In all that Samuel Brohl did, even in his wildest freaks, there
was somewhat of calculation, or contrivance. Unquestionably, he had
experienced intense displeasure at encountering M. Camille Langis at
Cormeilles; he had, doubtless, very particular and very personal
reasons for not liking him. He knew, however, that there was need for
controlling his temper, his impressions, his rancour; and, if he ceased
to do so for a moment, it was because he counted upon deriving advantage
therefrom. He was impatient to enter into possession, to feel his
good-fortune sheltered from all hazards; delays, procrastinations,
long waiting, displeased and irritated him. He suspected M. Moriaz of
purposely putting his shoulder to the wheel of time, and of preparing
a contract that would completely tie the hands of Count Larinski.
He resolved to seize the first opportunity of proving that he was
mistrustful, stormy, susceptible, in the hope that Mlle. Moriaz would
become alarmed and say to her father, “I intend to marry in three weeks,
and without any conditions.” The opportunity had presented itself, and
Samuel Brohl had taken good care not to lose it.
The next day he received the following note:
“You have caused me pain, a great deal of pain. Already! I passed a
sorrowful evening, and slept wretchedly all night. I have reflected
seriously upon our dispute; I have endeavoured to persuade myself that I
was in the wrong: I have neither been able to succeed, nor to comprehend
you. Ah! how your lack of confidence astonishes me! It is so easy to
believe when one loves. Please write me word quickly that you also have
reflected, and that you have acknowledged your misdemeanour. I will not
insist upon your doing penance, your face humbled to the ground; but I
will condemn you to love me to-day more than yesterday, to-morrow more
than to-day. Upon these conditions, I will pass a sponge across your
grave error, and we shall speak of it no more.
“Ever yours. It is agreed, is it not?” Samuel Brohl had the surprise of
receiving at the same time another letter, thus worded:
“MY DEAR COUNT: I cannot explain to myself your conduct; you no longer
give me any signs of life. I believed that I had some claims upon you,
and that you would hasten to announce to me in person the great event of
events, and seek my congratulations. Come, I beg of you, and dine this
evening at Maisons with Abbe Miollens, who is dying to embrace you; he
studies men in Horace, you know, and he finds none whom he prefers to
you.
“You need not answer, but come; else I will be displeased with you as
long as I live.”
Samuel replied as follows to Mlle. Moriaz:
“Be assured I have suffered more than you. Forgive me; much should be
forgiven a man who has suffered much. My imagination is subject to the
wildest alarms. Great, unlooked-for joy has rendered me mistrustful.
I have been especially low-spirited of late. After having resolutely
fought against my happiness, I tremble now lest it escape me; it appears
to me too beautiful not to prove only a dream. To be loved by you! How
can I help fearing to lose the great boon? Each evening I ask myself:
‘Will she still love me to-morrow?’ Perhaps my anxiety is blended with
secret remorse. My pride, ever on the alert to take umbrage, has often
been my torment; you can tell me it is only self-love: I will endeavour
to cure myself of it, but this cannot be done in a day. During these
long months of waiting there will come to me more than one suspicion,
more than one troubled thought. I promise you, however, that I shall
maintain a rigid silence concerning them, and, if possible, hide them.
“You condemn me, for my punishment, to love you to-day more than
yesterday; you know well this were impossible. No; I shall inflict upon
myself another chastisement. Mme. de Lorcy has invited me to dinner. I
suspect her of having a very mediocre feeling of good-will for me, and
I also accuse her of being cold and insensible; of understanding
nothing whatever of the heart’s unreasonableness, which is true wisdom.
Nevertheless, I will refrain from declining her invitation. It is at
Maisons and not at Cormeilles that I shall this day pass my evening. Are
you content with me? Is not the penance severe enough?
“But to-morrow--oh! I shall arrive at your home to-morrow by two
o’clock, and I shall enter by the little green gate at the foot of the
orchard. Will you do me a favour? Promenade about two o’clock in the
gravel-walk that I adore. The wall being low at that place, I
shall perceive from afar, before entering, the white silk of your
sun-umbrella. I am counting, you see, upon sunshine. How very childish!
Yet, even this is not strange; I was born three months and a half ago;
I commenced to live July 5th of this year; at four o’clock in the
afternoon, in the cathedral at Chur. Forgive me all my errors, my
suspicions, my childish absurdities.”
Mlle. Moriaz concluded that it would be well to shorten the term of
waiting, and that she would ask Count Larinski to fix the date of their
marriage himself. As to the contract, she had immediate occasion to
speak of it to her father, who announced to her that he had invited his
notary, Maitre Noirot, to dine with him the next day.
