.ess because the lady asked him to come and see her every day. He had often felt his a.s.siduity might prove to be a nuisance, but every attempt he had made to break off his visits had been fruitless. He scarcely left her for a few hours but the good lady had him sent for. She was as kind to him as a mother. Suddenly his humble tone vanished. His eyes guessed in those of the man who had stopped him something that he himself had never imagined. The Lieutenant seemed transfigured, as though rising to the same level as the Prince. His eyes shone with the same wild splendor as the other man's; his body stiffened with the tension of a spring about to be released; his nostrils quivered nervously. The little clerk, with his timid bearing, recovered the air of gallant bravery of the fighting man. His voice sounded harsh, as he went on talking.

He would go wherever he was asked, wherever he felt like going, without recognizing the right of any man to interfere in his actions. The d.u.c.h.ess was the only one who could close her door to him. Why did the Prince interfere in that lady's affairs without consulting her first?

"I am related to her," said Michael, inwardly hesitating somewhat at making use of the relations.h.i.+p which he had often preferred to deny.

They both found themselves on the other side of the entry, on the platform above the steps of the Casino, in the open air, opposite the groves of the square and the groups of pa.s.sersby who were walking about the "Camembert." They were obliged to stand aside, in order not to disturb those who were entering and coming out.

"Besides," continued the Prince, "it is my duty to s.h.i.+eld her from gossip. I cannot permit that. Seeing you in there at all hours, they should suppose...."

He almost regretted these words on noticing the double effect that they had on the young man. First he became indignant. Had any one dared gossip about that great lady who had been such a saint in his eyes? But this protest was accompanied by a certain unconscious satisfaction, by childish pride, as though he were flattered, in spite of everything that his name should be connected in absurd conjecture with that of the d.u.c.h.ess. It seemed that Martinez had just been revealed to himself, giving substance and a name to the obscure sentiments that until then, in an embryonic stage, had pulsed unrecognized within him.

The jealous mind of the Prince guessed, with keen penetration, everything that the other man was thinking, and this added fuel to his wrath. What impudence in this little clerk to take up Alicia's defense?

What a conceited show he was making of his love for her!

"If any one takes the liberty of talking about the d.u.c.h.ess," said the Lieutenant, "if anybody dares to gossip because she does me the honor of receiving me in her home--the greatest honor in my life!--I will take it on my shoulders to punish whoever invents such a lie, no matter how high up he may be, no matter how powerful he may think himself to be!"

Lubimoff listened impatiently. Now it was Martinez daring to attack him.

Those last words had carried a threat for him.

Besides, the Prince felt irritated at his own clumsiness. His imprudent action had served merely to open this young man's eyes, and make him think of the possibilities of many things which he had never yet imagined, and which if he had imagined them, he would have cast aside immediately as foolish. And now no less than the Prince Lubimoff had elected to show this cheap Lieutenant that, in the opinion of gossips, such things were possible.

The tone in which the officer defended Alicia aroused his anger even more. He divined in it great pride, the vanity of a poor fellow who had known love adventures only in books, and who suddenly found himself in supposed relations with a d.u.c.h.ess, as the rival of a Prince. How glorious for an upstart!

"Boy ..." said Lubimoff, in a hard voice.

This simple word, which was the term in which waiters were addressed in the hotels, was followed by a haughty look of overwhelming superiority, which seemed to sweep away everything extraordinary which the war had given Martinez: his uniform, his decorations, and his glorious wounds.

For the Prince the officer no longer existed: there only remained the poor vagabond of a few years before, wandering from one hemisphere to another in quest of bread. "Boy," he repeated in a tone that brought back all the cla.s.s distinction and social gradations of dead centuries, so that the man whom he had accosted might realize the enormous separation between him and the man to whom he deigned to give advice----

"Boy, let's come to the point--. And if I were to order you not to return to that house? And if I demand that...?"

He was unable to finish the sentence. His threatening voice, harsh as a cry of command, roused the indignation of the man in uniform. To have faced death for three long years, among thousands of comrades who were now lying in the ground; to have learned to set little store on life, as something proved worthless at every moment on the battlefield; to have stripped himself forever, by dint of frightful adventures and awful wounds, of that fear which the instinct of self-preservation puts in all beings, only to the end that now, in a pleasure resort, at the door of the most luxurious of gambling houses, a man, rich and powerful, but who had never done anything useful in his whole life, should dare to threaten him!...

"You say that to me!" he said, stammering with rage. "You give orders to me!"

