Samuel Brohl & Co.
Charles Victor Cherbuliez was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in
1829, studied history and philosophy in Paris, Bonn and Berlin
and travelled widely, gathering material that he used in
social and political essays and also in fiction. He won fame
with his first novel, "Count Kostia," published in 1863. After
that date his romances followed in quick succession. Embodying
extravagant adventures, they must be classed nevertheless in
the category of the sentimental novel to which the writings of
Sand and Feuillet belong. Cherbuliez is always an interesting
story-teller and an ingenious artificer of plot, but his
psychology is conventional and his descriptive passages
superficial though clever. "Samuel Brohl & Co.," published in
1877, illustrates his power of drawing cosmopolitan types,
Russians, Poles, English, Germans and Jews, which he portrays
in all his novels. He was admitted to the French Academy in
1881, and died in 1899.
_I.--A Mountain Romance_
"Yes! she is certainly very beautiful as well as very rich," said Count
Abel Larinski, as he watched, through his hotel window, the graceful
figure of Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz. "A marriage between Count Abel
Larinski, the sole descendant of one of the most ancient and noble
families of Poland, and Mlle. Moriaz, the daughter of the President of
the French Institute, is a thing which might be arranged. But alas!
Count Abel Larinski, you are a very poor man. Let me see how long you
will be able to stay in Saint Moritz? These hotels in the Upper Engadine
are frightfully dear!"
The handsome young Polish nobleman opened his purse and looked at the
contents rather sadly. It was almost empty. He would certainly have to
sell some of his family jewels, if he wanted to stay at Saint Moritz.
Unhappily, he now had only the fine diamond ring, which he wore on his
finger, and a Persian bracelet composed of three golden plates connected
by a band of filigree work.
"Now, which shall I sell," said the Count; "the Larinski ring, or the
bracelet which belonged to Samuel Brohl? The ring, I think. It will
bring in much more money, and besides, the bracelet might be useful as a
present."
After strolling some time about the garden, Mlle. Moriaz saw her father
waiting for her at the door.
"What do you think, Antoinette, of an excursion to Silvaplana Lake?"
said M. Moriaz. "I'm feeling so much better already, and I absolutely
long, my dear, for a good walk."
"I should be delighted," said his daughter, "if you think it will not
tire you."
M. Moriaz was sure an excursion would not tire him. So they set out for
a long walk, through the wild mountain scenery. Antoinette was delighted
to find that her father was recovering his strength, but he was
alarmingly quiet and thoughtful. Was she in for one of those serious
lectures on the subject of marriage which he used to read to her at
Paris? Yes! Camille must have written to him. For as she was standing on
a mountain bridge, listening to the liquid gurgling of the torrent at
the bottom of the gorge, she said to him:
"Isn't the music of this wild stream delightful?"
"Yes!" he replied. "But I think this bridge that spans the gorge is a
more wonderful thing than all the wild works of nature around us. I
admire men, like our friend Camille Langis, who know how to build these
bridges. What a fine fellow he is! Most men, with his wealth, lead idle,
useless lives. But there he is now, building bridges across mountains
just as wild as these, in Hungary. Why don't you marry him, my dear? He
is madly in love with you, and you have known him all your life."
"That's just it," said his daughter, with a movement of impatience, "I
have known him all my life. How can I now fall wildly and suddenly in
love with him? No! If ever I lose my heart, I am sure it will be to some
stranger, to someone quite different from all the men we meet in Paris."
"You are incorrigibly romantic, Antoinette," said her father, with just
a touch of ill-humour. "You want a fairy prince, eh?--one of those
strange, picturesque, impossible creatures that only exist in the
imagination of poets and school girls. You are now twenty-four years
old, Antoinette, and if you don't soon become more reasonable, you will
die an old maid."
"Would that be a very great misfortune, father darling?" said Antoinette
with a roguish smile. "If ever I marry, you know, I shall have to leave
you. And what would you do then? You would be driven to marry your
cook!"