She was silent a few moments, and then said, “Can you explain to me the
use of notaries?”
He replied about as did _le Philosophe sans le savoir_: “We only see the
present; notaries foresee the future and possible contingencies.”
She replied that she did not believe in contingencies, and that she
did not like precautions, because they presupposed distrust, and might
appear offensive.
“We have charming weather to-day,” said her father; “nevertheless there
is a possibility of rain to-morrow. If I started this evening on
a journey, I should carry my umbrella, without fearing to insult
Providence. Who speaks to you of offending M. Larinski? Not content with
approving of the step I propose taking, he will thank me for it. Why did
he at first refuse to marry you? Because you are rich, and he is poor.
The contract I wish to have drawn up will thoroughly set at ease his
disinterestedness and his pride.”
“The question of money no longer exists for him,” she eagerly replied;
“it is my desire that it should not be started again. And since you like
comparisons, let us suppose that you invited one of your friends to take
a turn in your garden. Your espaliers are laden with fruit, and you know
that your friend is an honest man, and that, besides, he does not care
for pears. Suppose you were to put handcuffs on him, would he or would
he not be insulted?”
He answered in an exceedingly vexed tone, that this was entirely
different, and Mlle. Moiseney having taken the liberty to interfere in
the discussion in Antoinette’s behalf, declaring that Counts Larinski
are not to be distrusted, and that men of science are incapable of
comprehending delicacy of sentiment, he gave full vent to his wrath,
telling the worthy demoiselle to meddle with what concerned her. For the
first time in his life he was seriously angry. Antoinette caressed him
into good-humour, promised that she would put on the best possible
face to Maitre Noirot, that she would pay religious attention to his
counsels, and that she would endeavour to profit by them.
While M. Moriaz was engaged in this stormy interview with his daughter,
Samuel Brohl was _en route_ for Maisons. After the first flush of
astonishment, the note and invitation of Mme. de Lorcy had pleased
him immensely; he saw in it the proof that she had ceased to struggle
against the inevitable--against Samuel Brohl and destiny; that she had
resolved to bear her disappointment with a cheerful countenance. He
formed the generous resolution to console her for her vexation; to gain
her good-will by force of modesty and graceful attentions.
Alone in his compartment of the cars, Samuel Brohl was happy, perfectly
happy. He was nearing port; he held it for an established fact that,
before a fortnight, the banns would be published. Was he alone in
his compartment? An adored image kept him company; he spoke to it, it
replied to him. Blended with a rather uncommon frigidity of soul,
Samuel Brohl had an imagination that readily took fire, and, when his
imagination was kindled, he felt within him something warm, which he
took for a heart, and sincerely persuaded himself that he had such an
organ. At this moment he saw Antoinette as he had left her the evening
previous, her face animated, her cheeks flushed, her countenance full of
reproach, her eyes tearful. She never had appeared to him so charming.
He believed himself so madly in love that he was inclined to mock a
little at himself. He teased in anticipation the joys that were in
reserve for him; he revelled in thought of the day and the hour when
this superb creature would be his, when he could view her as his
own undisputed possession, and devour page after page, chapter after
chapter, of this elegantly printed, richly bound book.
However, he was not the man to wholly absorb himself in such a reverie.
His thoughts travelled farther; in idea he embraced his entire future,
which he fashioned out at pleasure. He took leave of his sorrowful past
as a blind man who by some miracle recovers his sight, parts from his
dog and his staff--troublesome witnesses of evil days. He had done with
petty employments, with ungrateful toil, with humiliating servitude,
with anxiety about the morrow, with the necessity for counting every
sou, with meagre repasts, with sordid expedients, with sorrow, distress,
and usuries; to all these he said farewell. Henceforth he would pick up
silver and gold by the shovelful; he would have a share in abundance of
festivals--the joy of doing nothing--the pleasure of commanding--all the
sweetness and all the calm satisfaction of delightful egotism--reposing
in a bed of eider-down--fed upon delicate birds--owning two or three
houses, a carriage, horses, and a box at the opera. What a future!
At intervals Samuel Brohl passed his tongue over his lips; they were
parched with thirst.
