Serge Panine Part 6

He had a sort of presentiment that his reception would destroy his hopes. And the more he tried to banish these thoughts, the more forcibly they returned. The thought that Micheline had forgotten her promise made the blood rush to his face.

Madame Desvarennes's short letter suggested it. That his betrothed was lost to him he understood, but he would not admit it. How was it possible that Micheline should forget him? All his childhood pa.s.sed before his mind. He remembered the sweet and artless evidences of affection which the young girl had given him. And yet she no longer loved him! It was her own mother who said so. After that could he still hope?

A prey to this deep trouble, Pierre entered Paris. On finding himself face to face with Cayrol, the young man's first idea was, as Cayrol had guessed, to cry out, "What's going on? Is all lost to me?" A sort of anxious modesty kept back the words on his lips. He would not admit that he doubted. And, then, Cayrol would only have needed to answer that all was over, and that he could put on mourning for his love. He turned around, and went out.

The tumult of Paris surprised and stunned him. After spending a year in the peaceful solitudes of Africa, to find himself amid the cries of street-sellers, the rolling of carriages, and the incessant movement of the great city, was too great a contrast to him. Pierre was overcome by languor; his head seemed too heavy for his body to carry; he mechanically entered a cab which conveyed him to the Hotel du Louvre.

Through the window, against the gla.s.s of which he tried to cool his heated forehead, he saw pa.s.s in procession before his eyes, the Column of July, the church of St. Paul, the Hotel de Ville in ruins, and the colonnade of the Louvre.

An absurd idea took possession of him. He remembered that during the Commune he was nearly killed in the Rue Saint-Antoine by the explosion of a sh.e.l.l, thrown by the insurgents from the heights of Pere-Lachaise.

He thought that had he died then, Micheline would have wept for him.

Then, as in a nightmare, it seemed to him that this hypothesis was realized. He saw the church hung with black, he heard the funeral chants. A catafalque contained his coffin, and slowly his betrothed came, with a trembling hand, to throw holy water on the cloth which covered the bier. And a voice said within him:

"You are dead, since Micheline is about to marry another."

He made an effort to banish this importunate idea. He could not succeed.

Thoughts flew through his brain with fearful rapidity. He thought he was beginning to be seized with brain fever. And this dismal ceremony kept coming before him with the same chants, the same words repeated, and the same faces appearing. The houses seemed to fly before his vacant eyes.

To stop this nightmare he tried to count the gas-lamps: one, two, three, four, five--but the same thought interrupted his calculation:

"You are dead, since your betrothed is about to marry another."

He was afraid he was going mad. A sharp pain shot across his forehead just above the right eyebrow. In the old days he had felt the same pain when he had overworked himself in preparing for his examinations at the Polytechnic School. With a bitter smile he asked himself if one of the aching vessels in his brain was about to burst?

The sudden stoppage of the cab freed him from this torture. The hotel porter opened the door. Pierre stepped out mechanically. Without speaking a word he followed a waiter, who showed him to a room on the second floor. Left alone, he sat down. This room, with its commonplace furniture, chilled him. He saw in it a type of his future life: lonely and desolate. Formerly, when he used to come to Paris, he stayed with Madame Desvarennes, where he had the comforts of home, and every one looked on him affectionately.

Here, at the hotel, orders were obeyed with politeness at so much a day.

Would it always be thus in future?

This painful impression dissipated his weakness as by enchantment. He so bitterly regretted the sweets of the past, that he resolved to struggle to secure them for the future. He dressed himself quickly, and removed all the traces of his journey; then, his mind made up, he jumped into a cab, and drove to Madame Desvarennes's. All indecision had left him. His fears now seemed contemptible. He must defend himself. It was a question of his happiness.

At the Place de la Concorde a carriage pa.s.sed his cab. He recognized the livery of Madame Desvarennes's coachman and leant forward. The mistress did not see him. He was about to stop the cab and tell his driver to follow her carriage when a sudden thought decided him to go on. It was Micheline he wanted to see. His future destiny depended on her. Madame Desvarennes had made him clearly understand that by calling for his help in her fatal letter. He went on his way, and in a few minutes arrived at the mansion in the Rue Saint-Dominique.

Micheline and Jeanne were still in the garden, seated in the same place on the lawn. Cayrol had joined Serge. Both, profiting by the lovely morning, were enjoying the society of their beloved ones. A quick step on the gravel walk attracted their attention. In the sunlight a young man, whom neither Jeanne nor Micheline recognized, was advancing. When about two yards distant from the group he slowly raised his hat.

