{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3346/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3346","id":"gutenberg_3346","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3346","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","France -- History -- Louis Philippe, 1830-1848 -- Fiction","Historical fiction","Inheritance and succession -- Fiction","Jesuits -- Fiction","Wandering Jew -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by David Widger and Pat Castevens\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE WANDERING JEW\n\nBy Eugene Sue\n\n\n\nBOOK VIII.\n\n\n\nPART THIRD.--THE REDEMPTION.\n\n\nI.        The Wandering Jew's Chastisement\nII.       The Descendants of the Wandering Jew\nIII.      The Attack\nIV.       The Wolves and the Devourers\nV.        The Return\nVI.       The Go-Between\nVII.      Another Secret\nVIII.     The Confession\nIX.       Love\nX.        The Execution\nXI.       The Champs-Elysees\nXII.      Behind the Scenes\nXIII.     Up with the Curtain\nXIV.      Death\n\n\n\nPART THIRD.--THE REDEMPTION.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE WANDERING JEW'S CHASTISEMENT.\n\n'Tis night--the moon is brightly shining, the brilliant stars are\nsparkling in a sky of melancholy calmness, the shrill whistlings of a\nnortherly wind--cold, bleak, and evil-bearing--are increasing: winding\nabout, and bursting into violent blasts, with their harsh and hissing\ngusts, they are sweeping the heights of Montmartre. A man is standing on\nthe very summit of the hill; his lengthened shadow, thrown out by the\nmoon's pale beams, darkens the rocky ground in the distance. The\ntraveller is surveying the huge city lying at his feet--the City of\nParis--from whose profundities are cast up its towers, cupolas, domes,\nand steeples, in the bluish moisture of the horizon; while from the very\ncentre of this sea of stones is rising a luminous vapor, reddening the\nstarry azure of the sky above. It is the distant light of a myriad lamps\nwhich at night, the season for pleasure, is illuminating the noisy\ncapital.\n\n\"No!\" said the traveller, \"it will not be. The Lord surely will not\nsuffer it. Twice is quite enough. Five centuries ago, the avenging hand\nof the Almighty drove me hither from the depths of Asia. A solitary\nwanderer, I left in my track more mourning, despair, disaster, and death,\nthan the innumerable armies of a hundred devastating conquerors could\nhave produced. I then entered this city, and it was decimated. Two\ncenturies ago that inexorable hand which led me through the world again\nconducted me here; and on that occasion, as on the previous one, that\nscourge, which at intervals the Almighty binds to my footsteps, ravaged\nthis city, attacking first my brethren, already wearied by wretchedness\nand toil. My brethren! through me--the laborer of Jerusalem, cursed by\nthe Lord, who in my person cursed the race of laborers--a race always\nsuffering, always disinherited, always slaves, who like me, go on, on,\non, without rest or intermission, without recompense, or hope; until at\nlength, women, men, children, and old men, die under their iron yoke of\nself-murder, that others in their turn then take up, borne from age to\nage on their willing but aching shoulders. And here again, for the third\ntime, in the course of five centuries, I have arrived at the summit of\none of the hills which overlooks the city; and perhaps I bring again with\nme terror, desolation, and death. And this unhappy city, intoxicated in a\nwhirl of joys, and nocturnal revelries, knows nothing about it--oh! it\nknows not that I am at its very gate. But no! no! my presence will not be\na source of fresh calamity to it. The Lord, in His unsearchable wisdom,\nhas brought me hither across France, making me avoid on my route all but\nthe humblest villages, so that no increase of the funeral knell has,\nmarked my journey. And then, moreover, the spectre has left me--that\nspectre, livid and green, with its deep bloodshot eyes. When I touched\nthe soil of France, its moist and icy hand abandoned mine--it\ndisappeared. And yet I feel the atmosphere of death surrounding me still.\nThere is no cessation; the biting gusts of this sinister wind, which\nenvelop me in their breath, seem by their envenomed breath to propagate\nthe scourge. Doubtless the anger of the Lord is appeased. Maybe, my\npresence here is meant only as a threat, intending to bring those to\ntheir senses whom it ought to intimidate. It must be so; for were it\notherwise, it would, on the contrary, strike a loud-sounding blow of\ngreater terror, casting at once dread and death into the very heart of\nthe country, into the bosom of this immense city. Oh, no! no! the Lord\nwill have mercy; He will not condemn me to this new affliction. Alas! in\nthis city my brethren are more numerous and more wretched than in any\nother. And must I bring death to them? No! the Lord will have mercy; for,\nalas! the seven descendants of my sister are at last all united in this\ncity. And must I bring death to them? Death! instead of that immediate\nassistance they stand so much in need of? For that woman who, like\nmyself, wanders from one end of the world into the other, has gone now on\nher everlasting journey, after having confounded their enemies' plots. In\nvain did she foretell that great evils still threatened those who are\nakin to me through my sister's blood. The unseen hand by which I am led,\ndrives that woman away from me, even as though it were a whirlwind that\nswept her on. In vain she entreated and implored at the moment she was\nleaving those who are so dear to me.--At least, 0 Lord, permit me to stay\nuntil I shall have finished my task! Onward! A few days, for mercy's\nsake, only a few days! Onward! I leave these whom I am protecting on the\nvery brink of an abyss! Onward! Onward!! And the wandering star is\nlaunched afresh on its perpetual course. But her voice traversed through\nspace, calling me to the assistance of my own! When her voice reached me\nI felt that the offspring of my sister were still exposed to fearful\ndangers: those dangers are still increasing. Oh, say, say, Lord! shall\nthe descendants of my sister escape those woes which for so many\ncenturies have oppressed my race? Wilt Thou pardon me in them? Wilt Thou\npunish me in them? Oh! lead them, that they may obey the last wishes of\ntheir ancestor. Guide them, that they may join their charitable hearts,\ntheir powerful strength, their best wisdom, and their immense wealth, and\nwork together for the future happiness of mankind, thereby, perhaps,\nenabled to ransom me from my eternal penalties. Let those divine words of\nthe Son of Man, 'Love ye one another!' be their only aim; and by the\nassistance of their all-powerful words, let them contend against and\nvanquish those false priests who have trampled on the precepts of love,\nof peace, and hope commanded by the Saviour, setting up in their stead\nthe precepts of hatred, violence, and despair. Those false shepherds,\nsupported ay the powerful and wealthy of the world, who in all times have\nbeen their accomplices, instead of asking here below a little happiness\nfor my brethren, who have been suffering and groaning for centuries, dare\nto utter, in Thy name, O Lord! that the poor must always be doomed to the\ntortures of this world, and that it is criminal in Thine eyes that they\nshould either wish for or hope a mitigation of their sufferings on earth,\nbecause the happiness of the few and the wretchedness of nearly all\nmankind is Thine almighty will. Blasphemies! is it not the contrary of\nthese homicidal words that is more worthy of the name of Divine will?\nHear, me, O Lord! for mercy's sake. Snatch from their enemies the\ndescendants of my sister, from the artisan up to the king's son. Do not\npermit them to crush the germ of a mighty and fruitful association,\nwhich, perhaps, under Thy protection, may take its place among the\nrecords of the happiness of mankind. Suffer me, O Lord! to unite those\nwhom they are endeavoring to divide--to defend those whom they are\nattacking. Suffer me to bring hope to those from whom hope has fled, to\ngive courage to those who are weak, to uphold those whom evil threatens,\nand to sustain those who would persevere in well-doing. And then,\nperhaps, their struggles, their devotedness, their virtues, this miseries\nmight expiate my sin. Yes, mine--misfortune, misfortune alone, made me\nunjust and wicked. O Lord! since Thine almighty hand hath brought me\nhither, for some end unknown to me, disarm Thyself, I implore Thee, of\nThine anger, and let not me be the instrument of Thy vengeance! There is\nenough of mourning in the earth these two years past--Thy creatures have\nfallen by millions in my footsteps. The world is decimated. A veil of\nmourning extends from one end of the globe to the other. I have traveled\nfrom Asia even to the Frozen Pole, and death has followed in my wake.\nDost Thou not hear, O Lord! the universal wailings that mount up to Thee?\nHave mercy upon all, and upon me. One day, grant me but a single day,\nthat I may collect the descendants of my sister together, and save them!\"\nAnd uttering these words, the wanderer fell upon his knees, and raised\nhis hands to heaven in a suppliant attitude.\n\nSuddenly, the wind howled with redoubled violence; its sharp whistlings\nchanged to a tempest. The Wanderer trembled, and exclaimed in a voice of\nterror, \"O Lord! the blast of death is howling in its rage. It appears as\nthough a whirlwind were lifting me up. Lord, wilt Thou not, then, hear my\nprayer? The spectre! O! do I behold the spectre? Yes, there it is; its\ncadaverous countenance is agitated by convulsive throes, its red eyes are\nrolling in their orbits. Begone! begone! Oh! its hand--its icy hand has\nseized on mine! Mercy, Lord, have mercy! 'Onward!' Oh, Lord! this\nscourge, this terrible avenging scourge! Must I, then, again carry it\ninto this city, must my poor wretched brethren be the first to fall under\nit--though already so miserable? Mercy, mercy! 'Onward!' And the\ndescendants of my sister--oh, pray, have mercy, mercy! 'Onward!' O Lord,\nhave pity on me! I can no longer keep my footing on the ground, the\nspectre is dragging me over the brow of the hill; my course is as rapid\nas the death-bearing wind that whistles in my track; I already approach\nthe walls of the city. Oh, mercy, Lord, mercy on the descendants of my\nsister--spare them! do not compel me to be their executioner, and let\nthem triumph over their enemies. Onward, onward! The ground is fleeing\nfrom under me; I am already at the city gate; oh, yet, Lord, yet there is\ntime; oh, have mercy on this slumbering city, that it may not even now\nawaken with the lamentations of terror, of despair and death! O Lord, I\ntouch the threshold of the gate; verily Thou willest it so then. 'Tis\ndone--Paris! the scourge is in thy bosom! oh, cursed, cursed evermore am\nI. Onward! on! on!\"[34]\n\n[34] In 1346, the celebrated Black Death ravaged the earth, presenting the\nsame symptoms as the cholera, and the same inexplicable phenomena as to\nits progress and the results in its route. In 1660 a similar epidemic\ndecimated the world. It is well known that when the cholera first broke\nout in Paris, it had taken a wide and unaccountable leap; and, also\nmemorable, a north-east wind prevailed during its utmost fierceness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE DESCENDANTS OF THE WANDERING JEW.\n\nThat lonely wayfarer whom we have heard so plaintively urging to be\nrelieved of his gigantic burden of misery, spoke of \"his sister's\ndescendants\" being of all ranks, from the working man to the king's son.\nThey were seven in number, who had, in the year 1832, been led to Paris,\ndirectly or indirectly, by a bronze medal which distinguished them from\nothers, bearing these words:-VICTIM of L. C. D. J. Pray for me!\n-----PARIS, February the 13th, 1682.\n\nIN PARIS, Rue St. Francois, No. 3, In a century and a half you will be.\nFebruary the 13th, 1832. -----PRAY FOR ME!\n\nThe son of the King of Mundi had lost his father and his domains in India\nby the irresistible march of the English, and was but in title Prince\nDjalma. Spite of attempts to make his departure from the East delayed\nuntil after the period when he could have obeyed his medal's command, he\nhad reached France by the second month of 1832. Nevertheless, the results\nof shipwreck had detained him from Paris till after that date. A second\npossessor of this token had remained unaware of its existence, only\ndiscovered by accident. But an enemy who sought to thwart the union of\nthese seven members, had shut her up in a mad-house, from which she was\nreleased only after that day. Not alone was she in imprisonment. An old\nBonapartist, General Simon, Marshal of France, and Duke de Ligny, had\nleft a wife in Russian exile, while he (unable to follow Napoleon to St.\nHelena) continued to fight the English in India by means of Prince\nDjalma's Sepoys, whom he drilled. On the latter's defeat, he had meant to\naccompany his young friend to Europe, induced the more by finding that\nthe latter's mother, a Frenchwoman, had left him such another bronze\nmedal as he knew his wife to have had.\n\nUnhappily, his wife had perished in Siberia, without his knowing it, any\nmore than he did, that she had left twin daughters, Rose and Blanche.\nFortunately for them, one who had served their father in the Grenadiers\nof the Guard. Francis Baudoin, nicknamed Dagobert, undertook to fulfil\nthe dying mother's wishes, inspired by the medal. Saving a check at\nLeipsic, where one Morok the lion-tamer's panther had escaped from its\ncage and killed Dagobert's horse, and a subsequent imprisonment (which\nthe Wandering Jew's succoring hand had terminated) the soldier and his\norphan charges had reached Paris in safety and in time. But there, a\nrenewal of the foe's attempt had gained its end. By skillful devices,\nDagobert and his son Agricola were drawn out of the way while Rose and\nBlanche Simon were decoyed into a nunnery, under the eyes of Dagobert's\nwife. But she had been bound against interfering by the influence of the\nJesuit confessional. The fourth was M. Hardy, a manufacturer, and the\nfifth, Jacques Rennepont, a drunken scamp of a workman, who were more\neasily fended off, the latter in a sponging house, the former by a\nfriend's lure. Adrienne de Cardoville, daughter of the Count of\nRennepont, who had also been Duke of Cardoville, was the lady who had\nbeen unwarrantably placed in the lunatic asylum. The fifth, unaware of\nthe medal, was Gabriel, a youth, who had been brought up, though a\nfoundling, in Dagobert's family, as a brother to Agricola. He had entered\nholy orders, and more, was a Jesuit, in name though not in heart. Unlike\nthe others, his return from abroad had been smoothed. He had signed away\nall his future prospects, for the benefit of the order of Loyola, and,\nmoreover, executed a more complete deed of transfer on the day, the 13th\nof February, 1832, when he, alone of the heirs, stood in the room of the\nhouse, No. 3, Rue St. Francois, claiming what was a vast surprise for the\nJesuits, who, a hundred and fifty years before, had discovered that Count\nMarius de Rennepont had secreted a considerable amount of his wealth, all\nof which had been confiscated to them, in those painful days of\ndragoonings, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They had\nbargained for some thirty or forty millions of francs to be theirs, by\neducating Gabriel into resigning his inheritance to them, but it was two\nhundred and twelve millions which the Jesuit representatives (Father\nd'Aigrigny and his secretary, Rodin) were amazed to hear their nursling\nplaced in possession of. They had the treasure in their hands, in fact,\nwhen a woman of strangely sad beauty had mysteriously entered the room\nwhere the will had been read, and laid a paper before the notary. It was\na codicil, duly drawn up and signed, deferring the carrying out of the\ntestament until the first day of June the same year. The Jesuits fled\nfrom the house, in rage and intense disappointment. Father d'Aigrigny was\nso stupor-stricken at the defeat, that he bade his secretary at once\nwrite off to Rome that the Rennepont inheritance had escaped them, and\nhopes to seize it again were utterly at an end. Upon this, Rodin had\nrevolted, and shown that he had authority to command where he had, so\nfar, most humbly obeyed. Many such spies hang about their superior's\nheels, with full powers to become the governor in turn, at a moment's\nnotice. Thenceforward, he, Rodin, had taken the business into his own\nhands. He had let Rose and Blanche Simon out of the convent into their\nfather's arms. He had gone in person to release Adrienne de Cardoville\nfrom the asylum. More, having led her to sigh for Prince Djalma, he\nprompted the latter to burn for her.\n\nHe let not M. Hardy escape. A friend whom the latter treated as a\nbrother, had been shown up to him as a mere spy of the Jesuits; the woman\nwhom he adored, a wedded woman, alas! who had loved him in spite of her\nvows, had been betrayed. Her mother had compelled her to hide her shame\nin America, and, as she had often said--\"Much as you are endeared to me,\nI cannot waver between you and my mother!\" so she had obeyed, without one\nfarewell word to him. Confess, Rodin was a more dextrous man than his\nlate master! In the pages that ensue farther proofs of his superiority in\nbaseness and satanic heartlessness will not be wanting.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE ATTACK.\n\nOn M. Hardy's learning from the confidential go-between of the lovers,\nthat his mistress had been taken away by her mother, he turned from Rodin\nand dashed away in a post carriage. At the same moment, as loud as the\nrattle of the wheels, there arose the shouts of a band of workmen and\nrioters, hired by the Jesuit's emissaries, coming to attack Hardy's\noperatives. An old grudge long existing between them and a rival\nmanufacturer's--Baron Tripeaud--laborers, fanned the flames. When M.\nHardy had left the factory, Rodin, who was not prepared for this sudden\ndeparture, returned slowly to his hackney-coach; but he stopped suddenly,\nand started with pleasure and surprise, when he saw, at some distance,\nMarshall Simon and his father advancing towards one of the wings of the\nCommon Dwelling-house; for an accidental circumstance had so far delayed\nthe interview of the father and son.\n\n\"Very well!\" said Rodin. \"Better and better! Now, only let my man have\nfound out and persuaded little Rose-Pompon!\"\n\nAnd Rodin hastened towards his hackney-coach. At this moment, the wind,\nwhich continued to rise, brought to the ear of the Jesuit the war song of\nthe approaching Wolves.\n\nThe workman was in the garden. The marshal said to him, in a voice of\nsuch deep emotion that the old man started; \"Father, I am very unhappy.\"\n\nA painful expression, until then concealed, suddenly darkened the\ncountenance of the marshal.\n\n\"You unhappy?\" cried father Simon, anxiously, as he pressed nearer to the\nmarshal.\n\n\"For some days, my daughters have appeared constrained in manner, and\nlost in thought. During the first moments of our re-union, they were mad\nwith joy and happiness. Suddenly, all has changed; they are becoming more\nand more sad. Yesterday, I detected tears in their eyes; then deeply\nmoved, I clasped them in my arms, and implored them to tell me the cause\nof their sorrow. Without answering, they threw themselves on my neck, and\ncovered my face with their tears.\"\n\n\"It is strange. To what do you attribute this alteration?\"\n\n\"Sometimes, I think I have not sufficiently concealed from them the grief\noccasioned me by the loss of their mother, and they are perhaps miserable\nthat they do not suffice for my happiness. And yet (inexplicable as it\nis) they seem not only to understand, but to share my sorrow. Yesterday,\nBlanche said to me: 'How much happier still should we be, if our mother\nwere with us!--'\"\n\n\"Sharing your sorrow, they cannot reproach you with it. There must be\nsome other cause for their grief.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the marshal, looking fixedly at his father; \"yes--but to\npenetrate this secret--it would be necessary not to leave them.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"First learn, father, what are the duties which would keep me here; then\nyou shall know those which may take me away from you, from my daughters,\nand from my other child.\"\n\n\"What other child?\"\n\n\"The son of my old friend, the Indian Prince.\"\n\n\"Djalma? Is there anything the matter with him?\"\n\n\"Father, he frightens me. I told you, father, of his mad and unhappy\npassion for Mdlle. de Cardoville.\"\n\n\"Does that frighten you, my son?\" said the old man, looking at the\nmarshal with surprise. \"Djalma is only eighteen, and, at that age, one\nlove drives away another.\"\n\n\"You have no idea of the ravages which the passion has already made in\nthe ardent, indomitable boy; sometimes, fits of savage ferocity follow\nthe most painful dejection. Yesterday, I came suddenly upon him; his eyes\nwere bloodshot, his features contracted with rage; yielding to an impulse\nof mad furry, he was piercing with his poinard a cushion of red cloth,\nwhilst he exclaimed, panting for breath, 'Ha blood!--I will have blood!'\n'Unhappy boy!' I said to him, 'what means this insane passion?' 'I'm\nkilling the man!' replied he, in a hollow and savage voice: it is thus he\ndesignates his supposed rival.\"\n\n\"There is indeed something terrible,\" said the old man, \"in such a\npassion, in such a heart.\"\n\n\"At other times,\" resumed the marshal, \"it is against Mdlle. de\nCardoville that his rage bursts forth; and at others, against himself. I\nhave been obliged to remove his weapons, for a man who came with him from\nJava, and who appears much attached to him, has informed me that he\nsuspected him of entertaining some thoughts of suicide.\"\n\n\"Unfortunate boy!\"\n\n\"Well, father,\" said Marshal Simon, with profound bitterness; \"it is at\nthe moment when my daughters and my adopted son require all my\nsolicitude, that I am perhaps on the eve of quitting them.\"\n\n\"Of quitting them?\"\n\n\"Yes, to fulfil a still more sacred duty than that imposed by friendship\nor family,\" said the marshal, in so grave and solemn a tone, that his\nfather exclaimed, with deep emotion: \"What can this duty be?\"\n\n\"Father,\" said the marshal, after remaining a moment in thoughtful\nsilence, \"who made me what I am? Who gave me the ducal title, and the\nmarshal's baton?\"\n\n\"Napoleon.\"\n\n\"For you, the stern republican, I know that he lost all his value, when\nfrom the first citizen of a Republic he became an emperor.\n\n\"I cursed his weakness,\" said Father Simon, sadly; \"the demi-god sank\ninto a man.\"\n\n\"But for me, father--for me, the soldier, who have always fought beside\nhim, or under his eye--for me, whom he raised from the lowest rank in the\narmy to the highest--for me, whom he loaded with benefits and marks of\naffection--for me, he was more than a hero, he was a friend--and there\nwas as much gratitude as admiration in my idolatry for him. When he was\nexiled, I would fain have shared his exile; they refused me that favor;\nthen I conspired, then I drew my sword against those who had robbed his\nson of the crown which France had given him.\"\n\n\"And, in your position, you did well, Pierre; without sharing your\nadmiration, I understood your gratitude. The projects of exile, the\nconspiracies--I approved them all--you know it.\"\n\n\"Well, then, that disinherited child, in whose name I conspired seventeen\nyears ago, is now of an age to wield his father's sword.\"\n\n\"Napoleon II!\" exclaimed the old man, looking at his son with surprise\nand extreme anxiety; \"the king of Rome!\"\n\n\"King? no; he is no longer king. Napoleon? no; he is no longer Napoleon.\nThey have given him some Austrian name, because the other frightened\nthem. Everything frightens them. Do you know what they are doing with the\nson of the Emperor?\" resumed the marshal, with painful excitement. \"They\nare torturing him--killing him by inches!\"\n\n\"Who told you this?\"\n\n\"Somebody who knows, whose words are but too true. Yes; the son of the\nEmperor struggles with all his strength against a premature death. With\nhis eyes turned towards France, he waits--he waits--and no one comes--no\none--out of all the men that his father made as great as they once were\nlittle, not one thinks of that crowned child, whom they are stifling,\ntill he dies.\"\n\n\"But you think of him?\"\n\n\"Yes; but I had first to learn--oh! there is no doubt of it, for I have\nnot derived all my information from the same source--I had first to learn\nthe cruel fate of this youth, to whom I also swore allegiance; for one\nday, as I have told you, the Emperor, proud and loving father as he was,\nshowed him to me in his cradle, and said: 'My old friend, you will be to\nthe son what you have been to the father; who loves us, loves our\nFrance.'\"\n\n\"Yes, I know it. Many times you have repeated those words to me, and,\nlike yourself, I have been moved by them.\"\n\n\"Well, father! suppose, informed of the sufferings of the son of the\nEmperor, I had seen--with the positive certainty that I was not\ndeceived--a letter from a person of high rank in the court of Vienna,\noffering to a man that was still faithful to the Emperor's memory, the\nmeans of communicating with the king of Rome, and perhaps of saving him\nfrom his tormentors--\"\n\n\"What next?