Alnaschar the Lazy received one hundred drachms of silver as his entire
patrimony, and he promised himself that he would one day marry the
daughter of the grand-vizier. He meant to clothe himself like a prince,
to mount upon a horse with a saddle of fine gold and housings of gold,
richly embroidered with diamonds and pearls. He proposed to see that
his wife formed good habits, to train her to obedience, to teach her to
stand before him and be always ready to wait upon him; he resolved to
discipline her with his looks, his hand, and his foot. Samuel Brohl
possessed a calmer spirit than the Athenian Hippoclide; he was less
brutal than Alnaschar of Bagdad: was he much less ferocious? He
proposed, he also, to educate his wife; he intended that the daughter of
the grand-vizier should consecrate herself wholly to his happiness, to
his service. To possess a beautiful slave, with velvety eyes, chestnut
hair, tinged with gold, who would make of Samuel Brohl her padishah
and her god, who would pass her life at his knees on the alert for his
wishes, reading his good pleasure in his face, attentive to his fancies
and to his eye-brows, belonging to him body and soul, uplifting to him
the gaze of a timid gazelle or a faithful spaniel--such was his dream of
conjugal felicity. And little need would he have to exert himself much
in the education of Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz. Love would charge itself
with that. She adored Samuel Brohl, and he relied upon her devotion; it
were impossible that she could refuse him anything! She was prepared in
advance for every compliance, every obedience; she was ready to be his
humble servant in all things. Knaves make it their boast that they can
readily fathom honest people; the truth is, they only half comprehend
them. Honest people have sentiments, as do certain languages, reputed
easy, which are full of mystery, of refined delicacy, inaccessible to
the vulgar mind. A commercial traveller often learns to speak Italian in
three weeks, and yet never really knows the language; Samuel Brohl had
gained a superficial knowledge of Mlle. Moriaz in a few days, and yet he
was far from having a true comprehension of her.
He arrived at Maisons in the most cheerful, self-satisfied frame of
mind. As he walked through the park, he remembered that Mme. de Lorcy
had lost her only two children when they were still of a tender age;
that she was therefore free to will her property as she pleased; that
she had a short neck, an apoplectic temperament; that Antoinette was her
goddaughter; that although she was piqued with Count Larinski the count
was adroit, and would find a way to regain her sympathies. The park
appeared to him magnificent; he admired its long, regular alleys, which
had the appearance of extending as far as Peking; he paused some moments
before the purple beech, and it seemed to him that there must be some
resemblance between this beautiful tree and himself. He contemplated
with the eyes of proprietorship the terrace planted with superb lindens,
and he decided that he would establish himself in his Maisons chateau,
that his pretty Cormeilles villa would merely be his country-seat. As
it may be seen, his imagination refused him nothing; it placed happiness
and wealth untold at his command.
We are unable to state whether Mme. de Lorcy actually had an apoplectic
temperament; the one thing certain is, that she was not dead. Samuel
Brohl perceived her from afar on the veranda, which she had just stepped
out upon in order to watch for his arrival. He had forgotten himself in
the park, which should one day be his park, and she was beginning to be
uneasy about his coming.
She cried out to him: “At last! You always make us wait for you,”
adding, in a most affable tone, “We meet to-day under less tragic
circumstances than the last time you were here, and I hope you will bear
away a pleasanter remembrance of Maisons.”
He respectfully kissed her hand, saying: “Happiness must be purchased; I
cannot pay too dearly for mine.”
She ushered him into the _salon_, where he had scarcely set foot, when
he descried an old woman lounging on a _causeuse_, fanning herself as
she chatted with Abbe Miollens. He remained motionless, his eyes fixed,
scarcely breathing, cold as marble; it seemed to him that the four walls
of the _salon_ swayed from right to left, and left to right, and that
the floor was sliding from under his feet like the deck of a pitching
vessel.
The previous day, Antoinette once departed, Mme. de Lorcy had resumed
her attack on Princess Gulof, and the princess had ended by consenting
to delay her departure, to dine with the adventurer of the green eyes,
and to subject him to a close scrutiny. There she was; yes, it was
indeed she! The first impulse of Samuel Brohl was to regain the door as
speedily as possible; but he did nothing of the kind. He looked at Mme.
de Lorcy: she herself was regarding him with astonishment; she wondered
what could suddenly have overcome him; she could find no explanation for
the bewilderment apparent in his countenance. “It is a mere chance,” he
thought at last; “she has not intentionally drawn me into a snare.” This
thought was productive of a sort of half relief.
“_Eh bien!_ what is it?” she asked. “Has my poor _salon_ still the
misfortune to be hurtful to you?”
He pointed to a _jardiniere_, saying: “You are fond of hyacinths and
tuberoses; their perfume overpowered me for a moment. I fear you think
me very effeminate.”