This sally put the old scientist in a good humour. His daughter was the
charm and solace of his life, and though he would have liked to see her
happily married, he did not know what he should do when she left him. On
the way back to the hotel, Antoinette tried to find some edelweiss, but
she was not able to clamber up to the high rocks on which this rare
flower grows. Great therefore were her joy and surprise, on returning to
the hotel, to find on the table of her room a wicker basket, full of
edelweiss, and rarer Alpine flowers. Was it for her? Yes! For in the
basket was a note addressed, "Mlle. Moriaz." Fluttering with excitement
she opened it, and read:
"I arrived in this valley, disgusted with life, sad, and
weary to death. But I saw you pass by my window, and some
strange, new power entered my soul. Now I know that I shall
live, and accomplish my work in the world. 'What does this
matter to me?' you will say when you read these lines--and you
will be right. My only excuse for writing to you in this way
is that I shall depart in a few days, and that you will never
see me, and never know who I am."
After getting over her first impression of profound astonishment,
Antoinette laughed, and then gave way to curiosity. Who had brought the
flowers? "A little peasant boy," said the hotel porter, "but I did not
know him. He must have come from another village."
For some days, Mlle. Moriaz glanced at everybody she met, but she never
found a single romantic figure in the crowd of invalids that sauntered
about St. Moritz. If, however, she had always accompanied her father,
who, growing stronger every day, began to go out on long geological
excursions, she might have met a very picturesque and striking young
man. For Count Abel Larinski now always followed M. Moriaz, and watched
over him like a guardian angel. "Oh, if he would only fall down one of
the rocks he is always hammering at, and break a leg, or even sprain an
ankle!" said the gallant Polish nobleman. "Wouldn't that be a lucky
accident for me!"
All things, it is said, come to those who know how to wait. One
afternoon M. Moriaz climbed up a very steep slope of crumbling rock, and
came to a narrow gorge over which he was afraid to leap. He could not
descend by the way he had come up, for the slope was really dangerous.
It looked as though he should have to wait hours, and perhaps, days,
until some herdsman passed by; and he began to shout wildly in the hopes
of attracting attention. To his great joy, his shout was answered, and
Count Larinski climbed up the other side of the gorge, carrying a plank,
torn from a fence he passed on his way. By means of this, he bridged the
gorge, and rescued the father of Antoinette, and naturally, he had to
accompany him to the hotel, and stay to dinner. As we have said, Count
Larinski was a very handsome man; tall, broad-shouldered, with strange
green eyes touched with soft golden tints. When he began to talk, simply
and modestly of the part he had played in the last Polish Revolution
against the despotic power of Russia, Antoinette felt at last that she
was in the presence of a hero. And what a cultivated man he was! He
played the piano divinely, and they passed many pleasant evenings
together. One night, the Count left behind him a piece of music,
inscribed "Abel Larinski." "Surely," Mlle. Moriaz thought, "I have seen
that writing somewhere!" Her breath came quickly, as with a trembling
hand she took out of her bosom the letter which had been sent with the
flowers, and compared the handwritings. They were identical.
_II.--A Conversation with a Dead Man_
Just a week afterwards, Count Larinski had a very serious conversation
with his partner, Samuel Brohl. The strange thing about the conversation
was that there was only one man in the room, and he talked all the time
to himself. Sometimes he spoke in German with lapses into Yiddish, and
any one would then have said that he was Samuel Brohl, a notorious
Jewish adventurer. Then, recovering himself, he talked in Polish, and he
might have been mistaken for a Polish gentleman. He seemed to be a man
who was trying to study a difficult matter from two different points of
view, and he undoubtedly had an actor's talent for throwing himself into
the character of the nobleman he was impersonating.
"Do you see," said Samuel Brohl, "fortune at last smiles upon us. The
charming girl is ours. I have won her for you, dear Larinski, by the
means Othello used to charm the imagination and capture the heart of
Desdemona. Do you not remember, my dear Count, the tales you used to
tell us, when we were living together in a garret in Bucharest? How you
fought in the streets of Warsaw against the Cossacks? How they tracked
you through the snow-covered forest by the trail of blood you left
behind you? Oh, I recollected it all, and I flatter myself that I
related it with just that proud, sombre, subdued melancholy with which
you used to speak of your sufferings."
"Do you think that she has really fallen in love with me?" asked Count
Larinski. "I am afraid of her father. In spite of all that I have done
for that famous man of science, he does not seem to fancy me as a
son-in-law. Do you imagine it is merely because of my poverty? Or does
he find anything wrong with me?"