\" said the workman, looking fixedly at his son. \"Suppose\nNapoleon II. once at liberty--\"\n\n\"What next?\" exclaimed the marshal. Then he added, in a suppressed voice:\n\"Do you think, father, that France is insensible to the humiliations she\nendures? Do you think that the memory of the Emperor is extinct? No, no;\nit is, above all, in the days of our country's degredation, that she\nwhispers that sacred name. How would it be, then, were that name to rise\nglorious on the frontier, reviving in his son? Do you not think that the\nheart of all France would beat for him?\"\n\n\"This implies a conspiracy--against the present government--with Napoleon\nII. for a watchword,\" said the workman. \"This is very serious.\"\n\n\"I told you, father, that I was very unhappy; judge if it be not so,\"\ncried the marshal. \"Not only I ask myself, if I ought to abandon my\nchildren and you, to run the risk of so daring an enterprise, but I ask\nmyself if I am not bound to the present government, which, in\nacknowledging my rank and title, if it bestowed no favor, at least did me\nan act of justice. How shall I decide?--abandon all that I love, or\nremain insensible to the tortures of Emperor--of that Emperor to the son\nof the whom I owe everything--to whom I have sworn fidelity, both to\nhimself and child? Shall I lose this only opportunity, perhaps, of saving\nhim, or shall I conspire in his favor? Tell me, if I exaggerate what I\nowe to the memory of the Emperor? Decide for me, father! During a whole\nsleepless night, I strove to discover, in the midst of this chaos, the\nline prescribed by honor; but I only wandered from indecision to\nindecision. You alone, father--you alone, I repeat, can direct me.\"\n\nAfter remaining for some moments in deep thought, the old man was about\nto answer, when some person, running across the little garden, opened the\ndoor hastily, and entered the room in which were the marshal and his\nfather. It was Olivier, the young workman, who had been able to effect\nhis escape from the village in which the Wolves had assembled.\n\n\"M. Simon! M. Simon!\" cried he, pale, and panting for breath. \"They are\nhere--close at hand. They have come to attack the factory.\"\n\n\"Who?\" cried the old man, rising hastily.\n\n\"The Wolves, quarrymen, and stone-cutters, joined on the road by a crowd\nof people from the neighborhood, and vagabonds from town. Do you not hear\nthem? They are shouting, 'Death to the Devourers!'\"\n\nThe clamor was indeed approaching, and grew more and more distinct.\n\n\"It is the same noise that I heard just now,\" said the marshal, rising in\nhis turn.\n\n\"There are more than two hundred of them, M. Simon,\" said Olivier; \"they\nare armed with clubs and stones, and unfortunately the greater part of\nour workmen are in Paris. We are not above forty here in all; the women\nand children are already flying to their chambers, screaming for terror.\nDo you not hear them?\"\n\nThe ceiling shook beneath the tread of many hasty feet.\n\n\"Will this attack be a serious one?\" said the marshal to his father, who\nappeared more and more dejected.\n\n\"Very serious,\" said the old man; \"there is nothing more fierce than\nthese combats between different unions; and everything has been done\nlately to excite the people of the neighborhood against the factory.\"\n\n\"If you are so inferior in number,\" said the marshal, \"you must begin by\nbarricading all the doors--and then--\"\n\nHe was unable to conclude. A burst of ferocious cries shook the windows\nof the room, and seemed so near and loud, that the marshal, his father,\nand the young workman, rushed out into the little garden, which was\nbounded on one side by a wall that separated it from the fields. Suddenly\nwhilst the shouts redoubled in violence, a shower of large stones,\nintended to break the windows of the house, smashed some of the panes on\nthe first story, struck against the wall, and fell into the garden, all\naround the marshal and his father. By a fatal chance, one of these large\nstones struck the old man on the head. He staggered, bent forward, and\nfell bleeding into the arms of Marshal Simon, just as arose from without,\nwith increased fury, the savage cries of, \"Death to the Devourers!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE WOLVES AND THE DEVOURERS.\n\nIt was a frightful thing to view the approach of the lawless crowd, whose\nfirst act of hostility had been so fatal to Marshal Simon's father. One\nwing of the Common Dwelling-house, which joined the garden-wall on that\nside, was next to the fields. It was there that the Wolves began their\nattack. The precipitation of their march, the halt they had made at two\npublic-houses on the road, their ardent impatience for the approaching\nstruggle, had inflamed these men to a high pitch of savage excitement.\nHaving discharged their first shower of stones, most of the assailants\nstooped down to look for more ammunition. Some of them, to do so with\ngreater ease, held their bludgeons between their teeth; others had placed\nthem against the wall; here and there, groups had formed tumultuously\nround the principal leaders of the band; the most neatly dressed of these\nmen wore frocks, with caps, whilst others were almost in rags, for, as we\nhave already said, many of the hangers-on at the barriers, and people\nwithout any profession, had joined the troop of the Wolves, whether\nwelcome or not. Some hideous women, with tattered garments, who always\nseem to follow in the track of such people, accompanied them on this\noccasion, and, by their cries and fury, inflamed still more the general\nexcitement. One of them, tall, robust, with purple complexion, blood shot\neyes, and toothless jaws, had a handkerchief over her head, from beneath\nwhich escaped her yellow, frowsy hair. Over her ragged gown, she wore an\nold plaid shawl, crossed over her bosom, and tied behind her back. This\nhag seemed possessed with a demon. She had tucked up her half-torn\nsleeves; in one hand she brandished a stick, in the other she grasped a\nhuge stone; her companions called her Ciboule (scullion).\n\nThis horrible hag exclaimed, in a hoarse voice: \"I'll bite the women of\nthe factory; I'll make them bleed.\"\n\nThe ferocious words were received with applause by her companions, and\nwith savage cries of \"Ciboule forever!\" which excited her to frenzy.\n\nAmongst the other leaders, was a small, dry pale man, with the face of a\nferret, and a black beard all round the chin; he wore a scarlet Greek\ncap, and beneath his long blouse, perfectly new, appeared a pair of neat\ncloth trousers, strapped over thin boots. This man was evidently of a\ndifferent condition of life from that of the other persons in the troop;\nit was he, in particular, who ascribed the most irritating and insulting\nlanguage to the workmen of the factory, with regard to the inhabitants of\nthe neighborhood. He howled a great deal, but he carried neither stick\nnor stone. A full-faced, fresh-colored man, with a formidable bass voice,\nlike a chorister's, asked him: \"Will you not have a shot at those impious\ndogs, who might bring down the Cholera on the country, as the curate told\nus?\"\n\n\"I will have a better shot than you,\" said the little man, with a\nsingular, sinister smile.\n\n\"And with what, I'd like to see?\"\n\n\"Probably, with this,\" said the little man, stooping to pick up a large\nstone; but, as he bent, a well-filled though light bag, which he appeared\nto carry under his blouse, fell to the ground.\n\n\"Look, you are losing both bag and baggage,\" said the other; \"it does not\nseem very heavy.\"\n\n\"They are samples of wool,\" answered the man with the ferret's face, as\nhe hastily picked up the bag, and replaced it under his blouse; then he\nadded: \"Attention! the big blaster is going to speak.\"\n\nAnd, in fact, he who exercised the most complete ascendency over this\nirritated crowd was the terrible quarryman. His gigantic form towered so\nmuch above the multitude, that his great head, bound in its ragged\nhandkerchief, and his Herculean shoulders, covered with a fallow goat\nskin, were always visible above the level of that dark and swarming\ncrowd, only relieved here and there by a few women's caps, like so many\nwhite points. Seeing to what a degree of exasperation the minds of the\ncrowd had reached, the small number of honest, but misguided workmen, who\nhad allowed themselves to be drawn into this dangerous enterprise, under\nthe pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, now fearing for the\nconsequences of the struggle, tried, but too late, to abandon the main\nbody. Pressed close, and as it were, girt in with the more hostile\ngroups, dreading to pass for cowards, or to expose themselves to the bad\ntreatment of the majority, they were forced to wait for a more favorable\nmoment to effect their escape. To the savage cheers, which had\naccompanied the first discharge of stones, succeeded a deep silence\ncommanded by the stentorian voice of the quarryman.\n\n\"The Wolves have howled,\" he exclaimed; \"let us wait and see how the\nDevourers will answer, and when they will begin the fight.\"\n\n\"We must draw them out of their factory, and fight them on neutral\nground,\" said the little man with the ferret's face, who appeared to be\nthe thieves' advocate; \"otherwise there would be trespass.\"\n\n\"What do we care about trespass?\" cried the horrible hag, Ciboule; \"in or\nout, I will tear the chits of the factory.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" cried other hideous creatures, as ragged as Ciboule herself;\n\"we must not leave all to the men.\"\n\n\"We must have our fun, too!\"\n\n\"The women of the factory say that all the women of the neighborhood are\ndrunken drabs,\" cried the little man with the ferret's face.\n\n\"Good! we'll pay them for it.\"\n\n\"The women shall have their share.\"\n\n\"That's our business.\"\n\n\"They like to sing in their Common House,\" cried Ciboule; \"we will make\nthem sing the wrong side of their mouths, in the key of 'Oh, dear me!'\"\n\nThis pleasantry was received with shouts, hootings, and furious stamping\nof feet, to which the stentorian voice of the quarryman put a term by\nroaring: \"Silence!\"\n\n\"Silence! silence!\" repeated the crowd. \"Hear the blaster!\"\n\n\"If the Devourers are cowards enough not to dare to show themselves,\nafter a second volley of stones, there is a door down there which we can\nbreak open, and we will soon hunt them from their holes.\"\n\n\"It would be better to draw them out, so that none might remain in the\nfactory,\" said the little old man with the ferret's face, who appeared to\nhave some secret motive.\n\n\"A man fights where he can,\" cried the quarryman, in a voice of thunder;\n\"all, right, if we can but once catch hold. We could fight on a sloping\nroof, or on the top of a wall--couldn't we, my Wolves?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" cried the crowd, still more excited by those savage words;\n\"if they don't come out, we will break in.\"\n\n\"We will see their fine palace!\"\n\n\"The pagans haven't even a chapel,\" said the bass voice. \"The curate has\ndamned them all!\"\n\n\"Why should they have a palace, and we nothing but dog-kennels?\"\n\n\"Hardy's workmen say that kennels are good enough for such as you.\" said\nthe little man with the ferret's face.\n\n\"Yes, yes! they said so.\"\n\n\"We'll break all their traps.\"\n\n\"We'll pull down their bazaar.\"\n\n\"We'll throw the house out of the windows.\"\n\n\"When we have made the mealy-mouthed chits sing,\" cried Ciboule, \"we will\nmake them dance to the clatter of stones on their heads.\"\n\n\"Come, my Wolves! attention!\" cried the quarryman, still in the same\nstentorian voice; \"one more volley, and if the Devourers do not come out,\ndown with the door!\"\n\nThis proposition was received with cheers of savage ardor, and the\nquarryman, whose voice rose above the tumult, cried with all the strength\nof his herculean lungs: \"Attention, my Wolves. Make ready! all together.\nNow, are you ready?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes--all ready!\"\n\n\"Then, present!--fire!\" And, for the second time, a shower of enormous\nstones poured upon that side of the Common Dwelling-house which was\nturned towards the fields. A part of these projectiles broke such of the\nwindows as had been spared by the first volley. To the sharp smashing and\ncracking of glass were joined the ferocious cries uttered in chorus by\nthis formidable mob, drunk with its own excesses: \"Death to the\nDevourers!\"\n\nSoon these outcries became perfectly frantic, when, through the broken\nwindows, the assailants perceived women running in terror, some with\nchildren in their arms, and others raising their hands to heaven, calling\naloud for help; whilst a few, bolder than the rest, leaned out of the\nwindows, and tried to fasten the outside blinds.\n\n\"There come the ants out of their holes!\" cried Ciboule, stooping to pick\nup a stone. \"We must have a fling at them for luck!\" The stone, hurled by\nthe steady, masculine hand of the virago, went straight to its mark, and\nstruck an unfortunate woman who was trying to close one of the shutters.\n\n\"Hit in the white!\" cried the hideous creature.\n\n\"Well done, Ciboule!--you've rapped her coker-nut!\" cried a voice.\n\n\"Ciboule forever!\"\n\n\"Come out, you Devourers, if you dare!\"\n\n\"They have said a hundred times, that the neighbors were too cowardly\neven to come and look at their house,\" squealed the little man with the\nferret's face.\n\n\"And now they show the white feather!\"\n\n\"If they will not come out,\" cried the quarryman, in voice of thunder,\n\"let us smoke them out!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\"\n\n\"Let's break open the door!\"\n\n\"We are sure to find them!\"\n\n\"Come on! come on!\"\n\nThe crowd, with the quarryman at their head, and Ciboule not far from\nhim, brandishing a stick, advanced tumultously towards one of the great\ndoors. The ground shook beneath the rapid tread of the mob, which had now\nceased shouting; but the confused, and, as it were, subterraneous noise,\nsounded even more ominous than those savage outcries. The Wolves soon\narrived opposite the massive oaken door. At the moment the blaster raised\na sledgehammer, the door opened suddenly. Some of the most determined of\nthe assailants were about to rush in at this entrance; but the quarryman\nstepped back, extending his arm as if to moderate their ardor and impose\nsilence. Then his followers gathered round him.\n\nThe half-open door discovered a party of workmen, unfortunately by no\nmeans numerous, but with countenances full of resolution. They had armed\nthemselves hastily with forks, iron bars, and clubs. Agricola, who was\ntheir leader, held in his hand a heavy sledge-hammer. The young workman\nwas very pale; but the fire of his eye, his menacing look, and the\nintrepid assurance of his bearing, showed that his father's blood boiled\nin his veins, and that in such a struggle he might become fear-inspiring.\nYet he succeeded in restraining himself, and challenged the quarryman, in\na firm voice: \"What do you want?\"\n\n\"A fight!\" thundered the blaster.\n\n\"Yes, yes! a fight!\" repeated the crowd.\n\n\"Silence, my Wolves!\" cried the quarryman, as he turned round, and\nstretched forth his large hand towards the multitude. Then addressing\nAgricola, he said: \"The Wolves have come to ask for a fight.\"\n\n\"With whom?\"\n\n\"With the Devourers.\"\n\n\"There are no Devourers here,\" replied Agricola; \"we are only peaceable\nworkmen. So begone.\"\n\n\"Well! here are the Wolves, that will eat your quiet workmen.\"\n\n\"The Wolves will eat no one here,\" said Agricola, looking full at the\nquarryman, who approached him with a threatening air; \"they can only\nfrighten little children.\"\n\n\"Oh! you think so,\" said the quarryman, with a savage sneer. Then raising\nhis weapon, he shook it in Agricola's face, exclaiming: \"Is that any\nlaughing matter?\n\n\"Is that?\" answered Agricola, with a rapid movement, parrying the stone\nsledge with his own hammer.\n\n\"Iron against iron--hammer against hammer--that suits me,\" said the\nquarryman.\n\n\"It does not matter what suits you,\" answered Agricola, hardly able to\nrestrain himself. \"You have broken our windows, frightened our women, and\nwounded--perhaps killed--the oldest workman in the factory, who at this\nmoment lies bleeding in the arms of his son.\" Here Agricola's voice\ntrembled in spite of himself. \"It is, I think, enough.\"\n\n\"No; the Wolves are hungry for more,\" answered the blaster; \"you must\ncome out (cowards that you are!), and fight us on the plain.\"\n\n\"Yes! yes! battle!--let them come out!\" cried the crowd, howling,\nhissing, waving their sticks and pushing further into the small space\nwhich separated them from the door.\n\n\"We will have no battle,\" answered Agricola: \"we will not leave our home;\nbut if you have the misfortune to pass this,\" said Agricola, throwing his\ncap upon the threshold, and setting his foot on it with an intrepid air,\n\"if you pass this, you attack us in our own house, and you will be\nanswerable for all that may happen.\"\n\n\"There or elsewhere we will have the fight! the Wolves must eat the\nDevourers. Now for the attack!\" cried the fierce quarryman, raising his\nhammer to strike Agricola.\n\nBut the latter, throwing himself on one side by a sudden leap, avoided\nthe blow, and struck with his hammer full at the chest of the quarryman,\nwho staggered for a moment, but instantly recovering his legs, rushed\nfuriously on Agricola, crying: \"Follow me, Wolves!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE RETURN.\n\nAs soon as the combat had begun between Agricola and the blaster, the\ngeneral fight became terrible, ardent, implacable. A flood of assailants,\nfollowing the quarryman's steps, rushed into the house with irresistible\nfury; others, unable to force their way through this dreadful crowd,\nwhere the more impetuous squeezed, stifled, and crushed these who were\nless so, went round in another direction, broke through some lattice\nwork, and thus placed the people of the factory, as it were, between two\nfires. Some resisted courageously; others, seeing Ciboule, followed by\nsome of her horrible companions, and by several of the most ill-looking\nruffians, hastily enter that part of the Common-Dwelling house in which\nthe women had taken refuge, hurried in pursuit of this band; but some of\nthe hag's companions, having faced about, and vigorously defended the\nentrance of the staircase against the workmen, Ciboule, with three or\nfour like herself, and about the same number of no less ignoble men,\nrushed through the rooms, with the intention of robbing or destroying all\nthat came in their way. A door, which at first resisted their efforts,\nwas soon broken through; Ciboule rushed into the apartment with a stick\nin her hand, her hair dishevelled, furious, and, as it were, maddened\nwith the noise and tumult. A beautiful young girl (it was Angela), who\nappeared anxious to defend the entrance to a second chamber, threw\nherself on her knees, pale and supplicating, and raising her clasped\nhands, exclaimed: \"Do not hurt my mother!\"\n\n\"I'll serve you out first, and your mother afterwards,\" replied the\nhorrible woman, throwing herself on the poor girl, and endeavoring to\ntear her face with her nails, whilst the rest of the ruffianly band broke\nthe glass and the clock with their sticks, and possessed themselves of\nsome articles of wearing apparel.\n\nAngela, struggling with Ciboule, uttered loud cries of distress, and\nstill attempted to guard the room in which her mother had taken refuge;\nwhilst the latter, leaning from the window, called Agricola to their\nassistance. The smith was now engaged with the huge blaster. In a close\nstruggle, their hammers had become useless, and with bloodshot eyes and\nclinched teeth, chest to chest, and limbs twined together like two\nserpents, they made the most violent efforts to overthrow each other.\nAgricola, bent forward, held under his right arm the left leg of the\nquarryman, which he had seized in parrying a violent kick; but such was\nthe Herculean strength of the leader of the Wolves, that he remained firm\nas a tower, though resting only on one leg. With the hand that was still\nfree (for the other was gripped by Agricola as in a vise), he endeavored\nwith violent blows to break the jaws of the smith, who, leaning his head\nforward, pressed his forehead hard against the breast of his adversary.\n\n\"The Wolf will break the Devourer's teeth, and he shall devour no more,\"\nsaid the quarryman.\n\n\"You are no true Wolf,\" answered the smith, redoubling his efforts; \"the\ntrue Wolves are honest fellows, and do not come ten against one.\"\n\n\"True or false, I will break your teeth.\"\n\n\"And I your paw,\" said the smith, giving so violent a wrench to the leg\nof the quarryman, that the latter uttered a cry of acute pain, and, with\nthe rage of a wild beast, butting suddenly forward with his head,\nsucceeded in biting Agricola in the side of the neck.\n\nThe pang of this bite forced Agricola to make a movement, which enabled\nthe quarryman to disengage his leg. Then, with a superhuman effort, he\nthrew himself with his whole weight on Agricola, and brought him to the\nground, falling himself upon him.\n\nAt this juncture, Angela's mother, leaning from one of the windows of the\nCommon Dwelling-house, exclaimed in a heart-rending voice: \"Help,\nAgricola!--they are killing my child!\"\n\n\"Let me go--and on, my honor--I will fight you tomorrow, or when you\nwill,\" said Agricola, panting for breath.\n\n\"No warmed-up food for me; I eat all hot,\" answered the quarryman,\nseizing the smith by the throat, whilst he tried to place one of his\nknees upon his chest.\n\n\"Help!--they are killing my child!\" cried Angela's mother, in a voice of\ndespair.\n\n\"Mercy! I ask mercy! Let me go!\"' said Agricola, making the most violent\nefforts to escape.\n\n\"I am too hungry,\" answered the quarryman.\n\nExasperated by the terror which Angela's danger occasioned him, Agricola\nredoubled his efforts, when the quarryman suddenly felt his thigh seized\nby the sharp teeth of a dog, and at the same instant received from a\nvigorous hand three or four heavy blows with a stick upon his head. He\nrelaxed his grasp, and fell stunned upon his hand and knee, whilst he\nmechanically raised his other arm to parry the blows, which ceased as\nsoon as Agricola was delivered.\n\n\"Father, you have saved me!\" cried the smith, springing up. \"If only I am\nin time to rescue Angela!\"\n\n\"Run!--never mind me!\" answered Dagobert; and Agricola rushed into the\nhouse.\n\nDogabert, accompanied by Spoil-sport, had come, as we have already said,\nto bring Marshal Simon's daughters to their grandfather. Arriving in the\nmidst of the tumult, the soldier had collected a few workmen to defend\nthe entrance of the chamber, to which the marshal's father had been\ncarried in a dying state. It was from this post that the soldier had seen\nAgricola's danger. Soon after, the rush of the conflict separated\nDagobert from the quarryman, who remained for some moments insensible.\nArrived in two bounds at the Common Dwelling-house, Agricola succeeded in\nforcing his way through the men who defended the staircase, and rushed\ninto the corridor that led to Angela's chamber. At the moment he reached\nit, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face with both\nhands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, was\ntrying to scratch and disfigure her.\n\nTo spring upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair with\nirresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretch\nher full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievement as rapid\nas thought. Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almost instantly; but\nat this moment, several workmen, who had followed close upon Agricola,\nwere able to attack with advantage, and whilst the smith lifted the\nfainting form of Angela, and carried her into the next room, Ciboule and\nher band were driven from that part of the house.\n\nAfter the first fire of the assault, the small number of real Wolves,\nwho, as Agricola said, were in the main honest fellows, but had the\nweakness to let themselves be drawn into this enterprise, under the\npretext of a quarrel between rival unions, seeing the excesses committed\nby the rabble who accompanied them, turned suddenly round, and ranged\nthemselves on the side of the Devourers.\n\n\"There are no longer here either Wolves or Devourers,\" said one of the\nmost determined Wolves to Olivier, with whom he had been fighting roughly\nand fairly; \"there are none here but honest workmen, who must unite to\ndrive out a set of scoundrels, that have come only to break and pillage.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" added another; \"it was against our will that they began by\nbreaking your windows.\"\n\n\"The big blaster did it all,\" said another; \"the true Wolves wash their\nhands of him. We shall soon settle his account.\"\n\n\"We may fight every day--but we ought to esteem each other.