She replied in a caressing voice: “I take you for a most worthy man
who has terrible nerves; but you know by experience that if you have
weaknesses I have salts. Will you have my smelling-bottle?”
“You are a thousand times too good,” he rejoined, and bravely marched
forward to face the danger. It is a well-known fact that dangers in a
silken robe are the most formidable of all.
Mme. de Lorcy presented him to the princess, who raised her chin to
examine him with her little glittering eyes. It seemed to him that those
gray orbs directed at him were two balls, which struck him in the heart;
he quivered from head to foot and asked himself confusedly whether he
were dead or living. He soon perceived that he was still living; the
princess had remained impassible--not a muscle of her face had moved.
She ended by bestowing upon Samuel a smile that was almost gracious,
and addressing to him some insignificant words, which he only half
understood, but which seemed to him exquisite--delicious. He fancied
that she was saying to him: “You have a chance, you were born lucky;
my sight has been impaired for some years, and I do not recognise you.
Bless your star, you are saved!” He experienced such a transport of joy
that he could have flung his arms about the neck of Abbe Miollens, who
came up to him with extended hand, saying:
“What have you been thinking about, my dear count? Since we last met a
very great event has been accomplished. What woman wishes, God wishes;
but, after all, my own humble efforts were not without avail, and I am
proud of it.”
Mme. de Lorcy requested Count Larinski to offer his arm to Princess
Gulof and lead her out to dinner. He mechanically complied; but he had
not the strength to utter a syllable as he conducted the princess to
table. She herself said nothing; she seemed wholly busied in arranging
with her unoccupied hand a lock of her gray hair, which had strayed
too far over her forehead. He looked fixedly at this short, plump hand,
which one day in a fit of jealous fury had administered to him two smart
blows; his cheeks recognised it.
During dinner the princess was very gay: she paid more attention to Abbe
Miollens than to Count Larinski; she took pleasure in teasing the good
priest--in endeavouring to shock him a little. It was not easy to shock
him; to his natural, easy good-nature he united an innate respect for
grandeurs and for princesses. She did not neglect so good an opportunity
to air her monkey-development theories. He merrily flung back the ball;
he declared that he should prefer to be a fallen angel rather than a
perfected monkey; that in his estimation a parvenu made a much sorrier
figure in the world than the descendent of an old family of ruined
nobility. She replied that she was more democratic than he. “It is
pleasant to me,” said she, “to think that I am a progressive ape, who
has a wide future before him, and who, by taking proper pains, may hope
to attain new advancement.”
While they were thus chatting, Samuel Brohl was striving with all his
might to recover from the terrible blow he had received. He noted with
keen satisfaction that the eyesight of the princess was considerably
impaired; that the microscopic studies, for which she had always had a
taste, had resulted in rendering her somewhat near-sighted; that she was
obliged to look out carefully to find her way among her wine-glasses.
“She has not seen me for six years,” thought he, “and I have become
a different man, I have undergone a complete metamorphosis; I have
difficulty sometimes in recognising myself. Formerly, my face was
close-shaven, now I have let my entire beard grow. My voice, my accent,
the poise of my head, my manners, the expression of my countenance, all
are changed; Poland has entered my blood--I am Samuel no longer, I am
Larinski.” He blessed the microscope, which enfeebled the sight of old
women; he blessed Count Abel Larinski, who had made of him his
twin brother. Before the end of the repast he had recovered all his
assurance, all his aplomb. He began to take part in the conversation:
he recounted in a sorrowful tone a sorrowful little story; he retailed
sundry playful anecdotes with a melancholy grace and sprightliness; he
expressed the most chivalrous sentiments; shaking his lion’s mane, he
spoke of the prisoner at the Vatican with tears in his voice. It were
impossible to be a more thorough Larinski.
The princess manifested, in listening to him, an astonished curiosity;
she concluded by saying to him: “Count, I admire you; but I believe only
in physiology, and you are a little too much of a Pole for me.”
After they had left the table and repaired to the _salon_, several
callers dropped in. It was like a deliverance to Samuel. If the society
was not numerous enough for him to lose himself in it, at least it
served him as a shield. He held it for a certainty that the princess
had not recognised him; yet he did not cease feeling in her presence
unutterably ill at ease. This Calmuck visage of hers recalled to him
all the miseries, the shame, the hard, grinding slavery of his youth;
he could not look at her without feeling his brow burn as though it were
being seared with a hot iron.
