The Serapion Brethren Volume Ii Part 22

"What obdurate sinner could have remained indifferent at the sight of Angela beaming in the fulness of her heavenly beauty, comforting her old father with sweet, delicious words, the deepest affection, and the most childlike purity and goodness streaming from the depths of her heart?

"Things were very different with the Chevalier. An entire pandemonium of torture and pangs of conscience awoke within him. Angela seemed to him to be the punis.h.i.+ng angel of G.o.d, before whose s.h.i.+ning glory the cloud-shroud of sinful deception which had surrounded him vanished away, so that with terror he clearly saw himself in all his repulsive nakedness.

"And through the midst of those h.e.l.l-flames, which were consuming and raging in his heart, there came piercing a heavenly, pure beam of radiance, whose light was the sweetest bliss and the very joy of heaven, though the brightness of this ray had the effect of rendering the inexpressible torture more terrible.

"The Chevalier had never known love before; and the instant he saw Angela he was seized by the most pa.s.sionate affection for her, and, at the same time, with the destroying pain of complete hopelessness, for surely there could be no hope for one who had appeared to her in the light in which he had.

"He longed to say something, but his tongue seemed to be paralysed. At length he so far mastered himself as to say, stammering, and in a trembling voice, 'Signor Vertua, listen. I have not won anything from you--nothing of the kind. There is my strong box; take it, it is yours.

Yes; and I have to pay you more than that. I am in your debt. Take it, take it!'

"'Oh, my girl!' cried Vertua. But Angela went up to the Chevalier, beamed a proud look upon him, and said, gravely and calmly, 'Learn, Chevalier, that there are higher things than money and possessions--things which you have no knowledge of--which, while filling our souls with the happiness of heaven, make us spurn your gifts with compa.s.sion and contempt. Keep the mammon upon which lies the curse which pursues you, heartless, accursed gambler.'

"'Yes!' cried the Chevalier wildly; 'cursed, cursed in verity may I be, if ever this hand of mine touches a card again. And if you repel me, Angela, it will be you who will bring inevitable destruction upon me.

Oh, you don't understand me. You must think me mad; but you will know it all when I lie before you with my skull s.h.i.+vered into fragments.

Angela, it is life or death with me. Adieu!'

"With this he dashed away in utter desperation. Vertua thoroughly understood him; he saw what had been pa.s.sing in his heart, and tried to make the lovely Angela comprehend how certain eventualities might arise which would render it necessary to accept the Chevalier's offers.

Angela was afraid to allow herself to understand her father; she did not think it would ever be possible to regard the Chevalier otherwise than with contempt; but that mysterious chain of events which often forms itself within the profundities of the human heart, without our cognisance, brought to pa.s.s that which seemed unimagined--undreamt of.

"The Chevalier felt as if suddenly awakened from a horrible dream. He saw himself standing on the brink of the abyss of h.e.l.l, stretching his arms out in vain to the s.h.i.+ning form of light which had appeared to him, not to save him, but to tell him of his d.a.m.nation.

"To the surprise of all Paris his banque opened no more, and he himself was no more seen, so that the most marvellous tales concerning him became current, each of them a greater falsehood than the others. He avoided all society; his love took the form of the profoundest, most unconquerable melancholy. One day he met old Vertua and his daughter in one of the lonely, shady walks of the garden at Malmaison.

"Angela, who had believed she would never be able to look upon the Chevalier again but with horror and contempt, felt strangely moved when she saw him so pale and distressed, scarce able to lift his eyes to her in the excess of his reverence for her. She knew that, since that eventful night, he had given play up entirely, and completely altered his mode of life, and that she--she alone--was the cause of this. She had saved him from destruction; could anything flatter a woman more?

"When old Vertua had exchanged the ordinary civilities with him, she spoke to him in a tone of gentle pity, saying, 'What is the matter, Chevalier? You look ill and unhappy. You ought to go and consult a doctor.'

"We can understand that her words filled him with comfort and hope. He was a different man in a moment. He lifted his head, and managed to talk once more in the manner which, when it welled from his very heart in former days, used to attract and endear him to all who knew him.

Vertua reminded him that he had not come to take possession of the house he had won.

"'Very well, I will come,' he answered, with an inspiration breaking upon him. 'I will come to-morrow; but we must discuss all the conditions at proper length and leisure, even if it should take months.'

"'So be it, Chevalier,' said Vertua, with a smile. 'Perhaps we may come to discuss matters which we do not quite see into at present.'

"The Chevalier, inwardly comforted, resumed all the charm of manner and all the delightful qualities which had distinguished him before he was carried away by his devouring pa.s.sion. His visits at Vertua's became more and more frequent, and Angela grew more and more disposed towards the man whose guardian angel she had been, till at last she believed she loved him with all her heart, and promised him her hand, to the great joy of old Vertua, who saw in this the settlement of his losses.