\"[35]\n\nThis defection of a portion of the assailants (unfortunately but a small\nportion) gave new spirit to the workmen of the factory, and all together,\nWolves and Devourers, though very inferior in number, opposed themselves\nto the band of vagabonds, who were proceeding to new excesses. Some of\nthese wretches, still further excited by the little man with the ferret's\nface, a secret emissary of Baron Tripeaud, now rushed in a mass towards\nthe workshops of M. Hardy. Then began a lamentable devastation. These\npeople, seized with the mania of destruction, broke without remorse\nmachines of the greatest value, and most delicate construction; half\nmanufactured articles were pitilessly destroyed; a savage emulation\nseemed to inspire these barbarians, and those workshops, so lately the\nmodel of order and well-regulated economy, were soon nothing but a wreck;\nthe courts were strewed with fragments of all kinds of wares, which were\nthrown from the windows with ferocious outcries, or savage bursts of\nlaughter. Then, still thanks to the incitements of the little man with\nthe ferret's face, the books of M. Hardy, archives of commercial\nindustry, so indispensable to the trader, were scattered to the wind,\ntorn, trampled under foot, in a sort of infernal dance, composed of all\nthat was most impure in this assembly of low, filthy, and ragged men and\nwomen, who held each other by the hand, and whirled round and round with\nhorrible clamor. Strange and painful contrasts! At the height of the\nstunning noise of these horrid deeds of tumult and devastation, a scene\nof imposing and mournful calm was taking place in the chamber of Marshal\nSimon's father, the door of which was guarded by a few devoted men. The\nold workman was stretched on his bed, with a bandage across his blood\nstained white hair. His countenance was livid, his breathing oppressed,\nhis look fixed and glazed.\n\nMarshal Simon, standing at the head of the bed, bending over his father,\nwatched in despairing anguish the least sign of consciousness on the part\nof the dying man, near whom was a physician, with his finger on the\nfailing pulse. Rose and Blanche, brought hither by Dagobert, were\nkneeling beside the bed, their hands clasped, and their eyes bathed in\ntears; a little further, half hidden in the shadows of the room, for the\nhours had passed quickly, and the night was at hand, stood Dagobert\nhimself, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and his features\npainfully contracted. A profound and solemn silence reigned in this\nchamber, only interrupted by the broken sobs of Rose and Blanche, or by\nFather Simon's hard breathing. The eyes of the marshal were dry, gloomy,\nand full of fire. He only withdrew them from his father's face, to\ninterrogate the physician by a look. There are strange coincidences in\nlife. That physician was Dr. Baleinier. The asylum of the doctor being\nclose to the barrier that was nearest to the factory, and his fame being\nwidely spread in the neighborhood, they had run to fetch him on the first\ncall for medical assistance.\n\nSuddenly, Dr. Baleinier made a movement; the marshal, who had not taken\nhis eyes off him, exclaimed: \"Is there any hope?\"\n\n\"At least, my lord duke, the pulse revives a little.\"\n\n\"He is saved!\" said the marshal.\n\n\"Do not cherish false hopes, my lord duke,\" answered the doctor, gravely:\n\"the pulse revives, owing to the powerful applications to the feet, but I\nknow not what will be the issue of the crisis.\"\n\n\"Father! father! do you hear me?\" cried the marshal, seeing the old man\nslightly move his head, and feebly raise his eyelids. He soon opened his\neyes, and this time their intelligence had returned.\n\n\"Father! you live--you know me!\" cried the marshal, giddy with joy and\nhope.\n\n\"Pierre! are you there?\" said the old man, in a weak voice. \"Your\nhand--give--it--\" and he made a feeble movement.\n\n\"Here, father!\" cried the marshal, as he pressed the hands of the old man\nin his own.\n\nThen, yielding to an impulse of delight, he bent over his father, covered\nhis hands, face, and hair with kisses, and repeated: \"He lives! kind\nheaven, he lives! he is saved!\"\n\nAt this instant, the noise of the struggle which had recommenced between\nthe rabble, the Wolves, and the Devourers, reached the ears of the dying\nman.\n\n\"That noise! that noise!\" said he: \"they are fighting.\"\n\n\"It is growing less, I think,\" said the marshal, in order not to agitate\nhis father.\n\n\"Pierre,\" said the old man, in a weak and broken voice, \"I have not long\nto live.\"\n\n\"Father--\"\n\n\"Let me speak, child; if I can but tell you all.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said Baleinier piously to the old workman, \"heaven may perhaps\nwork a miracle in your favor; show yourself grateful, and allow a\npriest--\"\n\n\"A priest! Thank you, sir--I have my son,\" said the old man; \"in his\narms, I will render up my soul--which has always been true and honest.\"\n\n\"You die?\" exclaimed the marshal; \"no! no!\"\n\n\"Pierre,\" said the old man, in a voice which, firm at first, gradually\ngrew fainter, \"just now--you ask my advice in a very serious matter. I\nthink, that the wish to tell you of your duty--has recalled me--for a\nmoment--to life--for I should die miserable--if I thought you in a road\nunworthy of yourself and me. Listen to me, my son--my noble son--at this\nlast hour, a father cannot deceive himself. You have a great duty to\nperform---under pain--of not acting like a man of honor--under pain of\nneglecting my last will. You ought, without hesitation--\"\n\nHere the voice failed the old man. When he had pronounced the last\nsentence, he became quite unintelligible. The only words that Marshal\nSimon could distinguish, were these: \"Napoleon II.--oath--dishonor--my\nson!\"\n\nThen the old workman again moved his lips mechanically--and all was over.\nAt the moment he expired, the night was quite come, and terrible shouts\nwere heard from without, of \"Fire! Fire!\" The conflagration had broken\nout in one of the workshops, filled with inflammable stuff, into which\nhad glided the little man with the ferret's face. At the same time, the\nroll of drums was heard in the distance, announcing the arrival of a\ndetachment of troops from town.\n\nDuring an hour, in spite of every effort, the fire had been spreading\nthrough the factory. The night is clear, cold, starlight; the wind blows\nkeenly from the north, with a moaning sound. A man, walking across the\nfields, where the rising ground conceals the fire from him, advances with\nslow and unsteady steps. It is M. Hardy. He had chosen to return home on\nfoot, across the country, hoping that a walk would calm the fever in his\nblood--an icy fever, more like the chill of death. He had not been\ndeceived. His adored mistress--the noble woman, with whom he might have\nfound refuge from the consequences of the fearful deception which had\njust been revealed to him--had quitted France. He could have no doubt of\nit. Margaret was gone to America. Her mother had exacted from her, in\nexpiation of her fault, that she should not even write to him one word of\nfarewell--to him, for whom she had sacrificed her duty as a wife.\nMargaret had obeyed.\n\nBesides, she had often said to him: \"Between my mother and you, I should\nnot hesitate.\"\n\nShe had not hesitated. There was therefore no hope, not the slightest;\neven if an ocean had not separated him from Margaret, he knew enough of\nher blind submission to her mother, to be certain that all relations\nbetween them were broken off forever. It is well. He will no longer\nreckon upon this heart--his last refuge. The two roots of his life have\nbeen torn up and broken, with the same blow, the same day, almost at the\nsame moment. What then remains for thee, poor sensitive plant, as thy\ntender mother used to call thee? What remains to console thee for the\nloss of this last love--this last friendship, so infamously crushed? Oh!\nthere remains for thee that one corner of the earth, created after the\nimage of thy mind that little colony, so peaceful and flourishing, where,\nthanks to thee, labor brings with it joy and recompense. These worthy\nartisans, whom thou hast made happy, good, and grateful, will not fail\nthee. That also is a great and holy affection; let it be thy shelter in\nthe midst of this frightful wreck of all thy most sacred convictions! The\ncalm of that cheerful and pleasant retreat, the sight of the unequalled\nhappiness of thy dependents, will soothe thy poor, suffering soul, which\nnow seems to live only for suffering. Come! you will soon reach the top\nof the hill, from which you can see afar, in the plain below, that\nparadise of workmen, of which you are the presiding divinity.\n\nM. Hardy had reached the summit of the hill. At that moment the\nconflagration, repressed for a short time, burst forth with redoubled\nfury from the Common Dwelling-house, which it had now reached. A bright\nstreak, at first white, then red, then copper-colored, illuminated the\ndistant horizon. M. Hardy looked at it with a sort of incredulous, almost\nidiotic stupor. Suddenly, an immense column of flame shot up in the thick\nof a cloud of smoke, accompanied by a shower of sparks, and streamed\ntowards the sky, casting a bright reflection over all the country, even\nto M. Hardy's feet. The violence of the north wind, driving the flames in\nwaves before it, soon brought to the ears of M. Hardy the hurried\nclanging of the alarm-bell of the burning factory.\n\n[35] We wish it to be understood, that the necessities of our story alone\nhave made the Wolves the assailants. While endeavoring to paint the evils\narising the abuse of the spirit of association, we do not wish to ascribe\na character of savage hostility to one sect rather than to the other to\nthe Wolves more than to the Devourers. The Wolves, a club of united\nstone-cutters, are generally industrious, intelligent workmen, whose\nsituation is the more worthy of interest, as not only their labors,\nconducted with mathematical precision, are of the rudest and most\nwearisome kind, but they are likewise out of work during three or four\nmonths of the year, their profession being, unfortunately, one of those\nwhich winter condemns to a forced cessation. A number of Wolves, in order\nto perfect themselves in their trade, attend every evening a course of\nlinear geometry, applied to the cutting of stone, analogous to that given\nby M. Agricole Perdignier, for the benefit of carpenters. Several working\nstone-cutters sent an architectural model in plaster to the last\nexhibition.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE GO-BETWEEN.\n\nA few days have elapsed since the conflagration of M. Hardy's factory.\nThe following scene takes place in the Rue Clovis, in the house where\nRodin had lodged, and which was still inhabited by Rose-Pompon, who,\nwithout the least scruple, availed herself of the household arrangements\nof her friend Philemon. It was about noon, and Rose-Pompon, alone in the\nchamber of the student, who was still absent, was breakfasting very gayly\nby the fireside; but how singular a breakfast! what a queer fire! how\nstrange an apartment!\n\nImagine a large room, lighted by two windows without curtains--for as\nthey looked on empty space, the lodger had fear of being overlooked. One\nside of this apartment served as a wardrobe, for there was suspended\nRose-Pompon's flashy costume of debardeur, not far from the boat-man's\njacket of Philemon, with his large trousers of coarse, gray stuff,\ncovered with pitch (shiver my timbers!), just as if this intrepid mariner\nhad bunked in the forecastle of a frigate, during a voyage round the\nglobe. A gown of Rose Pompon's hung gracefully over a pair of pantaloons,\nthe legs of which seemed to come from beneath the petticoat. On the\nlowest of several book-shelves, very dusty and neglected, by the side of\nthree old boots (wherefore three boots?) and a number of empty bottles,\nstood a skull, a scientific and friendly souvenir, left to Philemon by\none of his comrades, a medical student. With a species of pleasantry,\nvery much to the taste of the student-world, a clay pipe with a very\nblack bowl was placed between the magnificently white teeth of this\nskull; moreover, its shining top was half hidden beneath an old hat, set\nknowingly on one side, and adorned with faded flowers and ribbons. When\nPhilemon was drunk, he used to contemplate this bony emblem of mortality,\nand break out into the most poetical monologues, with regard to this\nphilosophical contrast between death and the mad pleasures of life. Two\nor three plaster casts, with their noses and chins more or less injured,\nwere fastened to the wall, and bore witness to the temporary curiosity\nwhich Philemon had felt with regard to phrenological science, from the\npatient and serious study of which he had drawn the following logical\nconclusion:--That, having to an alarming extent the bump of getting into\ndebt, he ought to resign himself to the fatality of this organization,\nand accept the inconvenience of creditors as a vital necessity. On the\nchimney-piece, stood uninjured, in all its majesty, the magnificent\nrowing-club drinking-glass, a china teapot without a spout, and an\ninkstand of black wood, the glass mouth of which was covered by a coat of\ngreenish and mossy mould. From time to time, the silence of this retreat\nwas interrupted by the cooing of pigeons, which Rose-Pompon had\nestablished with cordial hospitality in the little study. Chilly as a\nquail, Rose-Pompon crept close to the fire, and at the same time seemed\nto enjoy the warmth of a bright ray of sunshine, which enveloped her in\nits golden light. This droll little creature was dressed in the oddest\ncostume, which, however, displayed to advantage the freshness of her\npiquant and pretty countenance, crowned with its fine, fair hair, always\nneatly combed and arranged the first thing in the morning. By way of\ndressing-gown, Rose-Pompon had ingeniously drawn over her linen, the\nample scarlet flannel shirt which belonged to Philemon's official garb in\nthe rowing-club; the collar, open and turned down, displayed the\nwhiteness of the young girl's under garment, as also of her neck and\nshoulders, on whose firm and polished surface the scarlet shirt seemed to\ncast a rosy light. The grisette's fresh and dimpled arms half protruded\nfrom the large, turned-up sleeves; and her charming legs were also half\nvisible, crossed one over the other, and clothed in neat white stockings,\nand boots. A black silk cravat formed the girdle which fastened the shirt\nround the wasp-like waist of Rose-Pompon, just above those hips, worthy\nof the enthusiasm of a modern Phidias, and which gave to this style of\ndress a grace very original.\n\nWe have said, that the breakfast of Rose-Pompon was singular. You shall\njudge. On a little table placed before her, was a wash-hand-basin, into\nwhich she had recently plunged her fresh face, bathing it in pure water.\nFrom the bottom of this basin, now transformed into a salad-bowl, Rose\nPompon took with the tips of her fingers large green leaves, dripping\nwith vinegar, and crunched them between her tiny white teeth, whose\nenamel was too hard to allow them to be set on edge. Her drink was a\nglass of water and syrup of gooseberries, which she stirred with a wooden\nmustard-spoon. Finally, as an extra dish, she had a dozen olives in one\nof those blue glass trinket-dishes sold for twenty-five sous. Her dessert\nwas composed of nuts, which she prepared to roast on a red-hot shovel.\nThat Rose-Pompon, with such an unaccountable savage choice of food,\nshould retain a freshness of complexion worthy of her name, is one of\nthose miracles, which reveal the mighty power of youth and health. When\nshe had eaten her salad, Rose-Pompon was about to begin upon her olives,\nwhen a low knock was heard at the door, which was modestly bolted on the\ninside.\n\n\"Who is there?\" said Rose-Pompon.\n\n\"A friend--the oldest of the old,\" replied a sonorous, jovial voice. \"Why\ndo you lock yourself in?\"\n\n\"What! is it you, Ninny Moulin?\"\n\n\"Yes, my beloved pupil. Open quickly. Time presses.\"\n\n\"Open to you? Oh, I dare say!--that would be pretty, the figure I am!\"\n\n\"I believe you! what does it matter what figure you are? It would be very\npretty, thou rosiest of all the roses with which Cupid ever adorned his\nquiver!\"\n\n\"Go and preach fasting and morality in your journal, fat apostle!\" said\nRose--Pompon, as she restored the scarlet shirt to its place, with\nPhilemon's other garments.\n\n\"I say! are we to talk much longer through the door, for the greater\nedification of our neighbors?\" cried Ninny Moulin. \"I have something of\nimportance to tell you--something that will astonish you--\"\n\n\"Give me time to put on my gown, great plague that you are!\"\n\n\"If it is because of my modesty, do not think of it. I am not over nice.\nI should like you very well as you are!\"\n\n\"Only to think that such a monster is the favorite of all the\nchurchgoers!\" said Rose-Pompon, opening the door as she finished\nfastening her dress.\n\n\"So! you have at last returned to the dovecot, you stray girl!\" said\nNinny Moulin, folding his arms, and looking at Rose-Pompon with comic\nseriousness. \"And where may you have been, I pray? For three days the\nnaughty little bird has left its nest.\"\n\n\"True; I only returned home last night. You must have called during my\nabsence?\"\n\n\"I came, every day, and even twice a day, young lady, for I have very\nserious matters to communicate.\"\n\n\"Very serious matters? Then we shall have a good laugh at them.\"\n\n\"Not at all--they are really serious,\" said Ninny Moulin, seating\nhimself. \"But, first of all, what did you do during the three days that\nyou left your conjugal and Philemonic home? I must know all about it,\nbefore I tell you more.\"\n\n\"Will you have some olives?\" said Rose-Pompon, as she nibbled one of them\nherself.\n\n\"Is that your answer?--I understand!--Unfortunate Philemon!\"\n\n\"There is no unfortunate Philemon in the case, slanderer. Clara had a\ndeath in her house, and, for the first few days after the funeral she was\nafraid to sleep alone.\"\n\n\"I thought Clara sufficiently provided against such fears.\"\n\n\"There you are deceived, you great viper! I was obliged to go and keep\nthe poor girl company.\"\n\nAt this assertion, the religious pamphleteer hummed a tune, with an\nincredulous and mocking air.\n\n\"You think I have played Philemon tricks?\" cried Rose-Pompon, cracking a\nnut with the indignation of injured innocence.\n\n\"I do not say tricks; but one little rose-colored trick.\"\n\n\"I tell you, that it was not for my pleasure I went out. On the\ncontrary--for, during my absence, poor Cephyse disappeared.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mother Arsene told me that the Bacchanal-Queen was gone on a\njourney. But when I talk of Philemon, you talk of Cephyse; we don't\nprogress.\"\n\n\"May I be eaten by the black panther that they are showing at the Porte\nSaint-Martin if I do not tell you the truth. And, talking of that, you\nmust get tickets to take me to see those animals, my little Ninny Moulin!\nThey tell me there never were such darling wild beasts.\"\n\n\"Now really, are you mad?\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"That I should guide your youth, like a venerable patriarch, through the\ndangers of the Storm-blown Tulip, all well and good--I ran no risk of\nmeeting my pastors and masters; but were I to take you to a Lent\nSpectacle (since there are only beasts to be seen), I might just run\nagainst my sacristans--and how pretty I should look with you on my arm!\"\n\n\"You can put on a false nose, and straps to your trousers, my big Ninny;\nthey will never know you.\"\n\n\"We must not think of false noses, but of what I have to tell you, since\nyou assure me that you have no intrigue in hand.\"\n\n\"I swear it!\" said Rose-Pompon, solemnly, extending her left hand\nhorizontally, whilst with her right she put a nut into her mouth. Then\nshe added, with surprise, as she looked at the outside coat of Ninny\nMoulin, \"Goodness gracious! what full pockets you have got! What is there\nin them?\"\n\n\"Something that concerns you, Rose-Pompon,\" said Dumoulin, gravely.\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"Rose-Pompon!\" said Ninny Moulin, suddenly, with a majestic air; \"will\nyou have a carriage? Will you inhabit a charming apartment, instead of\nliving in this dreadful hole? Will you be dressed like a duchess?\"\n\n\"Now for some more nonsense! Come, will you eat the olives? If not, I\nshall eat them all up. There is only one left.\"\n\nWithout answering this gastronomic offer, Ninny Moulin felt in one of his\npockets, and drew from it a case containing a very pretty bracelet, which\nhe held up sparkling before the eyes of the young girl.\n\n\"Oh! what a sumptuous bracelet!\" cried she, clapping her hands. \"A\ngreen-eyed serpent biting his tail--the emblem of my love for Philemon.\"\n\n\"Do not talk of Philemon; it annoys me,\" said Ninny Moulin, as he clasped\nthe bracelet round the wrist of Rose-Pompon, who allowed him to do it,\nlaughing all the while like mad, and saying to him, \"So you've been\nemployed to make a purchase, big apostle, and wish to see the effect of\nit. Well! it is charming!\"\n\n\"Rose-Pompon,\" resumed Ninny Moulin, \"would you like to have a servant, a\nbox at the Opera, and a thousand francs a month for your pin-money?\"\n\n\"Always the same nonsense. Get along!\" said the young girl, as she held\nup the bracelet to the light, still continuing to eat her nuts. \"Why\nalways the same farce, and no change of bills?\"\n\nNinny Moulin again plunged his hand into his pocket, and this time drew\nforth an elegant chain, which he hung round Rose-Pompon's neck.\n\n\"Oh! what a beautiful chain!\" cried the young girl, as she looked by\nturns at the sparkling ornament and the religious writer. \"If you chose\nthat also, you have a very good taste. But am I not a good natured girl\nto be your dummy, just to show off your jewels?\"\n\n\"Rose-Pompon,\" returned Ninny Moulin, with a still more majestic air,\n\"these trifles are nothing to what you may obtain, if you will but follow\nthe advice of your old friend.\"\n\nRose began to look at Dumoulin with surprise, and said to him, \"What does\nall this mean, Ninny Moulin? Explain yourself; what advice have you to\ngive?\"\n\nDumoulin did not answer, but replunging his hand into his inexhaustible\npocket, he fished up a parcel, which he carefully unfolded, and in which\nwas a magnificent mantilla of black lace. Rose-Pompon started up, full of\nnew admiration, and Dumoulin threw the rich mantilla over the young\ngirl's shoulders.\n\n\"It is superb! I have never seen anything like it! What patterns! what\nwork!\" said Rose-Pompon, as she examined all with simple and perfectly\ndisinterested curiosity. Then she added, \"Your pocket is like a shop;\nwhere did you get all these pretty things?\" Then, bursting into a fit of\nlaughter, which brought the blood to her cheeks, she exclaimed, \"Oh, I\nhave it! These are the wedding-presents for Madame de la Sainte-Colombe.\nI congratulate you; they are very choice.\"\n\n\"And where do you suppose I should find money to buy these wonders?\" said\nNinny Moulin. \"I repeat to you, all this is yours if you will but listen\nto me!\"\n\n\"How is this?\" said Rose-Pompon, with the utmost amazement; \"is what you\ntell me in downright earnest?\"\n\n\"In downright earnest.\"\n\n\"This offer to make me a great lady?\"\n\n\"The jewels might convince you of the reality of my offers.\"\n\n\"And you propose all this to me for some one else, my poor Ninny Moulin?\"\n\n\"One moment,\" said the religious writer, with a comical air of modesty,\n\"you must know me well enough, my beloved pupil, to feel certain that I\nshould be incapable of inducing you to commit an improper action. I\nrespect myself too much for that--leaving out the consideration that it\nwould be unfair to Philemon, who confided to me the guardianship of your\nvirtue.\"\n\n\"Then, Ninny Moulin,\" said Rose-Pompon, more and more astonished, \"on my\nword of honor, I can make nothing of it.\n\n\"Yet, 'tis all very simple, and I--\"\n\n\"Oh! I've found it,\" cried Rose-Pompon, interrupting Ninny Moulin; \"it is\nsome gentleman who offers me his hand, his heart, and all the rest of it.\nCould you not tell me that directly?\"\n\n\"A marriage? oh, laws, yes!\" said Dumoulin, shrugging his shoulders.\n\n\"What! is it not a marriage?\" said Rose-Pompon, again much surprised.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"And the offers you make me are honest ones, my big apostle?\"\n\n\"They could not be more so.\" Here Dumoulin spoke the truth.\n\n\"I shall not have to be unfaithful to Philemon?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Or faithful to any one else?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nRose-Pompon looked confounded. Then she rattled on: \"Come, do not let us\nhave any joking! I am not foolish enough to imagine that I am to live\njust like a duchess, just for nothing. What, therefore, must I give in\nreturn?\"\n\n\"Nothing at all.\"\n\n\"Nothing?\"\n\n\"Not even that,\" said Ninny Moulin, biting his nail-tip.\n\n\"But what am I to do, then?\"\n\n\"Dress yourself as handsomely as possible, take your ease, amuse\nyourself, ride about in a carriage. You see, it is not very fatiguing\n--and you will, moreover, help to do a good action.\"\n\n\"What! by living like a duchess?\"\n\n\"Yes! so make up your mind. Do not ask me for any more details, for I\ncannot give them to you. For the rest, you will not be detained against\nyour will. Just try the life I propose to you. If it suits you, go on\nwith it; if not, return to your Philemonic household.\"\n\n\"In fact--\"\n\n\"Only try it. What can you risk?\"\n\n\"Nothing; but I can hardly believe that all you say is true. And then,\"\nadded she, with hesitation, \"I do not know if I ought--\"\n\nNinny Moulin went to the window, opened it, and said to Rose-Pompon, who\nran up to it, \"Look there! before the door of the house.