He entered into conversation with a supercilious, haughty, and pedantic
counsellor-at-law, whose interminable monologues distilled ennui. This
fine speaker seemed charming to Samuel, who found in him wit, knowledge,
scholarship, and taste; he possessed the (in his eyes) meritorious
quality of not knowing Samuel Brohl. For Samuel had come to divide the
human race into two categories: the first comprehended those well-to-do,
thriving people who did not know a certain Brohl; he placed in the
second old women who did know him. He interrogated the counsellor with
deference, he hung upon his words, he smiled with an air of approbation
at all the absurdities that escaped him; he would have been willing to
have his discourse last three hours by the watch; if this charming bore
had shown symptoms of escaping him, he would have held him back by the
button.
Suddenly he heard a harsh voice, saying to Mme. de Lorcy: “Where is
Count Larinski? Bring him to me; I want to have a discussion with him.”
He could not do otherwise than comply; he quitted his counsellor with
regret, went over and took a seat in the arm-chair that Mme. de Lorcy
drew up for him at the side of the princess, and which had for him the
effect of a stool of repentance. Mme. de Lorcy moved away, and he was
left _tete-a-tete_ with Princess Gulof, who said to him, “I have been
told that congratulations are due to you, and I must make them at
once--although we are enemies.”
“By what right are we enemies, princess?” he asked with a slightly
troubled feeling, which quickly passed away as she answered:
“I am a Russian and you are a Pole, but we shall have no time for
fighting; I leave for London to-morrow morning at seven o’clock.”
He was on the point of casting himself at her feet and tenderly kissing
her two hands, in testimony of his gratitude. “To-morrow at seven
o’clock,” he mentally ejaculated. “I have slandered her; she has some
good in her.”
“When I say that I am a Russian,” resumed the princess, “it is merely a
formal speech. Love of country is a prejudice, an idea that has had its
day, that had sense in the times of Epaminondas or of Theseus, but that
has it no longer. We live in the age of the telegraph, the locomotive;
and I know of nothing more absurd now than a frontier, or more
ridiculous than a patriot. Rumour says that you fought like a hero in
the insurrection of 1863; that you gave proof of incomparable prowess,
and that you killed with your own hand ten Cossacks? What harm had they
done you, those poor Cossacks? Do they not sometimes haunt your dreams?
Can you think of your victims without disquietude and without remorse?”
He replied, in a dry, haughty tone: “I really do not know, princess, how
many Cossacks I have killed; but I do know that there are some subjects
on which I do not love to expatiate.”
“You are right--I should not comprehend you. Don Quixote did not do
Sancho the honour to explain himself to him every day.”
“Ah, I beg of you, let us talk a little of the man-monkey,” he observed,
in a rather more pliant tone than he had at first assumed. “That is a
question that has the advantage of being neither Russian nor Polish.”
“You will not succeed that way in throwing me off the track. I mean to
tell you all the evil I think of you, no matter how it may incense you.
You uttered, at table, theories that displeased me. You are not only a
Polish patriot; you are an idealist, a true disciple of Plato, and you
do not know how I always have detested this man. In all these
sixty years that I have been in this world, I have seen nothing but
selfishness, and grasping after self-gratification. Twice during
dinner you spoke of an ideal world. What is an ideal world? Where is it
situated? You speak of it as of a house whose inhabitants you are well
acquainted with, whose key is in your pocket. Can you show me the key? I
promise not to steal it from you. O poet!--for you are quite as much of
a poet as of a Pole, which is not saying much--”
“Nothing remains but to hang me,” he interposed, smilingly.
“No, I shall not hang you. Opinions are free, and there is room enough
in the world for all, even idealists. Besides, if you were to be hanged,
it would bring to the verge of despair a charming girl who adores you,
who was created expressly for you, and whom you will shortly marry. When
will the ceremony take place?”
“If I dared hope that you would do me the honour of being present,
princess, I should postpone it until your return from England.”
“You are too amiable; but I could not on any consideration retard the
happiness of Mlle. Moriaz. There, my dear count, I congratulate you
sincerely. I had the pleasure to meet here the future Countess Larinski.
She is adorable! It is an exquisite nature, hers--a true poet’s wife.
She must have brains, discernment; she has chosen you--that says
everything. As to her fortune, I dare not ask you if she has any; you
would turn away from me in disgust. Do idealists trouble their heads
with such vile questions?”
She leaned towards him, and, fanning herself excitedly, added: “These
poor idealists! they have one misfortune.”
“And what is that, princess?”
“They dream with open eyes, and the awakening is sometimes disagreeable.