This last question profoundly disturbed the soul of Samuel Brohl. What!
were all the skilful intrigues which he had spent four years in weaving,
to come to nothing? For it was now four years since Samuel Brohl had
entered into his strange partnership with the Polish nobleman. Brohl
himself was the son of a Jewish tavern-keeper in Gallicia. A great
Russian lady, Princess Gulof, attracted by his handsome presence, and
strange green eyes, had engaged him as her secretary and educated him.
He had repaid her by robbing her of her jewels and running off with them
to Bucharest. There he had met Count Larinski, who, for more honourable
motives, was also hiding from the Russian secret police. By representing
himself as a persecuted anarchist, Brohl completely won the confidence
of large-hearted, chivalrous Polish patriot.
"Ah, it was a lucky chance that brought us together!" said Samuel Brohl.
"If you had not met me, you would have been dead, four years ago, and
clean forgotten. Do you remember your last instructions? After giving me
every bit of money you had--a little over two thousand florins, wasn't
it?--you showed me a box containing your family jewels, your letters,
your diary, your papers, and you said to me: 'Destroy everything it
contains. Poland is dead. Let my name die too!'
"But, my dear Count," continued Samuel Brohl, "how could I let a man of
your heroic worth and romantic character be forgotten by the world? No,
it was Samuel Brohl who died and was buried in an unknown grave. I have
the certificate of his death. Count Abel Larinski still lives. It is
true that he is so changed by all his sufferings that his oldest friends
would never recognise him. His hair used to be black, it is now brown;
his blue eyes have become golden green; moreover he has grown
considerably taller. But what does it matter? He is still a handsome
man, with a noble air and charming manner."
"Very well," said Count Larinski. "I must take the risk of meeting in
Paris anyone who used to know me before my transformation. I will pack
up and depart."
It was indeed a terrible ordeal which he had to face. By a strange irony
of fate, all his skilfully conceived plans were imperilled at the very
moment when his success seemed absolutely certain. As he had foreseen,
M. Moriaz was not at first inclined to consent to the marriage; but
Antoinette soon won her father over, and when Count Larinski called at
their charming villa at Cormeilles, on the outskirts of Paris, he had as
warm a welcome as the most ardent of suitors could desire.
"We must introduce you, my dear Count, to all our friends," said M.
Moriaz. "We are giving a party to-morrow evening for the purpose. Of
course you will be able to attend?"
"Naturally," said Larinski, "I am looking forward with the greatest
eagerness to making the acquaintance of all Antoinette's friends. The
only thing I regret is that none of my old comrades in the great
struggle against Russia can be at my side at the happiest moment of my
life. Alas! many are working in fetters in the mines of Siberia, and the
rest are scattered over the face of the globe."
_III.--Samuel Brohl Comes to Life_
But, though none of Count Larinski's friends was able to appear at
Cormeilles, one of Samuel Brohl's old acquaintances came to the party.
On entering the drawing-room, he saw an old, ugly, sharp-faced woman,
talking in a corner with Camille Langis. It was Princess Gulof. It
seemed to him as if the four walls of the room were rocking to and fro,
and that the floor was slipping from under his feet like the deck of a
ship in a wild storm. By a great effort of will, he recovered himself.
"Never mind, Samuel Brohl," he said to himself. "Let us see the game
through. After all she is very shortsighted, and you may have changed in
the last four years."
Antoinette presented him to the Princess, who examined him with her
little, blinking eyes, and smiled on him kindly and calmly.
"What luck! What amazing luck!" he thought. "She is now as blind as an
owl. If only I can escape from talking to her, I'm safe."
Unfortunately, Antoinette asked him to take the Princess in to dinner.
He offered her his arm, and led her to the table, in absolute silence.
She, too, did not speak; but when they sat down, she began to talk gaily
to the priest of the parish, who was sitting on her right. Her sight was
so bad that she had to bend over her wineglasses to find the one she
wanted. Seeing this, Samuel Brohl recovered his self-confidence.
"She can't have recognised me," he thought; "my voice, my accent, my
bearing, everything has changed. Poland has entered into my blood. I am
no longer Samuel, I am Larinski."
Boldly entering into the general conversation, he related with a
melancholy grace a story of the Polish insurrection, shaking his
lion-like mane of hair, and speaking with tears in his voice. It was
impossible to be more of a Larinski than he was at that moment. When he
finished, a murmur of admiration ran round the table.