\"\n\n\"What a pretty carriage! How comfortable a body'd be inside of it!\"\n\n\"That carriage is yours. It is waiting for you.\"\n\n\"Waiting for me!\" exclaimed Rose-Pompon; \"am I to decide as short as\nthat?\"\n\n\"Or not at all.\"\n\n\"To-day?\"\n\n\"On the instant.\"\n\n\"But where will they take me?\"\n\n\"How should I know?\"\n\n\"You do not know where they will take me?\"\n\n\"Not I,\"--and Dumoulin still spoke the truth--\"the coachman has his\norders.\"\n\n\"Do you know all this is very funny, Ninny Moulin?\"\n\n\"I believe you. If it were not funny, where would be the pleasure?\"\n\n\"You are right.\"\n\n\"Then you accept the offer? That is well. I am delighted both for you and\nmyself.\"\n\n\"For yourself?\"\n\n\"Yes; because, in accepting, you render me a great service.\"\n\n\"You? How so?\"\n\n\"It matters little, as long as I feel obliged to you.\"\n\n\"True.\"\n\n\"Come, then; let us set out!\"\n\n\"Bah! after all, they cannot eat me,\" said Rose-Pompon, resolutely.\n\nWith a skip and a jump, she went to fetch a rose-colored cap, and, going\nup to a broken looking-glass, placed the cap very much cocked on one side\non her bands of light hair. This left uncovered her snowy neck, with the\nsilky roots of the hair behind, and gave to her pretty face a very\nmischievous, not to say licentious expression.\n\n\"My cloak!\" said she to Ninny Moulin, who seemed to be relieved from a\nconsiderable amount of uneasiness, since she had accepted his offer.\n\n\"Fie! a cloak will not do,\" answered her companion, feeling once more in\nhis pocket and drawing out a fine Cashmere shawl, which he threw over\nRose-Pompon's shoulders.\n\n\"A Cashmere!\" cried the young girl, trembling with pleasure and joyous\nsurprise. Then she added, with an air of heroism: \"It is settled! I will\nrun the gauntlet.\" And with a light step she descended the stairs,\nfollowed by Ninny Moulin.\n\nThe worthy greengrocer was at her post. \"Good-morning, mademoiselle; you\nare early to-day,\" said she to the young girl.\n\n\"Yes, Mother Arsene; there is my key.\"\n\n\"Thank you, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"Oh! now I think of it,\" said Rose Pompon, suddenly, in a whisper, as she\nturned towards Ninny Moulin, and withdrew further from the portress,\n\"what is to became of Philemon?\"\n\n\"Philemon?\"\n\n\"If he should arrive--\"\n\n\"Oh! the devil!\" said Ninny Moulin, scratching his ear.\n\n\"Yes; if Philemon should arrive, what will they say to him? for I may be\na long time absent.\"\n\n\"Three or four months, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Not more?\"\n\n\"I should think not.\"\n\n\"Oh! very good!\" said Rose-Pompon. Then, turning towards the greengrocer,\nshe said to her, after a moment's reflection: \"Mother Arsene, if Philemon\nshould come home, you will tell him I have gone out--on business.\"\n\n\"Yes, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"And that he must not forget to feed my pigeons, which are in his study.\"\n\n\"Yes, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Mother Arsene.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, mademoiselle.\" And Rose-Pompon entered the carriage in\ntriumph, along with Ninny Moulin.\n\n\"The devil take me if I know what is to come of all this,\" said Jacques\nDumoulin to himself, as the carriage drove rapidly down the Rue Clovis.\n\"I have repaired my error--and now I laugh at the rest.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nANOTHER SECRET.\n\nThe following scene took place a few days after the abduction of Rose\nPompon by Ninny Moulin. Mdlle. de Cardoville was seated in a dreamy mood,\nin her cabinet, which was hung with green silk, and furnished with an\nebony library, ornamented with large bronze caryatides. By some\nsignificant signs, one could perceive that Mdlle. de Cardoville had\nsought in the fine airs some relief from sad and serious thoughts. Near\nan open piano, was a harp, placed before a music-stand. A little further,\non a table covered with boxes of oil and water-color, were several\nbrilliant sketches. Most of them represented Asiatic scenes, lighted by\nthe fires of an oriental sun. Faithful to her fancy of dressing herself\nat home in a picturesque style, Mademoiselle de Cardoville resembled that\nday one of those proud portraits of Velasquez, with stern and noble\naspect. Her gown was of black moire, with wide swelling petticoat, long\nwaist, and sleeve slashed with rose-colored satin, fastened together with\njet bugles. A very stiff, Spanish ruff reached almost to her chin, and\nwas secured round her neck by a broad rose-colored ribbon. This frill,\nslightly heaving, sloped down as far as the graceful swell of the\nrose-colored stomacher, laced with strings of jet beads, and terminating\nin a point at the waist. It is impossible to express how well this black\ngarment, with its ample and shining folds, relieved with rose-color and\nbrilliant jet, skin, harmonized with the shining whiteness of Adrienne's\nand the golden flood of her beautiful hair, whose long, silky ringlets\ndescended to her bosom.\n\nThe young lady was in a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting on\na couch covered with green silk. The back of this piece of furniture,\nwhich was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly\ntowards the foot. A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded\nbronze, raised about five feet from the ground, covered with flowering\nplants (the admirable passiflores quadrangulatoe, planted in a deep ebony\nbox, from the centre of which rose the trellis-work), surrounded this\ncouch with a sort of screen of foliage enamelled with large flowers,\ngreen without, purple within, and as brilliant as those flowers of\nporcelain, which we receive from Saxony. A sweet, faint perfume, like a\nfaint mixture of jasmine with violet, rose from the cup of these\nadmirable passiflores. Strange enough, a large quantity of new books\n(Adrienne having bought them since the last two or three days) and quite\nfresh-cut, were scattered around her on the couch, and on a little table;\nwhilst other larger volumes, amongst which were several atlases full of\nengravings, were piled on the sumptuous fur, which formed the carpet\nbeneath the divan. Stranger still, these books, though of different\nforms, and by different authors, alt treated of the same subject. The\nposture of Adrienne revealed a sort of melancholy dejection. Her cheeks\nwere pale; a light blue circle surrounded her large, black eyes, now\nhalf-closed, and gave to them an expression of profound grief. Many\ncauses contributed to this sorrow--amongst others, the disappearance of\nMother Bunch. Without absolutely believing the perfidious insinuations of\nRodin, who gave her to understand that, in the fear of being unmasked by\nhim, the hunchback had not dared to remain in the house, Adrienne felt a\ncruel sinking of the heart, when she thought how this young girl, in whom\nshe had had so much confidence, had fled from her almost sisterly\nhospitality, without even uttering a word of gratitude; for care had been\ntaken not to show her the few lines written by the poor needlewoman to\nher benefactress, just before her departure.\n\nShe had only been told of the note of five hundred francs found on her\ndesk; and this last inexplicable circumstance had contributed to awaken\ncruel suspicions in the breast of Mdlle. de Cardoville. She already felt\nthe fatal effects of that mistrust of everything and everybody, which\nRodin had recommended to her; and this sentiment of suspicion and reserve\nhad the more tendency to become powerful, that, for the first time in her\nlife, Mdlle. de Cardoville, until then a stranger to all deception, had a\nsecret to conceal--a secret, which was equally her happiness, her shame,\nand her torment. Half-recumbent on her divan, pensive and depressed,\nAdrienne pursued, with a mind often absent, one of her newly purchased\nbooks. Suddenly, she uttered an exclamation of surprise; the hand which\nheld the book trembled like a leaf, and from that moment she appeared to\nread with passionate attention and devouring curiosity. Soon, her eyes\nsparkled with enthusiasm, her smile assumed ineffable sweetness, and she\nseemed at once proud, happy, delighted--but, as she turned over the last\npage, her countenance expressed disappointment and chagrin. Then she\nrecommenced this reading, which had occasioned her such sweet emotion,\nand this time she read with the most deliberate slowness, going over each\npage twice, and spelling, as it were, every line, every word. From time\nto time, she paused, and in a pensive mood, with her forehead leaning on\nher fair hand, she seemed to reflect, in a deep reverie, on the passages\nshe had read with such tender and religious love. Arriving at a passage\nwhich so affected her, that a tear started in her eye, she suddenly\nturned the volume, to see on the cover the name of the author. For a few\nseconds, she contemplated this name with a singular expression of\ngratitude, and could not forbear raising to her rosy lips the page on\nwhich it was printed. After reading many times over the lines with which\nshe had been so much struck, forgetting, no doubt, the letter in the\nspirit, she began to reflect so deeply, that the book glided from her\nhand, and fell upon the carpet. During the course of this reverie, the\neyes of the young girl rested, at first mechanically, upon an admirable\nbas-relief, placed on an ebony stand, near one of the windows. This\nmagnificent bronze, recently cast after a plaster copy from the antique,\nrepresented the triumph of the Indian Bacchus. Never, perhaps, had\nGrecian art attained such rare perfection. The youthful conqueror, half\nclad in a lion's skin, which displayed his juvenile grace and charming\npurity of form shone with divine beauty. Standing up in a car, drawn by\ntwo tigers, with an air at once gentle and proud, he leaned with one hand\nupon a thyrsus, and with the other guided his savage steeds in tranquil\nmajesty. By this rare mixture of grace, vigor, and serenity, it was easy\nto recognize the hero who had waged such desperate combats with men and\nwith monsters of the forest. Thanks to the brownish tone of the figure,\nthe light, falling from one side of the sculpture, admirably displayed\nthe form of the youthful god, which, carved in relievo, and thus\nillumined, shone like a magnificent statue of pale gold upon the dark\nfretted background of the bronze.\n\nWhen Adrienne's look first rested on this rare assemblage of divine\nperfections, her countenance was calm and thoughtful. But this\ncontemplation, at first mechanical, became gradually more and more\nattentive and conscious, and the young lady, rising suddenly from her\nseat, slowly approached the bas-relief, as if yielding to the invincible\nattraction of an extraordinary resemblance. Then a slight blush appeared\non the cheeks of Mdlle. de Cardoville, stole across her face, and spread\nrapidly to her neck and forehead. She approached still closer, threw\nround a hasty glance, as if half-ashamed, or as if she had feared to be\nsurprised in a blamable action, and twice stretched forth her hand,\ntrembling with emotion, to touch with the tips of her charming fingers\nthe bronze forehead of the Indian Bacchus. And twice she stopped short,\nwith a kind of modest hesitation. At last, the temptation became too\nstrong for her. She yielded to it; and her alabaster finger, after\ndelicately caressing the features of pale gold, was pressed more boldly\nfor an instant on the pure and noble brow of the youthful god. At this\npressure, though so slight, Adrienne seemed to feel a sort of electric\nshock; she trembled in every limb, her eyes languished, and, after\nswimming for an instant in their humid and brilliant crystal, were\nraised, half-closed, to heaven. Then her head was thrown a little way\nback, her knees bent insensibly, her rosy lips were half opened, as if to\ngive a passage to her heated breath, for her bosom heaved violently, as\nthought youth and life had accelerated the pulsations of her heart, and\nmade her blood boil in her veins. Finally, the burning cheeks of Adrienne\nbetrayed a species of ecstasy, timid and passionate, chaste and sensual,\nthe expression of which was ineffably touching.\n\nAn affecting spectacle indeed is that of a young maiden, whose modest\nbrow flushes with the first fires of a secret passion. Does not the\nCreator of all things animate the body as well as the soul, with a spark\nof divine energy? Should He not be religiously glorified in the intellect\nas in the senses, with which He has so paternally endowed His creatures?\nThey are impious blasphemers who seek to stifle the celestial senses,\ninstead of guiding and harmonizing them in their divine flight. Suddenly,\nMdlle. de Cardoville started, raised her head, opened her eyes as if\nawakening from a dream, withdrew abruptly from the sculptures, and walked\nseveral times up and down the room in an agitated manner, pressing her\nburning hands to her forehead. Then, falling, as it were, exhausted on\nher seat, her tears flowed in abundance. The most bitter grief was\nvisible in her features, which revealed the fatal struggle that was\npassing within her. By degrees, her tears ceased. To this crisis of\npainful dejection succeeded a species of violent scorn and indignation\nagainst herself, which were expressed by these words that escaped her:\n\"For the first time in my life, I feel weak and cowardly. Oh yes!\ncowardly--very cowardly!\"\n\nThe sound of a door opening and closing, roused Mdlle. de Cardoville from\nher bitter reflections. Georgette entered the room, and said to her\nmistress: \"Madame, can you receive the Count de Montbron?\"\n\nAdrienne, too well-bred to exhibit before her women the sort of\nimpatience occasioned by this unseasonable visit, said to Georgette: \"You\ntold M. de Montbron that I was at home?\"\n\n\"Yes, Madame.\"\n\n\"Then beg him to walk in.\" Though Mdlle. de Cardoville felt at that\nmoment much vexed at the arrival of Montbron, let us hasten to say, that\nshe entertained for him an almost filial affection, and a profound\nesteem, though, by a not unfrequent contrast, she almost always differed\nfrom him in opinion. Hence arose, when Mdlle. de Cardoville had nothing\nto disturb her mind, the most gay and animated discussions, in which M.\nde Montbron, notwithstanding his mocking and sceptical humor, his long\nexperience, his rare knowledge of men and things, his fashionable\ntraining, in a word, had not always the advantage, and even acknowledged\nhis defeat gayly enough. Thus, to give an idea of the differences of the\ncount and Adrienne, before, as he would say laughingly, he had made\nhimself her accomplice, he had always opposed (from other motives than\nthose alleged by Madame de Saint-Dizier) Adrienne's wish to live alone\nand in her own way; whilst Rodin, on the contrary, by investing the young\ngirl's resolve on this subject with an ideal grandeur of intention, had\nacquired a species of influence over her. M. de Montbron, now upwards of\nsixty years of age, had been a most prominent character during the\nDirectory, Consulate, and the Empire. His prodigal style of living, his\nwit, his gayety, his duels, his amours, and his losses at play, had given\nhim a leading influence in the best society of his day; while his\ncharacter, his kind-heartedness, and liberality, secured him the lasting\nfriendship of nearly all his female friends. At the time we now present\nhim to the reader, he was still a great gambler; and, moreover, a very\nlucky gambler. He had, as we have stated, a very lordly style; his\nmanners were decided, but polished and lively; his habits were such as\nbelong to the higher classes of society, though he could be excessively\nsharp towards people whom he did not like. He was tall and thin, and his\nslim figure gave him an almost youthful appearance; his forehead was\nhigh, and a little bald; his hair was gray and short, his countenance\nlong, his nose aquiline, his eyes blue and piercing, and his teeth white,\nand still very good.\n\n\"The Count de Montbron,\" said Georgette, opening the door. The count\nentered, and hastened to kiss Adrienne's hand, with a sort of paternal\nfamiliarity.\n\n\"Come!\" said M. de Montbron to himself; \"let us try to discover the truth\nI am in search of, that we may escape a great misfortune.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE CONFESSION.\n\nMdlle. de Cardoville, not wishing to betray the cause of the violent\nfeelings which agitated her, received M. de Montbron with a feigned and\nforced gayety. On the other hand, notwithstanding his tact and knowledge\nof the world, the count was much embarrassed how to enter upon the\nsubject on which he wished to confer with Adrienne, and he resolved to\nfeel his way, before seriously commencing the conversation. After looking\nat the young lady for some seconds, M. de Montbron shook his head, and\nsaid, with a sigh of regret: \"My dear child, I am not pleased.\"\n\n\"Some affair of the heart, or of hearts, my dear count?\" returned\nAdrienne, smiling.\n\n\"Of the heart,\" said M. de Montbron.\n\n\"What! you, so great a player, think more of a woman's whim than a throw\nof the dice?\"\n\n\"I have a heavy heart, and you are the cause of it, my dear child.\"\n\n\"M. de Montbron, you will make me very proud,\" said Adrienne, with a\nsmile.\n\n\"You would be wrong, for I tell you plainly, my trouble is caused by your\nneglect of your beauty. Yes, your countenance is pale, dejected,\nsorrowful; you have been low-spirited for the last few days; you have\nsomething on your mind, I am sure of it.\"\n\n\"My dear M. de Montbron, you have so much penetration, that you may be\nallowed to fall for once, as now. I am not sad, I have nothing on my\nmind, and--I am about to utter a very silly piece of impertinence--I have\nnever thought myself so pretty.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, nothing could be more modest than such an assertion.\nWho told you that falsehood? a woman?\"\n\n\"No; it was my heart, and it spoke the truth,\" answered Adrienne, with a\nslight degree of emotion. \"Understand it, if you can,\" she added.\n\n\"Do you mean that you are proud of the alteration in your features,\nbecause you are proud of the sufferings of your heart?\" said M. de\nMontbron, looking at Adrienne with attention. \"Be it so; I am then right.\nYou have some sorrow. I persist in it,\" added the count, speaking with a\ntone of real feeling, \"because it is painful to me.\"\n\n\"Be satisfied; I am as happy as possible--for every instant I take\ndelight in repeating, how, at my age, I am free--absolutely free!\"\n\n\"Yes; free to torment yourself, free to be miserable.\"\n\n\"Come, come, my dear count!\" said Adrienne, \"you are recommencing our old\nquarrel. I still find in you the ally of my aunt and the Abbe\nd'Aigrigny.\"\n\n\"Yes; as the republicans are the allies of the legitimists--to destroy\neach other in their turn. Talking of your abominable aunt, they say that\nshe holds a sort of council at her house these last few days, a regular\nmitred conspiracy. She is certainly in a good way.\"\n\n\"Why not? Formerly, she would have wished to be Goddess of Reason, now,\nwe shall perhaps see her canonized. She has already performed the first\npart of the life of Mary Magdalen.\"\n\n\"You can never speak worse of her than she deserves, my dear child.\nStill, though for quite opposite reasons, I agreed with her on the\nsubject of your wish to reside alone.\"\n\n\"I know it.\"\n\n\"Yes; and because I wished to see you a thousand times freer than you\nreally are, I advised you--\"\n\n\"To marry.\"\n\n\"No doubt; you would have had your dear liberty, with its consequences,\nonly, instead of Mdlle. de Cardoville, we should have called you Madame\nSomebody, having found an excellent husband to be responsible for your\nindependence.\"\n\n\"And who would have been responsible for this ridiculous husband? And who\nwould bear a mocked and degraded name? I, perhaps?\" said Adrienne, with\nanimation. \"No, no, my dear count, good or ill, I will answer for my own\nactions; to my name shall attach the reputation, which I alone have\nformed. I am as incapable of basely dishonoring a name which is not mine,\nas of continually bearing it myself, if it were not held in, esteem. And,\nas one can only answer for one's own actions, I prefer to keep my name.\"\n\n\"You are the only person in the world that has such ideas.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said Adrienne, laughing. \"Because it appears to me horrible, to\nsee a poor girl lost and buried in some ugly and selfish man, and become,\nas they say seriously, the better half of the monster--yes! a fresh and\nblooming rose to become part of a frightful thistle!--Come, my dear\ncount; confess there is something odious in this conjugal\nmetempsychosis,\" added Adrienne, with a burst of laughter.\n\nThe forced and somewhat feverish gayety of Adrienne contrasted painfully\nwith her pale and suffering countenance; it was so easy to see that she\nstrove to stifle with laughter some deep sorrow, that M. de Montbron was\nmuch affected by it; but, dissembling his emotion, he appeared to reflect\na moment, and took up mechanically one of the new, fresh-cut books, by\nwhich Adrienne was surrounded. After casting a careless glance at this\nvolume, he continued, still dissembling his feelings: \"Come, my dear\nmadcap: this is another folly. Suppose I were twenty years old, and that\nyou did me the honor to marry me--you would be called Lady de Montbron, I\nimagine?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"How perhaps? Would you not bear my name, if you married me?\"\n\n\"My dear count,\" said Adrienne, with a smile, \"do not let us pursue this\nhypothesis, which can only leave us--regrets.\"\n\nSuddenly, M. de Montbron started, and looked at Mdlle, de Cardoville with\nan expression of surprise. For some moments, whilst talking to Adrienne,\nhe had mechanically--taken up two or three of the volumes scattered over\nthe couch, and had glanced at their titles in the same careless manner.\nThe first was the \"Modern History of India.\" The second, \"Travels in\nIndia.\" The third, \"Letters on India.\" Much surprised, M. de Montbron had\ncontinued his investigation, and found that the fourth volume continued\nthis Indian nomenclature, being \"Rambles in India.\" The fifth was,\n\"Recollections of Hindostan.\" The sixth, \"Notes of a Traveller in the\nEast Indies.\"\n\nHence the astonishment, which, for many serious reasons, M. de Montbron\nhad no longer been able to conceal, and which his looks betrayed to\nAdrienne. The latter, having completely forgotten the presence of the\naccusing volumes by which she was surrounded, yielded to a movement of\ninvoluntary confusion, and blushed slightly; but, her firm and resolute\ncharacter again coming to her aid, she looked full at M. de Montbron, and\nsaid to him: \"Well, my dear count! what surprises you?\"\n\nInstead of answering, M. de Montbron appeared still more absorbed in\nthought, and contemplating the young girl, he could not forbear saying to\nhimself: \"No, no--it is impossible--and yet--\"\n\n\"It would, perhaps, be indiscreet in me to listen to your soliloquy, my\ndear count,\" said Adrienne.\n\n\"Excuse me, my dear child; but what I see surprises me so much--\"\n\n\"And pray what do you see?\"\n\n\"The traces of so great and novel an interest in all that relates to\nIndia,\" said M. de Montbron, laying a slight stress on his words, and\nfixing a piercing look upon the young girl.\n\n\"Well!\" said Adrienne, stoutly.\n\n\"Well! I seek the cause of this sudden passion--\"\n\n\"Geographical?\" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, interrupting M. de Montbron:\n\"you may find this taste somewhat serious for my age my dear count--but\none must find occupation for leisure hours--and then, having a cousin,\nwho is both an Indian and a prince, I should like to know something of\nthe fortunate country from which I derive this savage relationship.\"\n\nThese last words were pronounced with a bitterness that was not lost on\nM. de Montbron: watching Adrienne attentively, he observed: \"Meseems, you\nspeak of the prince with some harshness.\"\n\n\"No; I speak of him with indifference.\"\n\n\"Yet he deserves a very different feeling.\"\n\n\"On the part of some other person, perhaps,\" replied Adrienne, dryly.\n\n\"He is so unhappy!\" said M, de Montbron, in a tone of sincere pity. \"When\nI saw him the other day, he made my heart ache.\"\n\n\"What have I to do with it?\" exclaimed Adrienne, with an accent of\npainful and almost angry impatience.\n\n\"I should have thought that his cruel torments at least deserved your\npity,\" answered the count gravely.\n\n\"Pity--from me!\" cried Adrienne, with an air of offended pride. Then\nrestraining herself, she added coldly: \"You are jesting, M. de Montbron.\nIt is not in sober seriousness that you ask me to take interest in the\namorous torments of your prince.\"\n\nThere was so much cold disdain in these last words of Adrienne, her pale\nand agitated countenance betrayed such haughty bitterness, that M. de\nMontbron said, sorrowfully: \"It is then true; I have not been deceived.\nI, who thought, from our old and constant friendship, that I had some\nclaim to your confidence have known nothing of it--while you told all to\nanother. It is painful, very painful to me.\"\n\n\"I do not understand you, M. de Montbron.