Ah, my dear Count Larinski, this, that, and the other, _et cetera_. Thus
endeth the adventure.”
Then, stretching out her neck until her face was close to his, she
darted at him a venomous, viper-like look, and, in a voice that seemed
to cut into his tympanum like a sharp-toothed saw, she hissed, “Samuel
Brohl, the man with the green eyes, sooner or later the mountains must
meet!”
It seemed to him that the candelabra on the mantel-piece darted out jets
of flame, whose green, blue, and rose-coloured tongues ascended to
the ceiling; and it appeared to him as though his heart was beating as
noisily as a clock-pendulum, and that every one would turn to inquire
whence came the noise. But every one was occupied; no one turned round;
no one suspected that there was a man present on whom a thunderbolt had
just fallen.
The man passed his hand over his brow, which was covered with a cold
sweat; then dispelling, by an effort of will, the cloud that veiled his
eyes, he, in turn, leaned towards the princess, and with quivering lip
and evil, sardonic glance, said to her, in a low voice:
“Princess, I have a slight acquaintance with this Samuel Brohl of
whom you speak. He is not a man who will allow himself to be strangled
without a great deal of outcry. You are not much in the habit of
writing, nevertheless he received from you two letters, which he copied,
placing the originals in safety. If ever he sees the necessity of
appearing in a court of justice, these two letters can be made to create
quite a sensation, and unquestionably they will be the delight of all
the petty journals of Paris.”
Thereupon he made a profound bow, respectfully took leave of Mme. de
Lorcy, and retired, followed by Abbe Miollens, who inflicted a real
torture by insisting on accompanying him to the station.
No longer restrained by Mme. de Lorcy’s presence, the abbe spoke
freely of the happy event in which he prided himself to have been a
co-operator; he overwhelmed him with congratulation, and all the good
wishes he could possibly think of for his happiness. During a quarter of
an hour he lavished on him his myrrh and honey. Samuel would gladly have
wrung his neck. He could not breathe until the abbe had freed him from
his obtrusive society.
A storm muttered in the almost cloudless sky. It was a dry storm; the
rain fell elsewhere. The incessant lightning, accompanied by distant
thunder, gleamed from all quarters of the horizon, and darted its
luminous flashes over the whole extent of the plain. At intervals the
hills seemed to be on fire. Several times Samuel, who stood with his
nose against the glass of the car-door, thought that he saw in the
direction of Cormeilles the flaring light of a conflagration, in which
were blazing his dream and two millions, to say nothing of his great
expectations.
He bitterly reproached himself for his folly of the previous day. “If
I had passed yesterday evening with her,” he thought, “surely she
would have spoken of the Princess Gulof. I would have taken measures
accordingly, and nothing would have happened.” It was all M. Langis’s
fault; it was to him that he imputed the disaster, and he hated him all
the more.
However, as he approached Paris, he felt his courage returning.
“Those two letters frightened the old fairy,” he thought. “She will
think twice before she declares war with me. No, she will not dare.” He
added: “And if she dared, Antoinette loves me so much that I can make
her believe what I please.”
And he prepared in his mind what he should say, in case the event
occurred.
At that very moment Mme. de Lorcy, who was alone with Princess Gulof,
was saying: “Well, my dear, you have talked with my man. What do you
think of him?”
The princess distressed her by her reply. “I think, my dear,” she
rejoined, “that Count Larinski is the last of the heroes of romance--or,
if you like better, the last of the troubadours; but I have no reason to
believe him to be an adventurer.”
Mme. de Lorcy could get nothing further from Princess Gulof; she had
invited her to remain overnight; she got no pay for her hospitality. The
princess spent part of the night in reflecting and deliberating. Samuel
Brohl’s insolent menace had produced some effect. She sought to remember
the exact purport of the two letters that formerly she had had the
imprudence to write him from London, while he was fulfilling a business
commission for her in Paris. On his return she had required Samuel to
burn these two compromising epistles, in her presence; he had deceived
her; he burned the envelopes and blank paper. The thought of some day
having her composition quoted in court, and printed verbatim in the
petty journals, terrified her, and made her blood boil in her veins;
she hardly cared to take Paris and St. Petersburg into her confidence
concerning an experience the recollection of which caused her
disgust--but to let such an admirable opportunity of vengeance escape
her! renounce the delight of the gods and of princesses! permit this man
who had just defied her to accomplish his underhand intrigue! She could
not resign herself to the idea, and the consequence was that, during the
night she spent at Maisons, she scarcely closed her eyes.