"One day Angela, now the happy betrothed of the Chevalier Menars, was sitting at a window, lost in all the sweet dreams and happy fancies which young ladies in her position are believed to be wont to entertain, when a regiment of Jaegers came marching along, with trumpets sounding bravely, on their way to join in the Spanish campaign. She was looking with pitiful sympathy at the men thus going to face death in this war, when a very young officer, who was reining his horse quickly to one side, looked up at her, and she fell back fainting in her seat.

"Alas! This young Jaeger, marching off to face death in the field, was no other than young Duvernet, the son of a neighbour, with whom she had grown up, who had been nearly daily in the house, and had only kept out of the way since the Chevalier had made his appearance. In the look of bitter reproach which the lad cast at her--and the bitterness of death itself was in it--she now, for the first time, read not only how unspeakably he loved her, but how boundlessly she loved him, without having been aware, whilst dazzled by the Chevalier's brilliance. Now.

for the first time, she understood Duvernet's anxious sighs?--his silent, una.s.suming, un.o.btrusive attentions; now, and now only, she read her own embarra.s.sed heart--what moved her disquiet breast when Duvernet came, when she heard his voice.

"'Too late! he is lost to me!' cried the voice in her heart. She had the resolution to beat down and conquer the hopeless pain which would have torn her heart; and just because she had this resolution she was successful.

"The Chevalier was too observant not to see that something had been occurring to disturb her; but, tenderly enough, he refrained from trying to unriddle a mystery which she thought herself bound to conceal from him. He contented himself, by way of clearing anything hostile out of the path, with hastening on the wedding. The arrangements connected with it he ordered with such admirable consideration and such delicate tact, that from his very care in this respect for her state of mind, she could not but form a higher opinion of his amiability than even before.

"His conduct to her was marked with such observance of the most trifling of her wishes, with the sincere courtesy which springs from the truest and purest affection, that the remembrance of Duvernet naturally faded more and more from her memory. So that the first cloud-shadow which fell upon the brightness of their life was the illness and death of old Vertua.

"Since the night when he had lost all he possessed to the Chevalier, he had never touched a card. But in the closing moments of his life all his faculties seemed to be engrossed with the game. Whilst the priest, who had come to administer the consolations of the Church to him on his departure from this life, spoke to him of spiritual things, he lay with closed eyes, murmuring between his teeth, '_Perd!_--_Gagne_,' and making, with hands quivering in the spasms of death, the motions of dealing and playing out cards. Angela and the Chevalier, bending over him, called him by the tenderest names. He did not seem to hear them, or to know they were there. With a faint sigh of '_Gagne!_' he gave up the ghost.

"In her deep sorrow, Angela could not help an eery shudder at the manner of his departure. The remembrance of that night, when she had first seen the Chevalier as the most hardened reprobate of a gambler, came vividly to her mind, and the thought came into her soul that he might some day throw off his angel's mask and, jeering at her in his pristine devilishness, begin his old life again.

"This fearful presentiment was to come but too true.

"Deeply shocked as the Chevalier was at the notion of old Francesco Vertua's having gone into the next world heedless of the consolations of the Church, and unable to leave off thinking of the former sinful life, still, somehow--he could not tell why--it brought the memory of the game back to his mind again, so that every night in his dreams he was presiding at the banque once more, heaping up fresh treasures.

"Since, Angela, impressed by the remembrance how her husband had appeared to her at first, found it impossible to maintain the trustful affection of her earlier wedded days, mistrust, at the same time, came into his soul of her, and he attributed her embarra.s.sment to that secret which at once disturbed her peace, and remained unrevealed to him. This suspicion produced in him misery and annoyance, which he expressed in utterances which pained Angela. By a natural psychical reflex action, the remembrance of the unfortunate Duvernet revived in her mind, and with it the miserable sense that the love which had blossomed forth in her young heart was lost and bidden adieu to for ever. The discord grew greater and greater, till it reached such a pitch that the Chevalier came to the conclusion that the life of retirement which he was leading was a complete mistake, and longed with all his heart to be out into the world again.

"In fact, his evil star began to get into the ascendant. And that which inward dissatisfaction commenced, was completed by a wicked fellow who had formerly been a croupier at his banque, and who, by various crafty speeches, brought matters to such a point that the Chevalier came to consider his present mode of existence childish and ridiculous, and could not comprehend how, for the sake of a woman, he should be abandoning a life which appeared to him the only one worth living.