\"\n\n\"Well then, since I must speak plainly,\" cried the count, \"there is, I\nsee, no hope for this unhappy boy--you love another.\"\n\nAs Adrienne started--\"Oh! you cannot deny it,\" resumed the count; \"your\npaleness and melancholy for the last few days, your implacable\nindifference to the prince--all prove to me that you are in love.\"\n\nHurt by the manner in which the count spoke of the sentiment he\nattributed to her, Mdlle. de Cardoville answered with dignified\nstateliness: \"You must know, M. de Montbron, that a secret discovered is\nnot a confidence. Your language surprises me.\n\n\"Oh, my dear friend, if I use the poor privilege of experience--if I\nguess that you are in love--if I tell you so, and even go so far as to\nreproach you with it--it is because the life or death of this poor prince\nis concerned; and I feel for him as if he were my son, for it is\nimpossible to know him without taking the warmest interest in him.\"\n\n\"It would be singular,\" returned Adrienne, with redoubled coldness, and\nstill more bitter irony, \"if my love--admitting I were in love--could\nhave any such strange influence on Prince Djalma. What can it matter to\nhim?\" added she, with almost agonizing disdain.\n\n\"What can it matter to him? Now really, my dear friend, permit me to tell\nyou, that it is you who are jesting cruelly. What! this unfortunate youth\nloves you with all the blind ardor of a first love--twice has attempted\nto terminate by suicide the horrible tortures of his passion--and you\nthink it strange that your love for another should be with him a question\nof life or death!\"\n\n\"He loves me then?\" cried the young girl, with an accent impossible to\ndescribe.\n\n\"He loves you to madness, I tell you; I have seen it.\"\n\nAdrienne seemed overcome with amazement. From pale, she became crimson;\nas the redness disappeared, her lips grew white, and trembled. Her\nemotion was so strong, that she remained for some moments unable to\nspeak, and pressed her hand to her heart, as if to moderate its\npulsations.\n\nM. de Montbron, almost frightened at the sudden change in Adrienne's\ncountenance, hastily approached her, exclaiming: \"Good heaven, my poor\nchild! what is the matter?\"\n\nInstead of answering, Adrienne waved her hand to him, in sign that he\nshould not be alarmed; and, in fact, the count was speedily\ntranquillized, for the beautiful face, which had so lately been\ncontracted with pain, irony, and scorn, seemed now expressive of the\nsweetest and most ineffable emotions; Adrienne appeared to luxuriate in\ndelight, and to fear losing the least particle of it; then, as reflection\ntold her, that she was, perhaps, the dupe of illusion or falsehood, she\nexclaimed suddenly, with anguish, addressing herself to M. de Montbron:\n\"But is what you tell me true?\"\n\n\"What I tell you!\"\n\n\"Yes--that Prince Djalma--\"\n\n\"Loves you to madness?--Alas! it is only too true.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" cried Adrienne, with a charming expression of simplicity; \"that\ncould never be too true.\"\n\n\"What do you say?\" cried the count.\n\n\"But that woman?\" asked Adrienne, as if the word scorched her lips.\n\n\"What woman?\"\n\n\"She who has been the cause of all these painful struggles.\"\n\n\"That woman--why, who should it be but you?\"\n\n\"What, I? Oh! tell me, was it I?\"\n\n\"On my word of honor. I trust my experience. I have never seen so ardent\nand sincere a passion.\"\n\n\"Oh! is it really so? Has he never had any other love?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Yet I was told so.\"\n\n\"By whom?\"\n\n\"M. Rodin.\"\n\n\"That Djalma--\"\n\n\"Had fallen violently in love, two days after I saw him.\"\n\n\"M. Rodin told you that!\" cried M. de Montbron, as if struck with a\nsudden idea. \"Why, it is he who told Djalma that you were in love with\nsome one else.\"\n\n\"I!\"\n\n\"And this it was which occasioned the poor youth's dreadful despair.\"\n\n\"It was this which occasioned my despair.\"\n\n\"You love him, then, just as he loves you!\" exclaimed M. de Montbron,\ntransported with joy.\n\n\"Love him!\" said Mdlle. de Cardoville. A discreet knock at the door\ninterrupted Adrienne.\n\n\"One of your servants, no doubt. Be calm,\" said the count.\n\n\"Come in,\" said Adrienne, in an agitated voice.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Mdlle. de Cardoville. Florine entered the room.\n\n\"M. Rodin has just been here. Fearing to disturb mademoiselle, he would\nnot come in; but he will return in half an hour. Will mademoiselle\nreceive him?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said the count to Florine; \"even if I am still here, show him\nin by all means. Is not that your opinion?\" asked M. de Montbron of\nAdrienne.\n\n\"Quite so,\" answered the young girl; and a flash of indignation darted\nfrom her eyes, as she thought of Rodin's perfidy.\n\n\"Oho! the old knave!\" said M. de Montbron, \"I always had my doubts of\nthat crooked neck!\" Florine withdrew, leaving the count with her\nmistress.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nLOVE.\n\nMdlle. de Cardoville was transfigured. For the first time her beauty\nshone forth in all its lustre. Until now overshadowed by indifference, or\ndarkened by grief, she appeared suddenly illumined by a brilliant ray of\nsunshine. The slight irritation caused by Rodin's perfidy passed like an\nimperceptible shade from her brow. What cared she now for falsehood and\nperfidy? Had they not failed? And, for the future, what human power could\ninterpose between her and Djalma, so sure of each other? Who would dare\nto cross the path of those two things, resolute and strong with the\nirresistible power of youth, love, and liberty? Who would dare to follow\nthem into that blazing sphere, whither they went, so beautiful and happy,\nto blend together in their inextinguishable love, protected by the proof\narmor of their own happiness? Hardly had Florine left the room, when\nAdrienne approached M. de Montbron with a rapid step. She seemed to have\nbecome taller; and to watch her advancing, light, radiant, and\ntriumphant, one might have fancied her a goddess walking upon clouds.\n\n\"When shall I see him?\" was her first word to M. de Montbron.\n\n\"Well--say to-morrow; he must be prepared for so much happiness; in so\nardent a nature, such sudden, unexpected joy might be terrible.\"\n\nAdrienne remained pensive for a moment, and then said rapidly: \"To\nmorrow--yes--not before to-morrow. I have a superstition of the heart.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"You shall know. HE LOVES ME--that word says all, contains all,\ncomprehends all, is all--and yet I have a thousand questions to ask with\nregard to him--but I will ask none before to-morrow, because, by a\nmysterious fatality, to-morrow is with me a sacred anniversary. It will\nbe an age till then; but happily, I can wait. Look here!\"\n\nBeckoning M. de Montbron, she led him to the Indian Bacchus. \"How much it\nis like him!\" said she to the count.\n\n\"Indeed,\" exclaimed the latter, \"it is strange!\"\n\n\"Strange?\" returned Adrienne, with a smile of gentle pride; \"strange,\nthat a hero, a demi-god, an ideal of beauty, should resemble Djalma?\"\n\n\"How you love him!\" said M. de Montbron, deeply touched, and almost\ndazzled by the felicity which beamed from the countenance of Adrienne.\n\n\"I must have suffered a good deal, do you not think so?\" said she, after\na moment's silence.\n\n\"If I had not made up my mind to come here to-day, almost in despair,\nwhat would have happened?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell; I should perhaps have died, for I am wounded mortally\nhere\"--she pressed her hand to her heart. \"But what might have been death\nto me, will now be life.\"\n\n\"It was horrible,\" said the count, shuddering. \"Such a passion, buried in\nyour own breast, proud as you are--\"\n\n\"Yes, proud--but not self-conceited. When I learned his love for another,\nand that the impression which I fancied I had made on him at our first\ninterview had been immediately effaced, I renounced all hope, without\nbeing able to renounce my love. Instead of shunning his image, I\nsurrounded myself with all that could remind me of him. In default of\nhappiness, there is a bitter pleasure in suffering through what we love.\"\n\n\"I can now understand your Indian library.\"\n\nInstead of answering the count, Adrienne took from the stand one of the\nfreshly-cut volumes, and, bringing it to M. de Montbron, said to him,\nwith a smile and a celestial expression of joy and happiness: \"I was\nwrong--I am vain. Just read this--aloud, if you please. I tell you that I\ncan wait for to-morrow.\" Presenting the book to the count, she pointed\nout one passage with the tip of her charming finger. Then she sank down\nupon the couch, and, in an attitude of deep attention, with her body bent\nforward, her hands crossed upon the cushion, her chin resting upon her\nhands, her large eyes fixed with a sort of adoration on the Indian\nBacchus, that was just opposite to her, she appeared by this impassioned\ncontemplation to prepare herself to listen to M. de Montbron.\n\nThe latter, much astonished, began to read, after again looking at\nAdrienne, who said to him, in her most coaxing voice, \"Very slowly, I beg\nof you.\"\n\nM. de Montbron then read the following passage from the journal of a\ntraveller in India: \"'When I was at Bombay, in 1829, I constantly heard\namongst the English there, of a young hero, the son of--'\"\n\nThe count having paused a second, by reason of the barbarous spelling of\nthe name of Djalma's father, Adrienne immediately said to him, in her\nsoft voice: \"The son of Kadja-sing.\"\n\n\"What a memory!\" said the count, with a smile. And he resumed: \"'A young\nhero, the son of Kadja-sing, king of Mundi. On his return from a distant\nand sanguinary expedition amongst the mountains against this Indian king,\nColonel Drake was filled with enthusiasm for this son of Kadja-sing,\nknown as Djalma. Hardly beyond the age of childhood, this young prince\nhas in the course of this implacable war given proofs of such chivalrous\nintrepidity, and of so noble a character, that his father has been\nsurnamed the Father of the Generous.'\"\n\n\"That is a touching custom,\" said the count. \"To recompense the father,\nas it were, by giving him a surname in honor of his son, is a great idea.\nBut how strange you should have met with this book!\" added the count, in\nsurprise. \"I can understand; there is matter here to inflame the coolest\nhead.\"\n\n\"Oh! you will see, you will see,\" said Adrienne.\n\nThe count continued to read: \"'Colonel Drake, one of the bravest and best\nofficers of the English army, said yesterday, in my presence, that having\nbeen dangerously wounded, and taken prisoner by Prince Djalma, after an\nenergetic resistance, he had been conveyed to the camp established in the\nvillage of--\"\n\nHere there was the same hesitation on the part of the count, on seeing a\nstill more barbarous name than the first; so, not wishing to try the\nadventure, he paused, and said to Adrienne, \"Now really, I give this up.\"\n\n\"And yet it is so easy!\" replied Adrienne; and she pronounced with\ninexpressible softness, a name in itself soft, \"The village of\nShumshabad.\"\n\n\"You appear to have an infallible process for remembering geographical\nnames,\" said the count, continuing: \"'Once arrived at the camp, Colonel\nDrake received the kindest hospitality, and Prince Djalma treated him\nwith the respect of a son. It was there that the colonel became\nacquainted with some facts, which carried to the highest pitch his\nenthusiasm for prince Djalma. I heard him relate the two following.\n\n\"'In one of the battles, the prince was accompanied by a young Indian of\nabout twelve years of age, whom he loved tenderly, and who served him as\na page, following him on horseback to carry his spare weapons. This child\nwas idolized by its mother; just as they set out on the expedition, she\nhad entrusted her son to Prince Djalma's care, saying, with a stoicism\nworthy of antiquity, \"Let him be your brother.\" \"He shall be my brother,\"\nhad replied the prince. In the height of a disastrous defeat, the child\nis severely wounded, and his horse killed; the prince, at peril of his\nlife, notwithstanding the perception of a forced retreat, disengages him,\nand places him on the croup of his own horse; they are pursued; a\nmusket-ball strikes their steed, who is just able to reach a jungle, in\nthe midst of which, after some vain efforts, he falls exhausted. The\nchild is unable to walk, but the prince carries him in his arms, and\nhides with him in the thickest part of the jungle. The English arrive,\nand begin their search; but the two victims escape. After a night and a\nday of marches, counter-marches, stratagems, fatigues, unheard-of perils,\nthe prince, still, carrying the child, one of whose legs is broken,\narrives at his father's camp, and says, with the utmost simplicity, \"I\nhad promised his mother that I would act a brother's part by him--and I\nhave done so.\"'\n\n\"That is admirable!\" cried the count.\n\n\"Go on--pray go on!\" said Adrienne, drying a tear, without removing her\neyes from the bas-relief, which she continued to contemplate with growing\nadoration.\n\nThe count continued: \"'Another time, Prince Djalma, followed by two black\nslaves, went, before sunrise, to a very wild spot, to seize a couple of\ntiger cubs only a few days old. The den had been previously discovered.\nThe two old tigers were still abroad. One of the blacks entered the den\nby a narrow aperture; the other, aided by Djalma, cut down a tolerably\nlarge tree, to prepare a trap for one of the old tigers. On the side of\nthe aperture, the cavern was exceedingly steep. The prince mounted to the\ntop of it with agility, to set his trap, with the aid of the other black.\nSuddenly, a dreadful roar was heard; and, in a few bounds, the tigress,\nreturning from the chase, reached the opening of the den. The black who\nwas laying the trap with the prince had his skull fractured by her bite;\nthe tree, falling across the entrance, prevented the female from\npenetrating the cavern, and at the same time stopped the exit of the\nblack who had seized the cubs.\n\n\"'About twenty feet higher, upon a ledge of rock, the prince lay flat on\nthe ground, looking down upon this frightful spectacle. The tigress,\nrendered furious by the cries of her little ones, gnawed the hands of the\nblack, who, from the interior of the den, strove to support the trunk of\nthe tree, his only rampart, whilst he uttered the most lamentable\noutcries.'\n\n\"It is horrible!\" said the count.\n\n\"Oh! go on! pray go on!\" exclaimed Adrienne, with excitement; \"you will\nsee what can be achieved by the heroism of goodness.\"\n\nThe count pursued: \"'Suddenly the prince seized his dagger between his\nteeth, fastened his sash to a block of stone, took his axe in one hand,\nand with the other slid down this substitute for a rope; falling a few\nsteps from the wild beast, he sprang upon her, and, swift as lightning,\ndealt her two mortal strokes, just as the black, losing his strength, was\nabout to drop the trunk of the tree, sure to have been torn to pieces.'\"\n\n\"And you are astonished at his resemblance with the demi-god, to whom\nfable itself ascribes no more generous devotion!\" cried the young lady,\nwith still increasing excitement.\n\n\"I am astonished no longer, I only admire,\" said the count, in a voice of\nemotion; \"and, at these two noble instances of heroism, my heart beats\nwith enthusiasm, as if I were still twenty.\"\n\n\"And the noble heart of this traveller beat like yours at the recital,\"\nsaid Adrienne; \"you will see.\"\n\n\"'What renders so admirable the intrepidity of the prince, is, that,\naccording to the principle of Indian castes, the life of a slave is of no\nimportance; thus a king's son, risking his life for the safety of a poor\ncreature, so generally despised, obeyed an heroic and truly Christian\ninstinct of charity, until then unheard of in this country.\"\n\n\"'Two such actions,' said Colonel Drake, with good reason, 'are\nsufficient to paint the man; it is with a feeling of profound respect\nand admiration, therefore, that I, an obscure traveller, have written the\nname of Prince Djalma in my book; and at the same time, I have\nexperienced a kind of sorrow, when I have asked myself what would be the\nfuture fate of this prince, buried in the depths of a savage country,\nalways devastated by war. However humble may be the homage that I pay to\nthis character, worthy of the heroic age, his name will at least be\nrepeated with generous enthusiasm by all those who have hearts that beat\nin sympathy with what is great and noble.'\"\n\n\"And just now, when I read those simple and touching lines,\" resumed\nAdrienne, \"I could not forbear pressing my lips to the name of the\ntraveller.\"\n\n\"Yes; he is such as I thought him,\" cried the count, with still more\nemotion, as he returned the book to Adrienne, who rose, with a grave and\ntouching air, and said to him: \"It was thus I wished you to know him,\nthat you might understand my adoration; for this courage, this heroic\ngoodness, I had guessed beforehand, when I was an involuntary listener to\nhis conversation. From that moment, I knew him to be generous as\nintrepid, tender and sensitive as energetic and resolute; and when I saw\nhim so marvellously beautiful--so different, in the noble character of\nhis countenance, and even in the style of his garments, from all I had\nhitherto met with--when I saw the impression that I made upon him, and\nwhich I perhaps felt still more violently--I knew that my whole life was\nbound up with his love.\"\n\n\"And now, what are your plans?\"\n\n\"Divine, radiant as my heart. When he learns his happiness, I wish that\nDjalma should feel dazzled as I do, so as to prevent my gazing on my sun;\nfor I repeat, that until tomorrow will be a century to me. Yes, it is\nstrange! I should have thought that after such a discovery, I should feel\nthe want of being left alone, plunged in an ocean of delicious dreams.\nBut no! from this time till to-morrow--I dread solitude--I feel a kind of\nfeverish impatience--uneasy--ardent--Oh! where is the beneficent fairy,\nthat, touching me with her wand, will lull me into slumber till\nto-morrow!\"\n\n\"I will be that beneficent fairy,\" said the count, smiling.\n\n\"You?\"\n\n\"Yes, I.\"\n\n\"And how so?\"\n\n\"The power of my wand is this: I will relieve you from a portion of your\nthoughts by making them materially visible.\"\n\n\"Pray explain yourself.\"\n\n\"And my plan will have another advantage for you. Listen to me; you are\nso happy now that you can hear anything. Your odious aunt, and her\nequally odious friends, are spreading the report that your residence with\nDr. Baleinier--\"\n\n\"Was rendered necessary by the derangement of my mind,\" said Adrienne,\nwith a smile; \"I expected that.\"\n\n\"It is stupid enough; but, as your resolution to live alone makes many\nenvious of you, and many hostile, you must feel that there will be no\nwant of persons ready to believe the most absurd calumny possible.\"\n\n\"I hope as much. To pass for mad in the eyes of fools is very\nflattering.\"\n\n\"Yes; but to prove to fools that they are fools, and that in the face of\nall Paris, is much more amusing. Now, people begin to talk of your\nabsence; you have given up your daily rides; for some time my niece has\nappeared alone in our box at the Opera; you wish to kill the time till\nto-morrow--well! here is an excellent opportunity. It is two o'clock; at\nhalfpast three, my niece will come in the carriage; the weather is\nsplendid; there is sure to be a crowd in the Bois de Boulogne. You can\ntake a delightful ride, and be seen by everybody. Then, as the air and\nmovement will have calmed your fever of happiness, I will commence my\nmagic this evening, and take you to India.\"\n\n\"To India?\"\n\n\"Into the midst of one of those wild forests, in which roar the lion, the\npanther, and the tiger. We will have this heroic combat, which so moved\nyou just now, under our own eyes, in all its terrible reality.\"\n\n\"Really, my dear count, you must be joking.\"\n\n\"Not at all; I promise to show you real wild beasts, formidable tenants\nof the country of our demigod--growling tigers--roaring lions--do you not\nthink that will be better than books?\"\n\n\"But how?\"\n\n\"Come! I must give you the secret of my supernatural power. On returning\nfrom your ride, you shall dine with my niece, and we will go together to\na very curious spectacle now exhibiting at the Porte-Saint-Martin\nTheatre. A most extraordinary lion-tamer there shows you a number of wild\nbeasts, in a state of nature, in the midst of a forest (here only\ncommences the illusion), and has fierce combats with them all--tigers,\nlions, and panthers. All Paris is crowding to these representations, and\nall Paris will see you there, more charming than ever.\"\n\n\"I accept your offer,\" said Adrienne, with childish delight. \"Yes, you\nare right. I feel a strange pleasure in beholding these ferocious\nmonsters, who will remind me of those that my demi-god so heroically\novercame. I accept also, because, for the first time in my life, I am\nanxious to be admired--even by everybody. I accept finally because--\"\nHere Mdlle. de Cardoville was interrupted by a low knock at the door, and\nby the entrance of Florine, who announced M. Rodin.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE EXECUTION.\n\nRodin entered. A rapid glance at Mdlle. de Cardoville and M. de Montbron\ntold him at once that he was in a dilemma. In fact, nothing could be less\nencouraging than the faces of Adrienne and the count. The latter, when he\ndisliked people, exhibited his antipathy, as we have already said, by an\nimpertinently aggressive manner, which had before now occasioned a good\nnumber of duels. At sight of Rodin, his countenance at once assumed a\nharsh and insolent expression; resting his elbow on the chimney-piece,\nand conversing with Adrienne, he looked disdainfully over his shoulder,\nwithout taking the least notice of the Jesuit's low bow. On the other\nhand, at sight of this man, Mdlle. de Cardoville almost felt surprise,\nthat she should experience no movement of anger or hatred. The brilliant\nflame which burned in her heart, purified it from every vindictive\nsentiment. She smiled, on the contrary; for, glancing with gentle pride\nat the Indian Bacchus, and then at herself, she asked herself what two\nbeings, so young, and fair, and free, and loving, could have to fear from\nthis old, sordid man, with his ignoble and base countenance, now\nadvancing towards her with the writhing of a reptile. In a word, far from\nfeeling anger or aversion with regard to Rodin, the young lady seemed\nfull of the spirit of mocking gayety, and her large eyes, already lighted\nup with happiness, now sparkled with irony and mischief. Rodin felt\nhimself ill at ease. People of his stamp greatly prefer violent to\nmocking enemies. They can encounter bursts of rage--sometimes by falling\non their knees, weeping, groaning, and beating their breasts--sometimes\nby turning on their adversary, armed and implacable. But they are easily\ndisconcerted by biting raillery; and thus it was with Rodin. He saw that\nbetween Adrienne de Cardoville and M. de Montbron, he was about to be\nplaced in what is vulgarly termed a \"regular fix.\"\n\nThe count opened the fire; still glancing over his shoulder, he said to\nRodin: \"Ah! you are here, my benevolent gentleman!\"\n\n\"Pray, sir, draw a little nearer,\" said Adrienne, with a mocking smile.\n\"Best of friends and model of philosophers--as well as declared enemy of\nall fraud and falsehood--I have to pay you a thousand compliments.\"\n\n\"I accent anything from you, my dear young lady, even though undeserved,\"\nsaid the Jesuit, trying to smile, and thus exposing his vile yellow\nteeth; \"but may I be informed how I have earned these compliments?\"\n\n\"Your penetration, sir, which is rare--\" replied Adrienne.\n\n\"And your veracity, sir,\" said the count, \"which is perhaps no less\nrare--\"\n\n\"In what have I exhibited my penetration, my dear young lady?\" said\nRodin, coldly. \"In what my veracity?\" added he, turning towards M. de\nMontbron.\n\n\"In what, sir?\" said Adrienne. \"Why, you have guessed a secret surrounded\nby difficulties and mystery. In a word, you have known how to read the\ndepths of a woman's heart.\"\n\n\"I, my dear young lady?\"\n\n\"You, sir! rejoice at it, for your penetration has had the most fortunate\nresults.\"\n\n\"And your veracity has worked wonders,\" added the count.\n\n\"It is pleasant to do good, even without knowing it,\" said Rodin, still\nacting on the defensive, and throwing side glances by turns on the count\nand Adrienne; \"but will you inform me what it is that deserves this\npraise--\"\n\n\"Gratitude obliges me to inform you of it,\" said Adrienne, maliciously;\n\"you have discovered, and told Prince Djalma, that I was passionately in\nlove. Well! I admire your penetration; it was true.\"\n\n\"You have also discovered, and told this lady, that Prince Djalma was\npassionately in love,\" resumed the count. \"Well! I admire your\npenetration, my dear sir; it was true.\"\n\nRodin looked confused, and at a loss for a reply.\n\n\"The person that I loved so passionately,\" said Adrienne, \"was the\nprince.\"\n\n\"The person that the prince loved so passionately,\" resumed the count,\n\"was this lady.\"\n\nThese revelations, so sudden and alarming, almost stunned Rodin; he\nremained mute and terrified, thinking of the future.