Seeing the constrained and astonished manner of the young girls, a sad smile played on his lips, then he said, softly:

"Am I then so changed that I must tell you my name?"

At these words Micheline jumped up, she became as white as her collar, and trembling, with sobs rising to her lips, stood silent and petrified before Pierre. She could not speak, but her eyes were eagerly fixed on the young man. It was he, the companion of her youth, so changed that she had not recognized him; worn by hard work, perhaps by anxieties, bronzed--and with his face hidden by a black beard which gave him a manly and energetic appearance. It was certainly he, with a thin red ribbon at his b.u.t.ton-hole, which he had not when he went away, and which showed the importance of the works he had executed and of great perils he had faced. Pierre, trembling and motionless, was silent; the sound of his voice choked with emotion had frightened him. He had expected a cold reception, but this scared look, which resembled terror, was beyond all he had pictured. Serge wondered and watched.

Jeanne broke the icy silence. She went up to Pierre, and presented her forehead.

"Well," she said, "don't you kiss your friends?"

She smiled affectionately on him. Two grateful tears sparkled in the young man's eyes, and fell on Mademoiselle de Cernay's hair. Micheline, led away by the example and without quite knowing what she was doing, found herself in Pierre's arms. The situation was becoming singularly perplexing to Serge. Cayrol, who had not lost his presence of mind, understood it, and turning toward the Prince, said:

"Monsieur Pierre Delarue: an old friend and companion of Mademoiselle Desvarennes's; almost a brother to her," thus explaining in one word all that could appear unusual in such a scene of tenderness.

Then, addressing Pierre, he simply added--"Prince Panine."

The two men looked at each other. Serge, with haughty curiosity; Pierre, with inexpressible rage. In a moment, he guessed that the tall, handsome man beside his betrothed was his rival. If looks could kill, the Prince would have fallen down dead. Panine did not deign to notice the hatred which glistened in the eyes of the newcomer. He turned toward Micheline with exquisite grace and said:

"Your mother receives her friends this evening, I think, Mademoiselle; I shall have the honor of paying my respects to her."

And taking leave of Jeanne with a smile, and of Pierre with a courteous bow, he left, accompanied by Cayrol.

Serge's departure was a relief to Micheline. Between these two men to whom she belonged, to the one by a promise, to the other by an avowal, she felt ashamed. Left alone with Pierre she recovered her self-possession, and felt full of pity for the poor fellow threatened with such cruel deception. She went tenderly to him, with her loving eyes of old, and pressed his hand:

"I am very glad to see you again, my dear Pierre; and my mother will be delighted. We were very anxious about you. You have not written to us for some months."

Pierre tried to joke: "The post does not leave very often in the desert.

I wrote whenever I had an opportunity."

"Is it so very pleasant in Africa that you could not tear yourself away a whole year?"

"I had to take another journey on the coast of Tripoli to finish my labors. I was interested in my work, and anxious not to lose the result of so much effort, and I think I have succeeded--at least in--the opinion of my employers," said the young man, with a ghastly smile.

"My dear Pierre, you come in time from the land of the sphinx,"

interrupted Jeanne gravely, and glancing intently at Micheline. "There is here, I a.s.sure you, a difficult enigma to solve."

"What is it?"

"That which is written in this heart," she replied, lightly touching her companion's breast.

"From childhood I have always read it as easily as a book," said Pierre, with tremulous voice, turning toward the amazed Micheline.

Mademoiselle de Cernay tossed her head.

"Who knows? Perhaps her disposition has changed during your absence;"

and nodding pleasantly, she went toward the house.

Pierre followed her for a moment with his eyes, then, turning toward his betrothed, said:

"Micheline, shall I tell you your secret? You no longer love me."

The young girl started. The attack was direct. She must at once give an explanation. She had often thought of what she would say when Pierre came back to her. The day had arrived unexpectedly. And the answers she had prepared had fled. The truth appeared harsh and cold. She understood that the change in her was treachery, of which Pierre was the innocent victim; and feeling herself to blame, she waited tremblingly the explosion of this loyal heart so cruelly wounded. She stammered, in tremulous accents:

"Pierre, my friend, my brother."

"Your brother!" cried the young man, bitterly. "Was that the name you were to give me on my return?"

At these words, which so completely summed up the situation, Micheline remained silent. Still she felt that at all hazards she must defend herself. Her mother might come in at any moment. Between Madame Desvarennes and her betrothed, what would become of her? The hour was decisive. Her strong love for Serge gave her fresh energy.

"Why did you go away?" she asked, with sadness.

Pierre raised with pride his head which had been bent with anguish.

"To be worthy of you," he merely said.