Michael felt a hand seize him by the lapel of his coat. It was like a bird, tremulous and aggressive, pausing for an instant in its blind impulse, before flying upward. He was aware of the blow that was coming, and raised his arm instinctively, both hands met as that of the young man whirled close to the face of the Prince. The latter, who was stronger, seized the ascending hand and held it motionless, in a firm grip, while at the same time he smiled in a gruesome fas.h.i.+on. His eyes contracted as his eyebrows arched in the smile. They became again the eyes of an Asiatic. His nostrils dilated as he breathed like a stallion.

The remote ancestors of the Princess Lubimoff must have smiled thus in their moments of anger.

"Enough: I consider that I have received it," he said slowly, "Name two friends to confer with mine!"

And freeing that hand of Martinez, he turned his back on him, after making a deep bow. The movements of both men had been rapid. Only one of the doorkeepers, with his official cap, standing guard on the platform above the steps, had guessed that anything had happened; but his professional experience advised him to remain pa.s.sive as long as there were no blows. He imagined that it was merely a dispute over some gambling affair. It would all be settled by an explanation, and forgotten after a winning! He had seen so many such things!

Prince Lubimoff reenters the Casino. He crosses the vestibule and the anteroom holding his head high, but without seeing any one, gazing straight ahead, with a faraway expression.

It seems to him that time has suddenly been reversed, causing him to return to the past with one bound. He is back in his youth. He walks arrogantly. He is surprised that the sound of his firm tread is not accompanied by the tinkling of spurs and the metallic sc.r.a.ping of a saber. At the same time he begins to see imaginary faces, faces of those who disappeared from the earth many years ago: the Cossack who had come from a distant garrison in Siberia to avenge his sister; a friend in the same regiment as the Prince, who died from a sword thrust in his breast after a tumultuous supper, while Lubimoff wept, suddenly awakening from his homicidal intoxication; the faces of others who had been present as mere witnesses, but who had died and were now resurrected in his memory, cold and insensible to remorse and vain regrets.

"The Colonel. Where in the devil is the Colonel!"

He crosses the gambling room, in quest of a gray head, with a straight part from the forehead to the back of the neck, dividing the glistening hair into two s.h.i.+ning sections. He sees it finally rising above the back of a divan, between two women's hats, four eyes darkly bordered as though in mourning, and cheeks with wrinkles filled with white and rose-colored enamel. A terse sentence of the Prince interrupts the explanations of the war news with which the Colonel had been thrilling the two ladies.

"Colonel, an affair of honor. I intend to fight to-morrow. Look for another second."

Toledo seems disconcerted by this order. His first thought flies to Villa Sirena. He sees his black frock coat, the solemn vestment of honor ready to leave its prison. Then a cloud of doubt obscures this joyous thought. A duel! Would it be fitting now that men are fighting in ma.s.ses of millions, giving their lives for something higher and more important than personal hatred? His training immediately smothers this scruple. "A gentleman should always be at the orders of another gentleman." Besides, it is his Prince. And ready to fulfill his mission, he asks the name of the adversary.

"Lieutenant Martinez."

Don Marcos thinks he had heard wrong; then he seems to totter and stands there looking at his "Highness" in a sort of stupor. Instinctively, without taking the pains to disentangle the confused thoughts that a.s.sail him, he sees in his imagination the d.u.c.h.ess de Delille. Why did the Prince ever give up his wise theories on the woman question! He recalls, like a happy past, the flouris.h.i.+ng days of the "enemies of women"! Only four months had gone by, and it seems as though they were centuries. A duel right in war time--and with an officer! And that officer is Martinez, his hero!

He shrugs his shoulders, bows his head, and makes a gesture denying all responsibility as he always does when his Prince, with a hard look on his face which reminds Toledo of the dead Princess in her stormy days, gives absurd orders.

"Shall I look for Don Atilio? He has had several affairs of honor; he knows what it means, and may be able to help me."

The Prince is willing. In the bar of the private gambling rooms, he will wait for them both to talk over the conditions of the encounter.

He remains motionless in a deep armchair, opposite a window gilded by the light of the setting sun, on which the threads of shadows, projected by the moving branches of the trees, weave and unweave. Suddenly it seems to him that he is obliged to wait an unreasonable length of time.

It occurs to him that Castro is not in the Casino and that Don Marcos is looking for him in vain. He scarcely remembers the past at all. The officer's figure is sunk into a gray mist which falls across his memory: it is no longer anything save a vague outline. The one thing that he can see, in sharp relief and as though looming close to his eyes, is a hand: a hand which is gripping his breast and rising toward his face, that no man ever yet had slapped. His indignation causes him to come out of his deep fit of distraction. To do that to him! Trying to slap Prince Lubimoff!