\n\n\"Do you understand now, sir, the extent of our gratitude towards you?\"\nresumed Adrienne, in a still more mocking tone. \"Thanks to your sagacity,\nthanks to the touching interest you take in us, the prince and I are\nindebted to you for the knowledge of our mutual sentiments.\"\n\nThe Jesuit had now gradually recovered his presence of mind, and his\napparent calmness greatly irritated M. de Montbron, who, but for\nAdrienne's presence, would have assumed another tone than jests.\n\n\"There is some mistake,\" said Rodin, \"in what you have done me the honor\nto tell me, my dear young lady. I have never in my life spoken of the\nsentiments, however worthy and respectable, that you may entertain for\nPrince Djalma--\"\n\n\"That is true,\" replied Adrienne; \"with scrupulous and exquisite\ndiscretion, whenever you spoke to me of the deep love felt by Prince\nDjalma, you carried your reserve and delicacy so far as to inform me that\nit was not I whom he loved.\"\n\n\"And the same scruple induced you to tell the prince that Mdlle. de\nCardoville loved some one passionately--but that he was not the person,\"\nadded the count.\n\n\"Sir,\" answered Rodin, dryly, \"I need hardly tell you that I have no\ndesire to mix myself up with amorous intrigues.\"\n\n\"Come! this is either pride or modesty,\" said the count, insolently. \"For\nyour own interest, pray do not advance such things; for, if we took you\nat your word, and it became known, it might injure some of the nice\nlittle trades that you carry on.\"\n\n\"There is one at least,\" said Rodin, drawing himself up as proudly as M.\nde Montbron, \"whose rude apprenticeship I shall owe to you. It is the\nwearisome one of listening to your discourse.\"\n\n\"I tell you what, my good sir!\" replied the count, disdainfully: \"you\nforce me to remind you that there are more ways than one of chastising\nimpudent rogues.\"\n\n\"My dear count!\" said Adrienne to M. de Montbron, with an air of\nreproach.\n\nWith perfect coolness, Rodin replied: \"I do not exactly see, sir, first,\nwhat courage is shown by threatening a poor old man like myself, and,\nsecondly--\"\n\n\"M. Rodin,\" said the count, interrupting the Jesuit, \"first, a poor old\nman like you, who does evil under the shelter of the age he dishonors, is\nboth cowardly and wicked, and deserves a double chastisement; secondly,\nwith regard to this question of age, I am not aware that gamekeepers and\npolicemen bow down respectfully to the gray coats of old wolves, and the\ngray hairs of old thieves. What do you think, my good sir?\"\n\nStill impassible, Rodin raised his flabby eyelids, fixed for hardly a\nsecond his little reptile eye upon the count, and darted at him one of\nhis rapid, cold, and piercing glances--and then the livid eyelid again\ncovered the dull eye of that corpse-like face.\n\n\"Not having the disadvantage of being an old wolf, and still less an old\nthief,\" said Rodin, quietly, \"you will permit me, sir, to take no account\nof the pursuit of hunters and police. As for the reproaches made me, I\nhave a very simple method of answering--I do not say of justifying\nmyself--I never justify myself--\"\n\n\"You don't say!\" said the count.\n\n\"Never,\" resumed Rodin coolly; \"my acts are sufficient for that. I will\nthen simply answer that seeing the deep, violent, almost fearful\nimpression made by this lady on the prince--\"\n\n\"Let this assurance which you give me of the prince's love,\" said\nAdrienne interrupting Rodin with an enchanting smile, \"absolve you of all\nthe evil you wished to do me. The sight of our happiness be your only\npunishment!\"\n\n\"It may be that I need neither absolution nor punishment, for, as I have\nalready had the honor to observe to the count, my dear young lady, the\nfuture will justify my acts. Yes; it was my duty to tell the prince that\nyou loved another than himself, and to tell you that he loved another\nthan yourself--all in your mutual interest. That my attachment for you\nmay have misled me, is possible--I am not infallible; but, after my past\nconduct towards you, my dear young lady, I have, perhaps, some right to\nbe astonished at seeing myself thus treated. This is not a complaint. If\nI never justify myself, I never complain either.\"\n\n\"Now really, there is something heroic in all this, my good sir,\" said\nthe count. \"You do not condescend to complain or justify yourself, with\nregard to the evil you have done.\"\n\n\"The evil I have done?\" said Rodin, looking fixedly at the count. \"Are we\nplaying at enigmas?\"\n\n\"What, sir!\" cried the count, with indignation: \"is it nothing, by your\nfalsehoods, to have plunged the prince into so frightful a state of\ndespair, that he has twice attempted his life? Is it nothing, by similar\nfalsehoods, to have induced this lady to believe so cruel and complete an\nerror, that but for the resolution I have to-day taken, it might have led\nto the most fatal consequences?\"\n\n\"And will you do me the honor to tell me, sir, what interest I could have\nin all this despair and error, admitting even that I had wished to\nproduce them?\"\n\n\"Some great interest no doubt,\" said the count, bluntly; \"the more\ndangerous that it is concealed. You are one of those, I see, to whom the\nwoes of others are pleasure and profit.\"\n\n\"That is really too much, sir,\" said Rodin, bowing; \"I should be quite\ncontented with the profit.\"\n\n\"Your impudent coolness will not deceive me; this is a serious matter,\"\nsaid the count. \"It is impossible that so perfidious a piece of roguery\ncan be an isolated act. Who knows but this may still be one of the fruits\nof Madame de Saint-Dizier's hatred for Mdlle. de Cardoville?\"\n\nAdrienne had listened to the preceding discussion with deep attention.\nSuddenly she started, as if struck by a sudden revelation.\n\nAfter a moment's silence, she said to Rodin, without anger, without\nbitterness, but with an expression of gentle and serene calmness: \"We are\ntold, sir, that happy love works miracles. I should be tempted to believe\nit; for, after some minutes' reflection, and when I recall certain\ncircumstances, your conduct appears to me in quite a new light.\"\n\n\"And what may this new perspective be, my dear young lady?\"\n\n\"That you may see it from my point of view, sir, allow me to remind you\nof a few facts. That sewing-girl was generously devoted to me; she had\ngiven me unquestionable proofs of her attachment. Her mind was equal to\nher noble heart; but she had an invincible dislike to you. All on a\nsudden she disappears mysteriously from my house, and you do your best to\ncast upon her odious suspicions. M. de Montbron has a paternal affection\nfor me; but, as I must confess, little sympathy for you; and you have\nalways tried to produce a coldness between us. Finally, Prince Djalma has\na deep affection for me, and you employ the most perfidious treachery to\nkill that sentiment within him. For what end do you act thus? I do not\nknow; but certainly with some hostile design.\"\n\n\"It appears to me, madame,\" said Rodin, severely, \"that you have\nforgotten services performed.\"\n\n\"I do not deny, sir, that you took me from the house of Dr. Baleinier;\nbut, a few days sooner or later, I must infallibly have been released by\nM. de Montbron.\"\n\n\"You are right, my dear child,\" said the count; \"it may be that your\nenemies wished to claim the merit of what must necessarily have happened\nthrough the exertions of your friends.\"\n\n\"You are drowning, and I save you--it is all a mistake to feel grateful,\"\nsaid Rodin, bitterly; \"some one else would no doubt have saved you a\nlittle later.\"\n\n\"The comparison is wanting in exactness,\" said Adrienne, with a smile; \"a\nlunatic asylum is not a river, and though, from what I see, I think you\nquite capable of diving, you have had no occasion to swim on this\noccasion. You merely opened a door for me, which would have opened of\nitself a little later.\"\n\n\"Very good, my dear child!\" said the count, laughing heartily at\nAdrienne's reply.\n\n\"I know, sir, that your care did not extend to me only. The daughters of\nMarshal Simon were brought back by you; but we may imagine that the claim\nof the Duke de Ligny to the possession of his daughters would not have\nbeen in vain. You returned to an old soldier his imperial cross, which he\nheld to be a sacred relic; it is a very touching incident. Finally, you\nunmasked the Abbe d'Aigrigny and Dr. Baleinier: but I had already made up\nmy mind to unmask then. However, all this proves that you are a very\nclever man--\"\n\n\"Oh, madame!\" said Rodin, humbly.\n\n\"Full of resources and invention--\"\n\n\"Oh, madame!\"\n\n\"It is not my fault if, in our long interview at Dr. Baleinier's, you\nbetrayed that superiority of mind which struck me so forcibly, and which\nseems to embarrass you so much at present. What would you have,\nsir?--great minds like yours find it difficult to maintain their\nincognito. Yet, as by different ways--oh! very different,\" added the\nyoung lady, maliciously, \"we are tending to the same end (still keeping\nin view our conversation at Dr. Baleinier's), I wish, for the sake of our\nfuture communion, as you call it, to give you a piece of advice, and\nspeak frankly to you.\"\n\nRodin had listened to Mdlle. de Cardoville with apparent impassibility,\nholding his hat under his arm, and twirling his thumbs, whilst his hands\nwere crossed upon his waistcoat. The only external mark of the intense\nagitation into which he was thrown by the calm words of Adrienne, was\nthat the livid eyelids of the Jesuit, which had been hypocritically\nclosed, became gradually red, as the blood flowed into them.\nNevertheless, he answered Mdlle. de Cardoville in a firm voice, and with\na low bow: \"Good advice and frankness are always excellent things.\"\n\n\"You see, sir,\" resumed Adrienne, with some excitement, \"happy love\nbestows such penetration, such energy, such courage, as enables one to\nlaugh at perils, to detect stratagems, and to defy hatred. Believe me,\nthe divine light which surrounds two loving hearts will be sufficient to\ndisperse all darkness, and reveal every snare. You see, in India--excuse\nmy weakness, but I like to talk of India,\" added the young girl, with a\nsmile of indescribable grace and meaning--\"in India, when travellers\nsleep at night, they kindle great fires round their ajoupa (excuse this\ntouch of local coloring), and far as extends the luminous circle, it puts\nto flight by its mere brilliancy, all the impure and venomous reptiles\nthat shun the day and live only in darkness.\"\n\n\"The meaning of this comparison has quite escaped me,\" said Rodin,\ncontinuing to twirl his thumbs, and half raising his eyelids, which were\ngetting redder and redder.\n\n\"I will speak more plainly,\" said Adrienne, with a smile. \"Suppose, sir,\nthat the last is a service which you have rendered me and the prince--for\nyou only proceed by way of services--that, I acknowledge, is novel and\ningenious.\"\n\n\"Bravo, my dear child!\" said the count, joyfully. \"The execution will be\ncomplete.\"\n\n\"Oh! this is meant for an execution?\" said Rodin, still impassible.\n\n\"No, sir,\" answered Adrienne, with a smile; \"it is a simple conversation\nbetween a poor young girl and an old philosopher, the friend of humanity.\nSuppose, then, that these frequent services that you have rendered to me\nand mine have suddenly opened my eyes; or, rather,\" added the young girl,\nin a serious tone, \"suppose that heaven, who gives to the mother the\ninstinct to defend her child, has given me, along with happiness, the\ninstinct to preserve my happiness, and that a vague presentiment, by\nthrowing light on a thousand circumstances until now obscure, has\nsuddenly revealed to me that, instead of being the friend, you are\nperhaps, the most dangerous enemy of myself and family.\"\n\n\"So we pass from the execution to suppositions,\" said Rodin, still\nimmovable.\n\n\"And from suppositions, sir, if you must have it, to certainty,\" resumed\nAdrienne, with dignified firmness; \"yes, now I believe that I was for\nawhile your dupe, and I tell you, without hate, without anger, but with\nregret--that it is painful to see a man of your sense and intelligence\nstoop to such machinations, and, after having recourse to so many\ndiabolical manoeuvres, finish at last by being ridiculous; for, believe\nme, there is nothing more ridiculous for a man like you, than to be\nvanquished by a young girl, who has no weapon, no defence, no instructor,\nbut her love. In a word, sir, I look upon you from to-day as an\nimplacable and dangerous enemy; for I half perceive your aim, without\nguessing by what means you will seek to accomplish it, No doubt your\nfuture means will be worthy of the past. Well! in spite of all this, I do\nnot fear you. From tomorrow, my family will be informed of everything,\nand an active, intelligent, resolute union will keep us all upon our\nguard, for it doubtless concerns this enormous inheritance, of which they\nwish to deprive us. Now, what connection can there be between the wrongs\nI reproach you with and the pecuniary end proposed? I do not at all\nknow--but you have told me yourself that our enemies are so dangerously\nskillful, and their craft so far-reaching, that we must expect all, be\nprepared for all. I will remember the lesson. I have promised you\nfrankness, sir, and now I suppose you have it.\"\n\n\"It would be an imprudent frankness if I were your enemy,\" said Rodin,\nstill impassible; \"but you also promised me some advice, my dear young\nlady.\"\n\n\"My advice will be short; do not attempt to continue the struggle,\nbecause, you see, there is something stronger than you and yours--it is a\nwoman's resolve, defending her happiness.\"\n\nAdrienne pronounced these last words with so sovereign a confidence; her\nbeautiful countenance shone, as is it were, with such intrepid joy, that\nRodin, notwithstanding his phlegmatic audacity, was for a moment\nfrightened. Yet he did not appear in the least disconcerted; and, after a\nmoment's silence, he resumed, with an air of almost contemptuous\ncompassion: \"My dear young lady, we may perhaps never meet again; it is\nprobable. Only remember one thing, which I now repeat to you: I never\njustify myself. The future will provide for that. Notwithstanding which,\nmy dear young lady, I am your humble servant;\" and he made her a low bow.\n\n\"Count, I beg to salute you most respectfully,\" he added, bowing still\nmore humbly to M. de Montbron; and he went out.\n\nHardly had Rodin left the room than Adrienne ran to her desk, and writing\na few hasty lines, sealed the note, and said to M. de Montbron: \"I shall\nnot see the prince before to-morrow--as much from superstition of the\nheart as because it is necessary for my plans that this interview should\nbe attended with some little solemnity. You shall know all; but I write\nto him on the instant, for, with an enemy like M. Rodin, one must be\nprepared for all.\"\n\n\"You are right, my dear child; quick! the letter.\" Adrienne gave it to\nhim.\n\n\"I tell him enough,\" said she, \"to calm his grief; and not enough to\ndeprive me of the delicious happiness of the surprise I reserve for to\nmorrow.\"\n\n\"All this has as much sense as heart in it: I will hasten to the prince's\nabode, to deliver your letter. I shall not see him, for I could not\nanswer for myself. But come! our proposed drive, our evening's amusement,\nare still to hold good.\"\n\n\"Certainly. I have more need than ever to divert my thoughts till to\nmorrow. I feel, too, that the fresh air will do me good, for this\ninterview with M. Rodin has warmed me a little.\"\n\n\"The old wretch! but we will talk further of him. I will hasten to the\nprince's and return with Madame de Morinval, to fetch you to the Champs\nElysees.\"\n\nThe Count de Montbron withdrew precipitately, as joyful at his departure\nas he had been sad on his arrival.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE CHAMPS-ELYSEES\n\nIt was about two hours after the interview of Rodin with Mdlle. de\nCardoville. Numerous loungers, attracted to the Champs-Elysees by the\nserenity of a fine spring day (it was towards the end of the month of\nMarch) stopped to admire a very handsome equipage. A bright-blue open\ncarriage, with white-and-blue wheels, drawn by four superb horses, of\ncream color, with black manes, and harness glittering with silver\nornaments, mounted by two boy postilions of equal size, with black velvet\ncaps, light-blue cassimere jackets with white collars, buckskin breeches,\nand top-boots; two tall, powdered footmen, also in light-blue livery,\nwith white collars and facings, being seated in the rumble behind.\n\nNo equipage could have been turned out in better style. The horses, full\nof blood, spirit, and vigor, were skillfully managed by the postilions,\nand stepped with singular regularity, gracefully keeping time in their\nmovements, champing their bits covered with foam, and ever and anon\nshaking their cockades of blue and white silk, with long floating ends,\nand a bright rose blooming in the midst.\n\nA man on horseback, dressed with elegant simplicity, keeping at the other\nside of the avenue, contemplated with proud satisfaction this equipage\nwhich he had, as it were, created. It was M. de Bonneville--Adrienne's\nequerry, as M. de Montbron called him--for the carriage belonged to that\nyoung lady. A change had taken place in the plan for this magic day's\namusement. M. de Montbron had not been able to deliver Mdlle. de\nCardoville's note to Prince Djalma. Faringhea had told him that the\nprince had gone that morning into the country with Marshal Simon, and\nwould not be back before evening. The letter should be given him on his\narrival. Completely satisfied as to Djalma, knowing that he could find\nthese few lines, which, without informing him of the happiness that\nawaited him, would at least give him some idea of it, Adrienne had\nfollowed the advice of M. de Montbron, and gone to the drive in her own\ncarriage, to show all the world that she had quite made up her mind, in\nspite of the perfidious reports circulated by the Princess de Saint\nDizier, to keep to her resolution of living by herself in her own way.\nAdrienne wore a small white bonnet, with a fall of blonde, which well\nbecame her rosy face and golden hair; her high dress of garnet-colored\nvelvet was almost hidden beneath a large green cashmere shawl. The young\nMarchioness de Morinval, who was also very pretty and elegant, was seated\nat her right. M. de Montbron occupied the front seat of the carriage.\n\nThose who know the Parisian world, or rather, that imperceptible fraction\nof the world of Paris which goes every fine, sunny day to the Champs\nElysees, to see and be seen, will understand that the presence of Mdlle.\nde Cardoville on that brilliant promenade was an extraordinary and\ninteresting event.\n\nThe world (as it is called) could hardly believe its eyes, on seeing this\nlady of eighteen, possessed of princely wealth, and belonging to the\nhighest nobility, thus prove to every one, by this appearance in public,\nthat she was living completely free and independent, contrary to all\ncustom and received notions of propriety. This kind of emancipation\nappeared something monstrous, and people were almost astonished that the\ngraceful and dignified bearing of the young lady should belie so\ncompletely the calumnies circulated by Madame de Saint-Dizier and her\nfriends, with regard to the pretended madness of her niece. Many beaux,\nprofiting by their acquaintance with the Marchioness de Morinval or M. de\nMontbron, came by turns to pay their respects, and rode for a few minutes\nby the side of the carriage, so as to have an opportunity of seeing,\nadmiring, and perhaps hearing, Mdlle. de Cardoville; she surpassed their\nexpectations, by talking with her usual grace and spirit. Then surprise\nand enthusiasm knew no bounds. What had at first been blamed as an almost\ninsane caprice, was now voted a charming originality, and it only\ndepended on Mdlle. de Cardoville herself, to be declared from that day\nthe queen of elegance and fashion. The young lady understood very well\nthe impression she had made; she felt proud and happy, for she thought of\nDjalma; when she compared him to all these men of fashion, her happiness\nwas the more increased. And, verily, these young men, most of whom had\nnever quitted Paris, or had ventured at most as far as Naples or Baden,\nlooked insignificant enough by the side of Djalma, who, at his age, had\nso many times commanded and combated in bloody wars, and whose reputation\nfar courage and generosity, mentioned by travellers with admiration, had\nalready reached from India to Paris. And then, how could these charming\nexquisites, with their small hats, their scanty frock-coats, and their\nhuge cravats, compare with the Indian prince, whose graceful and manly\nbeauty was still heightened by the splendor of a costume, at once so rich\nand so picturesque?\n\nOn this happy day, all was joy and love for Adrienne. The sun, setting in\na splendidly serene sky, flooded the promenade with its golden light. The\nair was warm. Carriages and horsemen passed and repassed in rapid\nsuccession; a light breeze played with the scarfs of the women, and the\nplumes in their bonnets; all around was noise, movement, sunshine.\nAdrienne, leaning back in her carriage, amused herself with watching this\nbusy scene, sparkling with Parisian luxury; but, in the vortex of this\nbrilliant chaos, she saw in thought the mild, melancholy countenance of\nDjalma--when suddenly something fell into her lap, and she started. It\nwas a bunch of half-faded violets. At the same instant she heard a\nchild's voice following the carriage, and saying: \"For the love of\nheaven, my good lady, one little sou!\" Adrienne turned her head, and saw\na poor little girl, pale and wan, with mild, sorrowful features, scarcely\ncovered with rags, holding out her hand, and raising her eyes in\nsupplication. Though the striking contrast of extreme misery, side by\nside with extreme luxury, is so common, that it no longer excites\nattention, Adrienne was deeply affected by it. She thought of Mother\nBunch, now, perhaps, the victim of frightful destitution.\n\n\"Ah! at least,\" thought the young lady, \"let not this day be one of\nhappiness for me alone!\"\n\nShe leaned from the carriage-window, and said to the poor child: \"Have\nyou a mother, my dear?\"\n\n\"No, my lady, I have neither father nor mother.\"\n\n\"Who takes care of you?\"\n\n\"No one, my lady. They give me nosegays to sell, and I must bring home\nmoney--or they beat me.\"\n\n\"Poor little thing!\"\n\n\"A sou, my good lady--a sou, for the love of heaven!\" said the child,\ncontinuing to follow the carriage, which was then moving slowly.\n\n\"My dear count,\" said Adrienne, smiling, and addressing M. de Montbron,\n\"you are, unfortunately, no novice at an elopement. Please to stretch\nforth your arms, take up that child with both hands, and lift her into\nthe carriage. We can hide her between Lady de Morinval and myself; and we\ncan drive away before any one perceives this audacious abduction.\"\n\n\"What!\" said the count, in surprise. \"You wish--\"\n\n\"Yes; I beg you to do it.\"\n\n\"What a folly!\"\n\n\"Yesterday, you might, perhaps, have treated this caprice as a folly; but\nto-day,\" said Adrienne, laying great stress upon the word, and glancing\nat M. de Montbron with a significant air, \"to-day, you should understand\nthat it is almost a duty.\"\n\n\"Yes, I understand you, good and noble heart!\" said the count, with\nemotion; while Lady de Morinval, who knew nothing of Mdlle. de\nCardoville's love for Djalma, looked with as much surprise as curiosity\nat the count and the young lady.\n\nM. de Montbron, leaning from the carriage, stretched out his arms towards\nthe child, and said to her: \"Give me your hands, little girl.\"\n\nThough much astonished, the child obeyed mechanically, and held out both\nher little arms; then the count took her by the wrists, and lifted her\nlightly from the ground, which he did the more easily, as the carnage was\nvery low, and its progress by no means rapid. More stupefied than\nfrightened, the child said not a word. Adrienne and Lady de Morinval made\nroom for her to crouch down between them, and the little girl was soon\nhidden beneath the shawls of the two young women. All this was executed\nso quickly, that it was hardly perceived by a few persons passing in the\nside-avenues.\n\n\"Now, my dear count,\" said Adrienne, radiant with pleasure, \"let us make\noff at once with our prey.\"\n\nM. de Montbron half rose, and called to the postilions. \"Home!\" and the\nfour horses started at once into a rapid and regular trot.\n\n\"This day of happiness now seems consecrated, and my luxury is excused,\"\nthought Adrienne; \"till I can again meet with that poor Mother Bunch, and\nfrom this day I will make every exertion to find her out, her place will\nat least not be quite empty.\"\n\nThere are often strange coincidences in life. At the moment when this\nthought of the hunchback crossed the mind of Adrienne, a crowd had\ncollected in one of the side-avenues, and other persons soon ran to join\nthe group.\n\n\"Look, uncle!\" said Lady de Morinval; \"how many people are assembled\nyonder. What can it be? Shall we stop, and send to inquire?\"\n\n\"I am sorry, my dear, but your curiosity cannot be satisfied,\" said the\ncount, drawing out his watch; \"it will soon be six o'clock, and the\nexhibition of the wild beasts begin at eight. We shall only just have\ntime to go home and dine. Is not that your opinion, my dear child?