"Although we are mortal enemies, Count," said the Princess Gulof, "allow
me to congratulate you. I hear you have won the hand of Mlle. Moriaz."
"Mortal enemies?" he said, in a low, troubled voice. "Why are we mortal
enemies; my dear Princess?"
"Because I am a Russian and you are a Pole," she replied. "But we shall
not have time to quarrel. I am leaving for London at seven o'clock
to-morrow morning. What is the date of your wedding?"
"If I dared hope that you would do me the honour to attend it," he said,
skilfully evading answering her question, "I might put it off until your
return from England."
"You are too kind," said the Princess. "I would not think of delaying
the happy event to which Mile. Moriaz so eagerly looks forward. What a
beautiful girl she is! I dare not ask you what is her fortune. You are,
I can see, an idealist. You do not trouble yourself with matters of
money. But oh, you poor idealists," she whispered, leaning over him with
a friendly air, "you always come to grief in the end!"
"How is that?" he said with a smile.
"You dream with your eyes open, my dear Count Larinski, and your
awakening is sometimes sudden and unpleasant."
Then, advancing her head towards her companion, her little eyes flaming
like a viper's, she whispered: "Samuel Brohl, I knew you all along. Your
dream has come to an end."
A cold sweat broke out on the forehead of the adventurer. Leaning over
the Princess, his face convulsed with hatred, he murmured:
"Samuel Brohl is not the sort of man to put up with an injury. Some
years ago, he received two letters from you. If ever he is attacked, he
will publish them."
Rising up, he made her a low bow, and took leave of Mlle. Moriaz and her
father, and left the house. At first, he was utterly downcast, and
inclined to give up the game; but as he tramped back to Paris in the
moonlight, his courage returned. He had two letters which the Princess
had written to him when she was engaged in Paris on a political mission
of great importance, and they contained some amazing indiscretions in
regard to the private lives of several august personages.
"No," he said to himself, "she will think twice before she interferes in
my affairs. I can ruin her as easily as she can ruin me."
As a matter of fact, Princess Gulof was unable to sleep all that night.
She was torn between the desire for vengeance and the fear of reprisals.
_IV.--The Partnership is Dissolved_
The next morning, after breakfast, Mlle. Moriaz was surprised to receive
a visit from Princess Gulof.
"I have come to see you about your marriage," said the Princess.
"You are very kind," replied Mlle. Moriaz, "but I do not understand...."
"You will understand in a minute," said the Princess. "There's a story I
want to tell you, and I think you will find it interesting. Fourteen
years ago I was passing through a village in Gallicia, and the bad
weather forced me to put up at a dirty inn kept by a Jew called Brohl.
This Jew had a son, Samuel, a youngster with strange green eyes and a
handsome figure. Finding that he was an intelligent lad, I paid for him
to study at the University, and later on, I kept him as my private
secretary. But about four years ago Samuel Brohl ran off with all my
jewellery."
"You were indeed badly rewarded for your kindness, Madame." interrupted
Antoinette; "but I do not see what Samuel Brohl has to do with my
marriage."
"I was going to tell you," said the Princess. "I had the pleasure of
meeting him here last night. He has got on since I lost sight of him. He
is not content with changing from a Jew into a Pole; he is now a great
nobleman. He calls himself Count Abel Larinski, and he is engaged to be
married to Mlle. Moriaz. She is now wearing a Persian bracelet he stole
from me."
"Madame," cried Antoinette, her cheeks flushing with anger, "will you
dare to tell Count Larinski, in my presence, that he is this Samuel
Brohl you speak of?"
"I have no desire to do so," said the Princess. "Indeed, I want you to
promise me never to tell him that it was I who showed him up. Wait! I
have thought of something. The middle plate of my Persian bracelet used
to open with a secret spring. Open yours and if you find my name there,
well, you will know where it came from."
"Unless you are willing to repeat in the presence of myself and Count
Larinski all that you have just said," exclaimed Antoinette haughtily,
"there is only one thing I can promise you. I shall certainly never
relate to the man to whom I have the honour to be betrothed, a single
word of the silly, wicked slanders that you have uttered."