"So very soon the Chevalier's banque, with its heaps of gold, was going on again more brilliantly than ever. His luck had not forsaken him; victim after victim fell a prey, and money was ama.s.sed. But Angela's happiness was a thing of the past--destroyed, in a terrible fas.h.i.+on, like a brief, bright dream. The Chevalier treated her with indifference--more than that, with contempt. Often she did not see him for weeks and months. An old house-steward looked after the household matters; the servants were changed according to the Chevalier's caprice; so that Angela, a stranger in her own home, found no comfort anywhere. Often, in sleepless nights, when she heard the Chevalier's carriage draw up at the door, the heavy money-chest brought up the stairs, and he himself come up, cursing and swearing in monosyllables, and shut the door of his distant room with a bang, a torrent of tears would burst from her eyes, and in the deepest, most heartbreaking tones of misery, she would call a hundred times on the name Duvernet, and implore the Eternal Power to make an end of her wretched existence.

"One night a young gentleman of good family, after losing all he possessed at the Chevalier's banque, sent a bullet through his head in the gaming-house--and indeed in the very room where the banque was established--so that the blood and brains besprinkled the players, who scattered out of the way in alarm. The only person unaffected by this was the Chevalier, who, when every one was about to leave the room, asked whether it was according to rule and custom to leave the game because a young fool had chosen to commit an absurdity, before the regular time for closing.

"This incident excited much comment. The most experienced, most hardened gamblers were indignant at the Chevalier's unexampled behaviour. Every one took part against him. The police ordered his banque to be closed. He was accused of unfair play; and his extraordinary luck spoke for the truth of this accusation. He was unable to clear himself, and the fine inflicted on him ran away with a considerable slice of his fortune. Finding himself robbed of his good name, and despised by all, he betook himself back to the arms of the wife whom he had ill-treated, who gladly welcomed him in his repentance. The recollection that her father, too, had renounced the miserable life of a gambler, allowed a gleam of hope to dawn upon her mind that perhaps, as the Chevalier was advancing somewhat in years, his alteration of life might be lasting.

"He left Paris with her, and they went to Genoa, her birth-place. Here, at first, he lived a sedate life; but it was impossible to re-establish the old, peaceful, domestic existence with Angola which his evil angel had destroyed. Very soon his inward restlessness and disquiet awoke and drove him out, away from his house, in unsettled restlessness. His ill-repute had followed him from Paris. He dared not establish a banque, though he felt impelled to do so with the most irresistible force.

"About this time a French Colonel, obliged, by serious wounds, to retire from active service, was keeping the most important banque in Genoa. The Chevalier went to this banque, with envy and deep hatred in his heart, expecting his usual luck to stand by him soon, so that he might be the ruin of this rival. The Colonel hailed the Chevalier with a merry humour (not at other times characteristic of him), saying that now, when the Chevalier de Menars had appeared in the field, the game was worth winning at last, since there was something in the nature of a real contest to give some interest to the issues.

"And, in fact, during the first few deals, the cards fell to the Chevalier with just his old luck. But when, trusting to his invincible fortune, he at last called out: 'Va, Banque!' he lost a very considerable sum of money at one stroke.

"The Colonel was, ordinarily, completely cool and impa.s.sive, whether lucky or unlucky; but, this time, he drew in his winnings with the liveliest marks of the utmost delight.

"From that moment luck turned away from the Chevalier, utterly and completely. He played every night, and lost every night, till he had nothing left but two or three thousand ducats, in paper.

"He had been on foot all day, converting this paper into cash, and only went home to his house late in the evening. When night was coming on, he was going out with his last gold coins in his pocket, when Angela came to him (suspecting the truth, no doubt), threw herself at his feet with a stream of tears, imploring him, by the Virgin and all the saints, to abandon his evil courses, and not leave her in need and poverty.

"The Chevalier raised her, pressed her, with painful fervour, to his heart, and said, in a hollow voice: 'Angela!--my sweet, beloved Angela!--there is no help for it. I must do it. I cannot help it. But to-morrow--to-morrow, all your cares will be over. For, by the Eternal Destiny which is above us, I swear that I play this night for the very last time. Do not distress yourself, my darling child. Go to sleep!

Dream of happy days!--of a better life which is coming speedily. That will bring me luck.'

"He kissed her, and ran off, not to be stopped.

"In two deals he had lost everything--all that he possessed. He remained standing motionless near the Colonel, staring, in a dazed manner, at the gaming table.

"'Won't you go on, Chevalier?' asked the Colonel, shuffling the cards for the next deal.

"'I have lost my all,' the Chevalier answered, powerfully constraining himself to be calm.

"'Do you mean to say you have nothing left?' the Colonel asked at the next deal.

"'I am a beggar,' the Chevalier cried, in a voice quivering with fury and pain, as he continued to stare at the gaming table. He did not notice that those who were staking were getting more and more the better of the banquier.

"The Colonel calmly continued the game.

"As he shuffled the cards for the third deal, he said to the Chevalier (without looking on him), 'You have a beautiful wife, you know!'

"'What do you mean?' cried the Chevalier angrily. The Colonel turned away a little without answering him.

"'Ten thousand ducats--or Angela!' he said, half averting his face, as the cards were being cut.