\" said\nhe to Adrienne.\n\n\"And yours, Julia?\" said Mdlle. de Cardoville to the marchioness.\n\n\"Oh, certainly!\" answered her friend.\n\n\"I am the less inclined to delay,\" resumed the count, \"as when I have\ntaken you to the Porte-Saint-Martin, I shall be obliged to go for half\nan-hour to my club, to ballot for Lord Campbell, whom I propose.\"\n\n\"Then, Adrienne and I will be left alone at the play, uncle?\"\n\n\"Your husband will go with you, I suppose.\"\n\n\"True, dear uncle; but do not quite leave us, because of that.\"\n\n\"Be sure I shall not: for I am curious as you are to see these terrible\nanimals, and the famous Morok, the incomparable lion-tamer.\"\n\nA few minutes after, Mdlle. de Cardoville's carriage had left the Champs\nElysees, carrying with it the little girl, and directing its course\ntowards the Rue d'Anjou. As the brilliant equipage disappeared from the\nscene, the crowd, of which we before have spoken, greatly increased about\none of the large trees in the Champs-Elysees, and expressions of pity\nwere heard here and there amongst the groups. A lounger approached a\nyoung man on the skirts of the crowd, and said to him: \"What is the\nmatter, sir?\"\n\n\"I hear it is a poor young girl, a hunchback, that has fallen from\nexhaustion.\"\n\n\"A hunchback! is that all? There will always be enough hunchbacks,\" said\nthe lounger, brutally, with a coarse laugh.\n\n\"Hunchback or not, if she dies of hunger,\" answered the young man,\nscarcely able to restrain his indignation, \"it will be no less sad--and\nthere is really nothing to laugh at, sir.\"\n\n\"Die of hunger! pooh!\" said the lounger, shrugging his shoulders. \"It is\nonly lazy scoundrels, that will not work, who die of hunger. And it\nserves them right.\"\n\n\"I wager, sir, there is one death you will never die of,\" cried the young\nman, incensed at the cruel insolence of the lounger.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" answered the other, haughtily.\n\n\"I mean, sir, that your heart is not likely to kill you.\"\n\n\"Sir!\" cried the lounger in an angry tone.\n\n\"Well! what, sir?\" replied the young man, looking full in his face.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said the lounger, turning abruptly on his heel, and grumbling\nas he sauntered towards an orange-colored cabriolet, on which was\nemblazoned an enormous coat-of-arms, surmounted by a baron's crest. A\nservant in green livery, ridiculously laced with gold, was standing\nbeside the horse, and did not perceive his master.\n\n\"Are you catching flies, fool?\" said the latter, pushing him with his\ncane. The servant turned round in confusion. \"Sir,\" said he.\n\n\"Will you never learn to call me Monsieur le Baron, rascal?\" cried his\nmaster, in a rage--\"Open the door directly!\"\n\nThe lounger was Baron Tripeaud, the manufacturing baron the stock-jobber.\nThe poor hunchback was Mother Bunch, who had, indeed fallen with hunger\nand fatigue, whilst on her way to Mdlle. de Cardoville's. The unfortunate\ncreature had found courage to brave the shame of the ridicule she so much\nfeared, by returning to that house from which she was a voluntary exile;\nbut this time, it was not for herself, but for her sister Cephyse--the\nBacchanal Queen, who had returned to Paris the previous day, and whom\nMother Bunch now sought, through the means of Adrienne, to rescue from a\nmost dreadful fate.\n\nTwo hours after these different scenes, an enormous crowd pressed round\nthe doors of the Porte-Saint-Martin, to witness the exercises of Morok,\nwho was about to perform a mock combat with the famous black panther of\nJava, named Death. Adrienne, accompanied by Lord and Lady de Morinval,\nnow stepped from a carriage at the entrance of the theatre. They were to\nbe joined in the course of the evening by M. de Montbron, whom they had\ndropped, in passing, at his club.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\nBEHIND THE SCENES.\n\nThe large theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin was crowded by an impatient\nmultitude. All Paris had hurried with eager and burning curiosity to\nMorok's exhibition. It is quite unnecessary to say that the lion-tamer\nhad completely abandoned his small taste in religious baubles, which he\nhad so successfully carried on at the White Falcon Inn at Leipsic. There\nwere, moreover, numerous tokens by which the surprising effects of\nMorok's sudden conversion had been blazoned in the most extraordinary\npictures: the antiquated baubles in which he had formerly dealt would\nhave found no sale in Paris. Morok had nearly finished dressing himself,\nin one of the actor's rooms, which had been lent to him. Over a coat of\nmail, with cuishes and brassarts, he wore an ample pair of red trousers,\nfastened round his ankles by broad rings of gilt brass. His long caftan\nof black cloth, embroidered with scarlet and gold, was bound round his\nwaist and wrist by other large rings of gilt metal. This sombre costume\nimparted to him an aspect still more ferocious. His thick and red-haired\nbeard fell in large quantities down to his chest, and a long piece of\nwhite muslin was folded round his red head. A devout missionary in\nGermany and an actor in Paris, Morok knew as well as his employers, the\nJesuits, how to accommodate himself to circumstances.\n\nSeated in one corner of the room, and contemplating with a sort of stupid\nadmiration, was Jacques Rennepont, better known as \"Sleepinbuff\" (from\nthe likelihood that he would end his days in rags, or his present\nantipathy to great care in dress). Since the day Hardy's factory had been\ndestroyed by fire, Jacques had not quitted Morok, passing the nights in\nexcesses, which had no baneful effects on the iron constitution of the\nlion-tamer. On the other's features, on the contrary, a great alteration\nwas perceptible; his hollow cheeks, marble pallor, his eyes, by turns\ndull and heavy, or gleaming with lurid fire, betrayed the ravages of\ndebauchery, his parched lips were almost constantly curled by a bitter\nand sardonic smile. His spirit, once gay and sanguine, still struggled\nagainst the besotting influence of habitual intoxication. Unfitted for\nlabor, no longer able to forego gross pleasures, Jacques sought to drown\nin wine a few virtuous impulses which he still possessed, and had sunk so\nlow as to accept without shame the large dole of sensual gratification\nproffered him by Morok, who paid all the expenses of their orgies, but\nnever gave him money, in order that he might be completely dependent on\nhim. After gazing at Morok for some time in amazement, Jacques said to\nhim, in a familiar tone: \"Well, yours is a famous trade; you may boast\nthat, at this moment, there are not two men like you in the whole world\nThat's flattering. It's a pity you don't stick to this fine trade.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Why, how is the conspiracy going on, in whose honor you make me keep it\nup all day and all night?\"\n\n\"It is working, but the time is not yet come; that is why I wish to have\nyou always at hand, till the great day. Do you complain?\"\n\n\"Hang it, no!\" said Jacques. \"What could I do? Burnt up with brandy as I\nam, if I wanted to work, I've no longer the strength to do so. I have\nnot, like you, a head of marble, and a body of iron; but as for fuddling\nmyself with gunpowder, instead of anything else, that'll do for me; I'm\nonly fit for that work now--and then, it will drive away thought.\"\n\n\"Oh what kind?\"\n\n\"You know that when I do think, I think only of one thing,\" said Jacques,\ngloomily.\n\n\"The Bacchanal queen?--still?\" said Morok, in a disdainful tone.\n\n\"Still! rather: when I shall think of her no longer, I shall be dead--or\nstupefied. Fiend!\"\n\n\"You were never better or more intelligent, you fool!\" replied Morok,\nfastening his turban. The conversation was here interrupted. Morok's\naider entered hastily.\n\nThe gigantic form of this Hercules had increased in width. He was habited\nlike Alcides; his enormous limbs, furrowed with veins as thick as\nwhipcord, were covered with a close-fitting flesh-colored garment, to\nwhich a pair of red drawers formed a strong contrast.\n\n\"Why do you rush in like a storm, Goliath?\" said Morok.\n\n\"There's a pretty storm in the house; they are beginning to get\nimpatient, and are calling out like madmen. But if that were all!\"\n\n\"Well, what else?\"\n\n\"Death will not be able to play this evening.\"\n\nMorok turned quickly around. He seemed uneasy. \"Why so?\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"I have just seen her! she's crouching at the bottom of her cage; her\nears lie so close to her head, she looks as if they had been cut off. You\nknow what that means.\"\n\n\"Is that all?\" said Morok, turning to the glass to complete his head\ndress.\n\n\"It's quite enough; she's in one of her tearing fits. Since that night in\nGermany, when she ripped up that old hack of a white horse, I've not seen\nher look so savage! her eyes shine like burning candles.\"\n\n\"Then she must have her fine collar on,\" said Morok, quietly.\n\n\"Her fine collar?\"\n\n\"Yes; her spring-collar.\"\n\n\"And I must be lady's-maid,\" said the giant. \"A nice toilet to attend\nto!\"\n\n\"Hold your tongue!\"\n\n\"That's not all--\" continued Goliath, hesitating.\n\n\"What more?\"\n\n\"I might as well tell you at once.\"\n\n\"Will you speak?\"\n\n\"Well! he is here.\"\n\n\"Who, you stupid brute?\"\n\n\"The Englishman!\"\n\nMorok started; his arms fell powerless by his side. Jacques was struck\nwith the lion-tamer's paleness and troubled countenance.\n\n\"The Englishman!--you have seen him?\" cried Morok, addressing Goliath.\n\"You are quite sure?\"\n\n\"Quite sure. I was looking through the peep-hole in the curtain; I saw\nhim in one of the stage-boxes--he wishes to see things close; he's easy\nto recognize, with his pointed forehead, big nose, and goggle eyes.\"\n\nMorok shuddered again; usually fierce and unmoved, he appeared to be more\nand more agitated, and so alarmed, that Jacques said to him: \"Who is this\nEnglishman?\"\n\n\"He has followed me from Strasburg, where he fell in with me,\" said\nMorok, with visible dejection. \"He travelled with his own horses, by\nshort stages, as I did; stopping where I stopped, so as never to miss one\nof my exhibitions. But two days before I arrived at Paris, he left me--I\nthought I was rid of him,\" said Morok, with a sigh.\n\n\"Rid of him!--how you talk!\" replied Jacques, surprised; \"such a good\ncustomer, such an admirer!\"\n\n\"Aye!\" said Morok, becoming more and more agitated; \"this wretch has\nwagered an enormous sum, that I will be devoured in his presence, during\none of my performances: he hopes to win his wager--that is why he follows\nme about.\"\n\nSleepinbuff found the John Bull's idea so amusingly eccentric, that, for\nthe first time since a very long period, he burst into a peal of hearty\nlaughter. Morok, pale with rage, rushed towards him with so menacing an\nair, that Goliath was obliged to interpose.\n\n\"Come, come,\" said Jacques, \"don't be angry; if it is serious, I will not\nlaugh any more.\"\n\nMorok was appeased, and said to Sleepinbuff in a hoarse voice: \"Do you\nthink me a coward?\"\n\n\"No, by heaven!\"\n\n\"Well! And yet this Englishman, with his grotesque face, frightens me\nmore than any tiger or my panther!\"\n\n\"You say so, and I believe it,\" replied Jacques; \"but I cannot understand\nwhy the presence of this man should alarm you.\"\n\n\"But consider, you dull knave!\" cried Morok, \"that, obliged to watch\nincessantly the least movement of the ferocious beast, whom I keep in\nsubjection by my action and my looks, there is something terrible in\nknowing that two eyes are there--always there--fixed--waiting till the\nleast absence of mind shall expose me to be torn in pieces by the\nanimals.\"\n\n\"Now, I understand,\" said Jacques, shuddering in his turn. \"It is\nterrible.\"\n\n\"Yes; for once there, though I may not see this cursed Englishman, I\nfancy I have his two round eyes, fixed and wide open, always before me.\nMy tiger Cain once nearly mutilated my arm, when my attention was drawn\naway by this Englishman, whom the devil take! Blood and thunder!\" cried\nMorok: \"this man will be fatal to me.\" And Morok paced the room in great\nagitation.\n\n\"Besides, Death lays her ears close to her skull,\" said Goliath,\nbrutally. \"If you persist--mind, I tell you--the Englishman will win his\nwager this evening.\"\n\n\"Go away, you brute!--don't vex my head with your confounded\npredictions,\" cried Morok: \"go and prepare Death's collar.\"\n\n\"Well, every one to his taste; you wish the panther to taste you,\" said\nthe giant, stalking heavily away, after this joke.\n\n\"But if you feel these fears,\" said Jacques, \"why do you not say that the\npanther is ill?\"\n\nMorok shrugged his shoulders, and replied with a sort of feverish\nferocity, \"Have you ever heard of the fierce pleasure of the gamester,\nwho stakes his honor, his life, upon a card? Well! I too--in these daily\nexhibitions where my life is at stake--find a wild, fierce pleasure in\nbraving death, before a crowded assembly, shuddering and terrified at my\naudacity. Yes, even in the fear with which this Englishman inspires me, I\nfind, in spite of myself, a terrible excitement, which I abhor, and which\nyet subjugates me.\"\n\nAt this moment, the stage-manager entered the room, and interrupted the\nbeast-tamer. \"May we give the signal, M. Morok?\" said the stage-manager.\n\"The overture will not last above ten minutes.\"\n\n\"I am ready,\" said Morok.\n\n\"The police-inspector has just now given orders, that the double chain of\nthe panther, and the iron ring riveted to the floor of the stage, at the\nend of the cavern in the foreground, shall be again examined; and\neverything has been reported quite secure.\"\n\n\"Yes--secure--except for me,\" murmured the beast-tamer.\n\n\"So, M. Morok, the signal may be given?\"\n\n\"The signal may--be given,\" replied Morok. And the manager went out.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nUP WITH THE CURTAIN.\n\nThe usual bell sounded with solemnity behind the scenes the overture\nbegan, and, to say the truth, but little attention was paid to it. The\ninterior of the theatre offered a very animated view. With the exception\nof two stage-boxes even with the dress circle, one to the left, the other\nto the right of the audience, every seat was occupied. A great number of\nvery fashionable ladies, attracted, as is always the case, by the strange\nwildness of the spectacle, filled the boxes. The stalls were crowded by\nmost of the young men who; in the morning, had walked their horses on the\nChamps-Elysees. The observations which passed from one stall to another,\nwill give some idea of their conversation.\n\n\"Do you know, my dear boy, there would not be so crowded or fashionable\nan audience to witness Racine's Athalia?\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly. What is the beggarly howling of an actor, compared to the\nroaring of the lion?\"\n\n\"I cannot understand how the authorities permit this Morok to fasten his\npanther with a chain to an iron ring in the corner of the stage. If the\nchain were to break?\"\n\n\"Talking of broken chains--there's little Mme. de Blinville, who is no\ntigress. Do you see her in the second tier, opposite?\"\n\n\"It becomes her very well to have broken, as you say, the marriage chain;\nshe looks very well this season.\"\n\n\"Oh! there is the beautiful Duchess de Saint-Prix; all the world is here\nto-night--I don't speak of ourselves.\"\n\n\"It is a regular opera night--what a festive scene!\"\n\n\"Well, after all, people do well to amuse themselves, perhaps it will not\nbe for long.\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"Suppose the cholera were to come to Paris?\"\n\n\"Oh! nonsense!\"\n\n\"Do you believe in the cholera?\"\n\n\"To be sure I do! He's coming from the North, with his walking-stick\nunder his arm.\"\n\n\"The devil take him on the road! don't let us see his green visage here.\"\n\n\"They say he's at London.\"\n\n\"A pleasant journey to him.\"\n\n\"Come, let us talk of something else; it may be a weakness, if you\nplease, but I call this a dull subject.\"\n\n\"I believe you.\"\n\n\"Oh! gentlemen--I am not mistaken--no--it is she!\"\n\n\"Who, then?\"\n\n\"Mdlle. de Cardoville! She is coming into the stage-box with Morinval and\nhis wife. It is a complete resuscitation: this morning on the\nChamps-Elysees; in the evening here.\"\n\n\"Faith, you are right! It is Mdlle. de Cardoville.\"\n\n\"Good heaven! how lovely she is!\"\n\n\"Lend me your eyeglass.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you think of her?\"\n\n\"Exquisite--dazzling.\"\n\n\"And in addition to her beauty, an inexhaustible flow of wit, three\nhundred thousand francs a year, high birth, eighteen years of age,\nand--free as air.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is to say, that, provided it pleased her, I might be to\nmorrow--or even to-day--the happiest of men.\"\n\n\"It is enough to turn one's brain.\"\n\n\"I am told that her mansion, Rue d'Anjou, is like an enchanted palace; a\ngreat deal is said about a bath-room and bedroom, worthy of the Arabian\nNights.\"\n\n\"And free as air--I come back to that.\"\n\n\"Ah! if I were in her place!\"\n\n\"My levity would be quite shocking.\"\n\n\"Oh! gentlemen, what a happy man will he be who is loved first!\"\n\n\"You think, then, that she will have many lovers?\"\n\n\"Being as free as air--\"\n\n\"All the boxes are full, except the stage-box opposite to that in which\nMdlle. de Cardoville is seated. Happy the occupiers of that box!\"\n\n\"Did you see the English ambassador's lady in the dress circle?\"\n\n\"And the Princess d'Alvimar--what an enormous bouquet!\"\n\n\"I should like to know the name--of that nosegay.\"\n\n\"Oh!--it's Germigny.\"\n\n\"How flattering for the lions and tigers, to attract so fashionable an\naudience.\"\n\n\"Do you notice, gentlemen, how all the women are eye-glassing Mdlle. de\nCardoville?\"\n\n\"She makes a sensation.\"\n\n\"She is right to show herself; they gave her out as mad.\"\n\n\"Oh! gentlemen, what a capital phiz!\"\n\n\"Where--where?\"\n\n\"There--in the omnibus-box beneath Mdlle. de Cardoville's.\"\n\n\"It's a Nuremburg nutcracker.\"\n\n\"An ourang-outang!\"\n\n\"Did you ever see such round, staring eyes?\"\n\n\"And the nose!\"\n\n\"And the forehead!\"\n\n\"It's a caricature.\"\n\n\"Order, order! the curtain rises.\"\n\nAnd, in fact, the curtain rose. Some explanation is necessary for the\nclear understanding of what follows. In the lower stage-box, to the left\nof the audience, were several persons, who had been referred to by the\nyoung men in the stalls. The omnibus-box was occupied by the Englishman,\nthe eccentric and portentous bettor, whose presence inspired Morok with\nso much dread.\n\nIt would require Hoffman's rare and fantastic genius to describe worthily\nthat countenance, at once grotesque and frightful, as it stood out from\nthe dark background of the box. This Englishman was about fifty years\nold; his forehead was quite bald, and of a conical shape; beneath this\nforehead, surmounted by eyebrows like parenthesis marks, glittered large,\ngreen eyes, remarkably round and staring, and set very close to a hooked\nnose, extremely sharp and prominent; a chin like that on the old\nfashioned nutcrackers was half-hidden in a broad and ample white cravat,\nas stiffly-starched as the round-cornered shirt-collar, which nearly\ntouched his ears. The face was exceedingly thin and bony, and yet the\ncomplexion was high-colored, approaching to purple, which made the bright\ngreen of the pupils, and the white of the other part of the eyes, still\nmore conspicuous. The mouth, which was very wide, sometimes whistled\ninaudibly the tune of a Scotch jig (always the same tune), sometimes was\nslightly curled with a sardonic smite. The Englishman was dressed with\nextreme care; his blue coat, with brass buttons, displayed his spotless\nwaistcoat, snowy, white as his ample cravat; his shirt was fastened with\ntwo magnificent ruby studs, and his patrician hands were carefully kid\ngloved.\n\nTo any one who knew the eccentric and cruel desire which attracted this\nman to every representation, his grotesque face became almost terrific,\ninstead of exciting ridicule; and it was easy to understand the dread\nexperience by Morok at sight of those great, staring round eyes, which\nappeared to watch for the death of the lion-tamer (what a horrible\ndeath!) with unshaken confidence. Above the dark box of the Englishman,\naffording a graceful contrast, were seated the Morinvals and Mdlle. de\nCardoville. The latter was placed nearest the stage. Her head was\nuncovered, and she wore a dress of sky-blue China crepe, ornamented at\nthe bosom with a brooch of the finest Oriental pearls--nothing more; yet\nAdrienne, thus attired, was charming. She held in her hand an enormous\nbouquet, composed of the rarest flowers of India: the stephanotis and the\ngardenia mingled the dead white of their blossoms with the purple\nhibiscus and Java amaryllis.\n\nMadame de Morinval, seated on the opposite side of the box, was dressed\nwith equal taste and simplicity; Morinval, a fair and very handsome young\nman, of elegant appearance, was behind the two ladies. M. de Montbron was\nexpected to arrive every moment. The reader will please to recollect that\nthe stage-box to the right of the audience, opposite Adrienne's, had\nremained till then quite empty. The stage represented one of the gigantic\nforests of India. In the background, tall exotic trees rose in spiral or\nspreading forms, among rugged masses of perpendicular rocks, with here\nand there glimpses of a tropical sky. The side-scenes formed tufts of\ntrees, interspersed with rocks; and at the side which was immediately\nbeneath Adrienne's box appeared the irregular opening of a deep and\ngloomy cavern, round which were heaped huge blocks of granite, as if\nthrown together by some convulsion of nature. This scenery, full of a\nwild and savage grandeur, was wonderfully \"built up,\" so as to make the\nillusion as complete as possible; the footlights were lowered, and being\ncovered with a purple shade, threw over this landscape a subdued reddish\nlight, which increased the gloomy and startling effect of the whole.\nAdrienne, leaning forward from the box, with cheeks slightly flushed,\nsparkling eyes, and throbbing heart, sought to trace in this scene the\nsolitary forest described by the traveller who had eulogized Djalma's\ngenerosity and courage, when he threw himself upon a ferocious tigress to\nsave the life of a poor black slave. Chance coincided wonderfully indeed\nwith her recollections. Absorbed in the contemplation of the scenery and\nthe thoughts it awakened in her heart, she paid no attention to what was\npassing in the house. And yet something calculated to excite curiosity\nwas taking place in the opposite stage-box.\n\nThe door of this box opened. A man about forty years of age, of a yellow\ncomplexion, entered; he was clothed after the East Indian fashion, in a\nlong robe of orange silk, bound round the waist with a green sash, and he\nwore a small white turban. He placed two chairs at the front of the box;\nand, having glanced round the house for a moment, he started, his black\neyes sparkled, and he went out quickly. That man was Faringhea. His\napparition caused surprise and curiosity in the theatre; the majority of\nthe spectators not having, like Adrienne, a thousand reasons for being\nabsorbed in the contemplation of a picturesque set scene. The public\nattention was still more excited when they saw the box which Faringhea\nhad just left, entered by a youth of rare beauty, also dressed Oriental\nfashion, in a long robe of white Cashmere with flowing sleeves, with a\nscarlet turban striped with gold on his head, and a sash to correspond,\nin which was stuck a long dagger, glittering with precious stones. This\nyoung man was Prince Djalma. For an instant he remained standing at the\ndoor, and cast a look of indifference upon the immense theatre, crowded\nwith people; then, stepping forward with a majestic and tranquil air, the\nprince seated himself negligently on one of the chairs, and, turning his\nhead in a few moments towards the entrance, appeared surprised at not\nseeing some person whom he doubtless expected. This person appeared at\nlength; the boxkeeper had been assisting her to take off her cloak. She\nwas a charming, fair-haired girl, attired with more show than taste, in a\ndress of white silk, with broad cherry-colored stripes, made ultra\nfashionably low, and with short sleeves; a large bow of cherry-colored\nribbon was placed on each side of her light hair, and set off the\nprettiest, sprightliest, most wilful little face in the world.\n\nIt was Rose-Pompon. Her pretty arms were partly covered by long white\ngloves, and ridiculously loaded with bracelets: in her hand she carried\nan enormous bouquet of roses.\n\nFar from imitating the calm demeanor of Djalma, Rose-Pompon skipped into\nthe box, moved the chairs about noisily, and fidgeted on her seat for\nsome time, to display her fine dress; then, without being in the least\nintimidated by the presence of the brilliant assembly, she, with a little\ncoquettish air, held her bouquet towards Djalma, that he might smell it,\nand appeared finally to establish herself on her seat. Faringhea came in,\nshut the door of the box, and seated himself behind the prince. Adrienne,\nstill completely absorbed in the contemplation of the Indian forest, and\nin her own sweet thoughts, had not observed the newcomers. As she was\nturning her head completely towards the stage, and Djalma could not, for\nthe moment, see even her profile, he, on his side, had not recognized\nMdlle. de Cardoville.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nDEATH.\n\nThe pantomime opening, by which was introduced the combat of Morok with\nthe black panther, was so unmeaning, that the majority of the audience\npaid no attention to it, reserving all their interest for the scene in\nwhich the lion-tamer was to make his appearance.\n\nThis indifference of the public explains the curiosity excited in the\ntheatre by the arrival of Faringhea and Djalma--a curiosity which\nexpressed itself (as at this day, when uncommon foreigners appear in\npublic) by a slight murmur and general movement amongst the crowd. The\nsprightly, pretty face of Rose-Pompon, always charming, in spite of her\nsingularly staring dress, in style so ridiculous for such a theatre, and\nher light and familiar manner towards the handsome Indian who accompanied\nher, increased and animated the general surprise; for, at this moment,\nRose-Pompon, yielding without reserve to a movement of teasing coquetry,\nhad held up, as we have already stated, her large bunch of roses to\nDjalma. But the prince, at sight of the landscape which reminded him of\nhis country, instead of appearing sensible to this pretty, provocation,\nremained for some minutes as in a dream, with his eyes fixed upon the\nstage. Then Rose-Pompon began to beat time on the front of the box with\nher bouquet, whilst the somewhat too visible movement of her pretty\nshoulders showed that this devoted dancer was thinking of fast-life\ndances, as the orchestra struck up a more lively strain.\n\nPlaced directly opposite the box in which Faringhea, Djalma, and Rose\nPompon had just taken their seats, Lady Morinval soon perceived the\narrival of these two personages, and particularly the eccentric\ncoquetries of Rose-Pompon. Immediately, the young marchioness, leaning\nover towards Mdlle. de Cardoville, who was still absorbed in memories\nineffable, said to her, laughing: \"My dear, the most amusing part of the\nperformance is not upon the stage. Look just opposite.\"\n\n\"Just opposite?\" repeated Adrienne, mechanically: and, turning towards\nLady Morinval with an air of surprise, she glanced in the direction\npointed out.\n\nShe looked--what did she see?--Djalma seated by the side of a young\nwoman, who was familiarly offering to his sense of smell the perfume of\nher bouquet. Amazed, struck almost literally to the heart, as by an\nelectric shock, swift, sharp, and painful, Adrienne became deadly pale.\nFrom instinct, she shut her eyes for a second, in order not to see--as\nmen try to ward off the dagger, which, having once dealt the blow,\nthreatens to strike again. Then suddenly, to this feeling of grief\nsucceeded a reflection, terrible both to her love and to her wounded\npride.\n\n\"Djalma is present with this woman, though he must have received my\nletter,\" she said to herself,--\"wherein he was informed of the happiness\nthat awaited him.\"\n\nAt the idea of so cruel an insult, a blush of shame and indignation\ndisplaced Adrienne's paleness, who overwhelmed by this sad reality, said\nto herself: \"Rodin did not deceive me.\"\n\nWe abandon all idea of picturing the lightning-like rapidity of certain\nemotions which in a moment may torture--may kill you in the space of a\nminute. Thus Adrienne was precipitated from the most radiant happiness to\nthe lowest depths of an abyss of the most heart-rending grief, in less\nthan a second; for a second had hardly elapsed before she replied to Lady\nMorinval: \"What is there, then, so curious, opposite to us, my dear\nJulia?\"\n\nThis evasive question gave Adrienne time to recover her self-possession.\nFortunately, thanks to the thick folds of hair which almost entirely\nconcealed her cheeks, the rapid and sudden changes from pallor to blush\nescaped the notice of Lady Morinval, who gayly replied: \"What, my dear,\ndo you not perceive those East Indians, who have just entered the box\nimmediately opposite to ours? There, just before us!\"\n\n\"Yes, I see them; but what then?\" replied Adrienne, in a firm tone.\n\n\"And don't you observe anything remarkable?\" said the marchioness.\n\n\"Don't be too hard, ladies,\" laughingly interposed the marquis; \"we ought\nto allow the poor foreigners some little indulgence. They are ignorant of\nour manners and customs; were it not for that, they would never appear in\nthe face of all Paris in such dubious company.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Adrienne, with a bitter smile, \"their simplicity is\ntouching; we must pity them.\"\n\n\"And, unfortunately, the girl is charming, spite of her low dress and\nbare arms,\" said the marchioness; \"she cannot be more than sixteen or\nseventeen at most. Look at her, my dear Adrienne; what a pity!\"\n\n\"It is one of your charitable days, my dear Julia,\" answered Adrienne;\n\"we are to pity the Indians, to pity this creature, and--pray, whom else\nare we to pity?\"\n\n\"We will not pity that handsome Indian, in his red-and-gold turban,\" said\nthe marquis, laughing, \"for, if this goes on, the girl with the cherry\ncolored ribbons will be giving him a kiss. See how she leans towards her\nsultan.\"\n\n\"They are very amusing,\" said the marchioness, sharing the hilarity of\nher husband, and looking at Rose-Pompom through her glass; then she\nresumed, in about a minute, addressing herself to Adrienne: \"I am quite\ncertain of one thing. Notwithstanding her giddy airs, that girl is very\nfond of her Indian. I just saw a look that expresses a great deal.\"\n\n\"Why so much penetration, my dear Julia?\" said Adrienne, mildly; \"what\ninterest have we to read the heart of that girl?\"\n\n\"Why, if she loves her sultan, she is quite in the right,\" said the\nmarquis, looking through his opera-glass in turn; \"for, in my whole life,\nI never saw a more handsome fellow than that Indian. I can only catch his\nside-face, but the profile is pure and fine as an antique cameo. Do you\nnot think so?\" added the marquis, leaning towards Adrienne. \"Of course,\nit is only as a matter of art, that I permit myself to ask you the\nquestion.\"\n\n\"As a work of art,\" answered Adrienne, \"it is certainly very fine.\"\n\n\"But see!\" said the marchioness; \"how impertinent the little creature\nis!--She is actually staring at us.\"\n\n\"Well!\" said the marquis; \"and she is actually laying her hand quite\nunceremoniously on her sultan's shoulder, to make him share, no doubt, in\nher admiration of you ladies.\"\n\nIn fact, Djalma, until now occupied with the contemplation of the scene\nwhich reminded him of his country, had remained insensible to the\nenticements of Rose-Pompon, and had not yet perceived Adrienne.\n\n\"Well, now!\" said Rose-Pompon, bustling herself about in front of the\nbox, and continuing to stare at Mdlle. de Cardoville, for it was she, and\nnot the marchioness, who now drew her attention; \"that is something quite\nout of the common way--a pretty woman, with red hair; but such sweet red,\nit must be owned. Look, Prince Charming!\"\n\nAnd so saying, she tapped Djalma lightly on the shoulder; he started at\nthese words, turned round, and for the first time perceived Mdlle. de\nCardoville.\n\nThough he had been almost prepared for this meeting, the prince was so\nviolently affected by it, that he was about involuntarily to rise, in a\nstate of the utmost confusion; but he felt the iron hand of Faringhea\nlaid heavily on his shoulder, and heard him whisper in Hindostanee:\n\"Courage! and by to-morrow she will be at your feet.\"\n\nAs Djalma still struggled to rise, the half-caste added to restrain him:\n\"Just now, she grew pale and red with jealousy. No weakness, or all is\nlost!\"\n\n\"So! there you are again, talking your dreadful gibberish,\" said Rose\nPompon, turning round towards Faringhea. \"First of all, it is not polite;\nand then the language is so odd, that one might suppose you were cracking\nnuts.\"\n\n\"I spoke of you to my master,\" said the half-caste; \"he is preparing a\nsurprise for you.\"\n\n\"A surprise? oh! that is different. Only make haste--do you hear, Prince\nCharming!\" added she, looking tenderly at Djalma.\n\n\"My heart is breaking,\" said Djalma, in a hollow voice to Faringhea,\nstill using the language of India.\n\n\"But to-morrow it will bound with joy and love,\" answered the half-caste.\n\"It is only by disdain that you can conquer a proud woman. To-morrow, I\ntell you, she will be trembling, confused, supplicating, at your feet!\"\n\n\"To-morrow, she will hate me like death!\" replied the prince, mournfully.\n\n\"Yes, were she now to see you weak and cowardly. It is now too late to\ndraw back; look full at her, take the nosegay from this girl, and raise\nit to your lips. Instantly, you will see yonder woman, proud as she is,\ngrow pale and red, as just now. Then will you believe me?\"\n\nReduced by despair to make almost any attempt, and fascinated, in spite\nof himself, by the diabolical hints of Faringhea, Djalma looked for a\nsecond full at Mdlle. de Cardoville; then, with a trembling hand he took\nthe bouquet from Rose-Pompon, and, again looking at Adrienne, pressed it\nto his lips.\n\nUpon this insolent bravado, Mdlle. de Cardoville could not restrain so\nsudden and visible a pang, that the prince was struck by it.\n\n\"She is yours,\" said the half-caste, to him. \"Did you see, my lord, how\nshe trembled with jealousy?--Only have courage! and she is yours. She\nwill soon prefer you to that handsome young man behind her--for it is he\nwhom she has hitherto fancied herself in love with.\"\n\nAs if the half-caste had guessed the movement of rage and hatred, which\nthis revelation would excite in the heart of the prince, he hastily\nadded: \"Calmness and disdain! Is it not his turn now to hate you?\"\n\nThe prince restrained himself, and drew his hand across his forehead\nwhich glowed with anger.\n\n\"There now! what are you telling him, that vexes him so?\" said Rose\nPompon to Faringhea, with pouting lip. Then, addressing Djalma, she\ncontinued: \"Come, Prince Charming, as they say in the fairy-tale, give me\nback my flowers.\"\n\nAs she took it again, she added: \"You have kissed it, and I could almost\neat it.\" Then, with a sigh, and a passionate glance at Djalma, she said\nsoftly to herself: \"That monster Ninny Moulin did not deceive me. All\nthis is quite proper; I have not even that to reproach myself with.\" And\nwith her little white teeth, she bit at a rosy nail of her right hand,\nfrom which she had just drawn the glove.\n\nIt is hardly necessary to say, that Adrienne's letter had not been\ndelivered to the prince, and that he had not gone to pass the day in the\ncountry with Marshal Simon. During the three days in which Montbron had\nnot seen Djalma, Faringhea had persuaded him, that, by affecting another\npassion, he would bring Mdlle. de Cardoville to terms. With regard to\nDjalma's presence at the theatre, Rodin had learned from her maid,\nFlorine, that her mistress was to go in the evening to the Porte-Saint\nMartin. Before Djalma had recognized her, Adrienne, who felt her strength\nfailing her, was on the point of quitting the theatre; the man, whom she\nhad hitherto placed so high, whom she had regarded as a hero and a\ndemi-god and whom she had imagined plunged in such dreadful despair,\nthat, led by the most tender pity, she had written to him with simple\nfrankness, that a sweet hope might calm his grief--replied to a generous\nmark of sincerity and love, by making himself a ridiculous spectacle with\na creature unworthy of him. What incurable wounds for Adrienne's pride!\nIt mattered little, whether Djalma knew or not, that she would be a\nspectator of the indignity. But when she saw herself recognized by the\nprince, when he carried the insult so far as to look full at her, and, at\nthe same time, raise to his lips the creature's bouquet who accompanied\nhim, Adrienne was seized with noble indignation, and felt sufficient\ncourage to remain: instead of closing her eyes to evidence, she found a\nsort of barbarous pleasure in assisting at the agony and death of her\npure and divine love. With head erect, proud and flashing eye, flushed\ncheek, and curling lip, she looked in her turn at the prince with\ndisdainful steadiness. It was with a sardonic smile that she said to the\nmarchioness, who, like many others of the spectators was occupied with\nwhat was passing in the stage-box: \"This revolting exhibition of savage\nmanners is at least in accordance with the rest of the performance.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said the marchioness; \"and my dear uncle will have lost,\nperhaps, the most amusing part.\"\n\n\"Montbron?\" said Adrienne, hastily, with hardly repressed bitterness;\n\"yes, he will regret not having seen all. I am impatient for his arrival.\nIs it not to him that I am indebted for his charming evening?\"\n\nPerhaps Madame de Morinval would have remarked the expression of bitter\nirony, that Adrienne could not altogether dissemble, if suddenly a hoarse\nand prolonged roar had net attracted her attention, as well as that of\nthe rest of the audience, who had hitherto been quite indifferent to the\nscenes intended for an introduction to the appearance of Morok. Every eye\nwas now turned instinctively towards the cavern situated to the left of\nthe stage, just below Mdlle. de Cardoville's box; a thrill of curiosity\nran through the house. A second roar, deeper and more sonorous, and\napparently expressive of more irritation than the first, now rose from\nthe cave, the mouth of which was half-hidden by artificial brambles, made\nso as to be easily put on one side. At this sound, the Englishman stood\nup in his little box, leaned half over the front, and began to rub his\nhands with great energy; then, remaining perfectly motionless, he fixed\nhis large, green, glittering eyes on the mouth of the cavern.\n\nAt these ferocious howlings, Djalma also had started, notwithstanding the\nfrenzy of love, hate, and jealousy, to which he was a prey. The sight of\nthis forest, and the roarings of the panther, filled him with deep\nemotion, for they recalled the remembrance of his country, and of those\ngreat hunts which, like war, have their own terrible excitement. Had he\nsuddenly heard the horns and gongs of his father's army sounding to the\ncharge, he could not have been transported with more savage ardor. And\nnow deep growls, like distant thunder, almost drowned the roar of the\npanther. The lion and tiger, Judas and Cain answered her from their dens\nat the back of the stage. On this frightful concert, with which his ears\nhad been familiar in the midst of the solitudes of India, when he lay\nencamped, for the purposes of the chase or of war, Djalma's blood boiled\nin his veins. His eyes sparkled with a wild ardor. Leaning a little\nforward, with both hands pressed on the front of the box, his whole body\ntrembled with a convulsive shudder. The audience, the theatre, Adrienne\nherself no longer existed for him; he was in a forest of his own lands,\ntracking the tiger.\n\nThen there mingled with his beauty so intrepid and ferocious an\nexpression, that Rose-Pompon looked at him with a sort of terror and\npassionate admiration. For the first time in her life, perhaps, her\npretty blue eyes, generally so gay and mischievous; expressed a serious\nemotion. She could not explain what she felt; but her heart seemed\nfrightened, and beat violently, as though some calamity were at hand.\n\nYielding to a movement of involuntary fear, she seized Djalma by the arm,\nand said to him: \"Do not stare so into that cavern; you frighten me.\"\n\nDjalma did not hear what she said.\n\n\"Here he is! here he is!\" murmured the crowd, almost with one voice, as\nMorok appeared at the back of the stage.\n\nDressed as we have described, Morok now carried in addition a bow and a\nlong quiver full of arrows. He slowly descended the line of painted\nrocks, which came sloping down towards the centre of the stage. From time\nto time, he stopped as if to listen, and appeared to advance with\ncaution. Looking from one side to the other, his eyes involuntarily\nencountered the large, green eyes of the Englishman, whose box was close\nto the cavern. Instantly the lion-tamer's countenance was contracted in\nso frightful a manner, that Lady Morinval, who was examining him closely\nwith the aid of an excellent glass, said hastily to Adrienne: \"My dear,\nthe man is afraid. Some misfortune will happen.\"\n\n\"How can accidents happen,\" said Adrienne, with a sardonic smile, \"in the\nmidst of this brilliant crowd, so well dressed and full of animation!\nMisfortunes here, this evening! why, dear Julia, you do not think it. It\nis in darkness and solitude that misfortunes come--never in the midst of\na joyous crowd, and in all this blaze of light.\"\n\n\"Good gracious, Adrienne! take care!\" cried the marchioness, unable to\nrepress an exclamation of alarm, and seizing her arm, as if to draw her\ncloser; \"do you not see it?\" And with a trembling hand, she pointed to\nthe cavern's mouth. Adrienne hastily bent forward, and looked in that\ndirection. \"Take care, do not lean so forward!\" exclaimed Lady Morinval.\n\n\"Your terrors are nonsensical, my dear,\" said the marquis to his wife.\n\"The panther is securely chained; and even were it to break its chains\n(which is impossible), we are here beyond its reach.\"\n\nA long murmur of trembling curiosity here ran through the house, and\nevery eye was intently fixed on the cavern. From amongst the artificial\nbrambles, which she abruptly pushed aside with her broad chest, the black\npanther suddenly appeared. Twice she stretched forth her flat head,\nillumined by yellow, flaming eyes; then, half-opening her blood-red jaws,\nshe uttered another roar, and exhibited two rows of formidable fangs. A\ndouble iron chain, and a collar also of iron, painted black, blended with\nthe ebon shades of her hide, and with the darkness of the cavern. The\nillusion was complete, and the terrible animal seemed to be at liberty in\nher den.\n\n\"Ladies,\" said the marquis, suddenly, \"look at those Indians. Their\nemotion makes them superb!\"\n\nIn fact, the sight of the panther had raised the wild ardor of Djalma to\nits utmost pitch. His eyes sparkled in their pearly orbits like two black\ndiamonds; his upper lip was curled convulsively with an expression of\nanimal ferocity, as if he were in a violent paroxysm of rage.\n\nFaringhea, now leaning on the front of the box, was also greatly excited,\nby reason of a strange coincidence. \"That black panther of so rare a\nbreed,\" thought he, \"which I see here at Paris, upon the stage, must be\nthe very one that the Malay\"--the Thug who had tatooed Djalma at Java\nduring his sleep--\"took quite young from his den, and sold to a European\ncaptain. Bowanee's power is everywhere!\" added the Thug, in his\nsanguinary superstition.\n\n\"Do you not think,\" resumed the marquis, addressing Adrienne, \"that those\nIndians are really splendid in their present attitude?\"\n\n\"Perhaps they may have seen such a hunt in their own country,\" said\nAdrienne, as if she would recall and brave the most cruel remembrances.\n\n\"Adrienne,\" said the marchioness, suddenly, in an agitated voice, \"the\nlion-tamer has now come nearer--is not his countenance fearful to look\nat?--I tell you he is afraid.\"\n\n\"In truth,\" observed the marquis, this time very seriously, \"he is\ndreadfully pale, and seems to grow worse every minute, the nearer he\napproaches this side. It is said that, were he to lose his presence of\nmind for a single moment, he would run the greatest danger.\"\n\n\"O! it would be horrible!\" cried the marchioness, addressing Adrienne,\n\"if he were wounded--there--under our eyes!\"\n\n\"Every wound does not kill,\" replied her friend, with an accent of such\ncold indifference, that the marchioness looked at her with surprise, and\nsaid to her: \"My dear girl, what you say there is cruel!\"\n\n\"It is the air of the place that acts on me,\" answered Adrienne, with an\nicy smile.\n\n\"Look! look! the lion-tamer is about to shoot his arrow at the panther,\"\nsaid the marquis, suddenly. \"No doubt, he will next perform the hand to\nhand grapple.\"\n\nMorok was at this moment in front of the stage, but he had yet to\ntraverse its entire breadth to reach the cavern's mouth. He stopped an\ninstant, adjusted an arrow to the string, knelt down behind a mass of\nrock, took deliberate aim--and then the arrow hissed across the stage,\nand was lost in the depths of the cavern, into which the panther had\nretired, after showing for a moment her threatening head to the audience.\nHardly had the arrow disappeared, than Death, purposely irritated by\nGoliath (who was invisible) sent forth a howl of rage, as if she had been\nreally wounded. Morok's actions became so expressive, he evinced so\nnaturally his joy at having hit the wild beast, that a tempest of\napplause burst from every quarter of the house. Then, throwing away his\nbow, he drew a dagger from his girdle, took it between his teeth, and\nbegan to crawl forward on hands and knees, as though he meant to surprise\nthe wounded panther in his den. To render the illusion perfect, Death,\nagain excited by Goliath, who struck him with an iron bar, sent forth\nfrightful howlings from the depths of the cavern.\n\nThe gloomy aspect of the forest, only half-lighted with a reddish glare,\nwas so effective--the howlings of the panther were so furious--the\ngestures, attitude, and countenance of Morok were so expressive of\nterror, that the audience, attentive and trembling, now maintained a\nprofound silence. Every one held his breath, and a kind of shudder came\nover the spectators, as though they expected some horrible event. What\ngave such a fearful air of truth to the pantomime of Morok, was that, as\nhe approached the cavern step by step, he approached also the\nEnglishman's box. In spite of himself, the lion-tamer, fascinated by\nterror, could not take his eyes from the large green eyes of this man,\nand it seemed as if every one of the abrupt movements which he made in\ncrawling along, was produced by a species of magnetic attraction, caused\nby the fixed gaze of the fatal wagerer. Therefore, the nearer Morok\napproached, the more ghastly and livid he became. At sight of this\npantomime, which was no longer acting, but the real expression of intense\nfear, the deep and trembling silence which had reigned in the theatre was\nonce more interrupted by acclamations, with which were mingled the\nroarings of the panther, and the distant growls of the lion and tiger.\n\nThe Englishman leaned almost out of his box, with a frightful sardonic\nsmile on his lip, and with his large eyes still fixed, panted for breath.\nThe perspiration ran down his bald red forehead, as if he had really\nexpended an incredible amount of magnetic power in attracting Morok, whom\nhe now saw close to the cavern entrance. The moment was decisive.\nCrouching down with his dagger in his hand, following with eye and\ngesture Death's every movement, who, roaring furiously, and opening wide\nher enormous jaws, seemed determined to guard the entrance of her den,\nMorok waited for the moment to rush upon her. There is such fascination\nin danger, that Adrienne shared, in spite of herself, the feeling of\npainful curiosity, mixed with terror, that thrilled through all the\nspectators. Leaning forward like the marchioness, and gazing upon this\nscene of fearful interest, the lady still held mechanically in her hand\nthe Indian bouquet preserved since the morning. Suddenly, Morok raised a\nwild shout, as he rushed towards Death, who answered this exclamation by\na dreadful roar, and threw herself upon her master with so much fury,\nthat Adrienne, in alarm, believing the man lost, drew herself back, and\ncovered her fact with her hands. Her flowers slipped from her grasp, and,\nfalling upon the stage, rolled into the cavern in which Morok was\nstruggling with the panther.\n\nQuick as lightning, supple and agile as a tiger, yielding to the\nintoxication of his love, and to the wild ardor excited in him by the\nroaring of the panther, Djalma sprang at one bound upon the stage, drew\nhis dagger, and rushed into the cavern to recover Adrienne's nosegay. At\nthat instant, Morok, being wounded, uttered a dreadful cry for help; the\npanther, rendered still more furious at sight of Djalma, make the most\ndesperate efforts to break her chain. Unable to succeed in doing so, she\nrose upon her hind legs, in order to seize Djalma, then within reach of\nher sharp claws. It was only by bending down his head, throwing himself\non his knees, and twice plunging his dagger into her belly with the\nrapidity of lightning, that Djalma escaped certain death. The panther\ngave a howl, and fell with her whole weight upon the prince. For a\nsecond, during which lasted her terrible agony, nothing was seen but a\nconfused and convulsive mass of black limbs, and white garments stained\nwith blood--and then Djalma rose, pale, bleeding, for he was wounded--and\nstanding erect, his eye flashing with savage pride, his foot on the body\nof the panther, he held in his hand Adrienne's bouquet, and cast towards\nher a glance which told the intensity of his love. Then only did Adrienne\nfeel her strength fail her--for only superhuman courage had enabled her\nto watch all the terrible incidents of the struggle.","title":"The Wandering Jew \u2014 Volume 08","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":34252}