Princess Gulof rose up brusquely, and stood for a while looking at
Antoinette in silence.
"So, you do not believe me," she said in an ironic tone, blinking her
little eyes. "You are right. Old women, you know, seldom talk sense.
Samuel Brohl never existed, and I had the pleasure of dining last night
with the most authentic of all the Larinskis. Pardon me, and accept my
best wishes for the life-long happiness of the Count and Countess."
Thereupon she made a mocking curtsey, and turned on her heels and
disappeared.
"The woman is absolutely mad," said Antoinette. "Abel will be here in a
few minutes, and he will tell me what is the matter with her. I supposed
they quarrelled last night about Poland. Oh dear, what funny old women
there are in the world!"
As she was waiting for her lover to appear, Camille Langis came to the
house. Naturally, she was not desirous of talking with her rejected
suitor at that moment, and she gave him a rather frigid welcome.
"I see you don't want me," said Camille sadly, turning away.
"Of course I want you," she said, touched by the feeling he showed. "You
are my oldest and dearest friend."
For a few minutes, they sat talking together, and Camille noticed the
strange bracelet on her wrist, and praised its curious design.
Antoinette, struck by a sudden idea, took off the Persian ornament, and
gave it to Camille, saying:
"One of these plates, I believe, opens by a secret spring. You are an
engineer, can you find this spring for me?"
"The middle plate is hollow," said Langis, tapping it with a pen-knife,
"the other two are solid gold. Oh, what a clumsy fool I am! I have
broken it open."
"Is there any writing?" said Antoinette. "Let me look."
Yes, there was a long list of dates, and at the end of the dates were
written: "Nothing, nothing, nothing, that is all. Anna Gulof."
Antoinette became deathly pale; something seemed to break in her head;
she felt that if she did not speak, her mind would give way. Yes, she
could trust Camille, but how should she begin? She felt that she was
stifling, and could not draw in enough air to keep breathing.
"What is the matter with you, dear Antoinette?" said Camille, alarmed by
her pallor and her staring eyes.
She began to speak in a low, confused and broken voice, and Camille at
first could not understand what she was saying. But at last he did so,
and his soul was then divided between an immense pity for the grief that
overwhelmed her, and a ferocious joy at the thought of the utter rout of
his successful rival. Suddenly a step was heard on the garden path.
"Here he is," said Antoinette. "No, stay in here. I will call you if I
want you. In spite of all I have said I shall never believe that he has
deceived me unless I read the lie in his very eyes."
Instead of waiting for the visitor to be shown into her room, she ran
out, and met him in the garden. He came up to her smiling, thinking that
with the departure of Princess Gulof, all danger had vanished. But when
he saw the white face and burning eyes of Antoinette, he guessed that
she knew everything. He determined, however, to try and carry it off by
sheer audacity.
"I am sorry I left so early last evening," he said, "but that mad
Russian woman, whom I took into dinner, made me almost as crazy as she
was herself. She ought to be in an asylum. But the night repaid me for
all the worries of the evening. I dreamt of the Engadine, its emerald
lakes, its pine-trees, and its edelweiss."
"I, too, had a dream last night," said Antoinette slowly. "I dreamt that
this bracelet which you gave me belonged to the mad Russian woman, and
that she had engraved her name inside it." She threw the bracelet at
him. He picked it up, and turned it round and round in his trembling
fingers, looking at the plate which had been forced open.
"Can you tell me what I ought to think of Samuel Brohl?" she asked.
The name fell on him like a mass of lead; he reeled under the blow;
then, striking his head with his two fists, he answered:
"Samuel Brohl is a man worthy of your pity. If you only knew all that he
has suffered, all he has dared to do, you could not help pitying him,
yes, and admiring him. Samuel Brohl is an unfortunate ..."
"Scoundrel," she said in a terrible voice. "Madame Brohl!"--she began to
laugh hysterically--"Madame Brohl! No, I can't become Madame Brohl. Ah!
that poor Countess Larinski."
"You did not love the man," he said bitterly; "only the Count."
"The man I loved did not tell lies," she replied.
"Yes, I lied to you," he said, panting like a hunted animal, "and I take
all the shame of it gladly. I lied because I loved you to madness; and I
lied because you are dearer to me than honour; I lied because I
despaired of touching your heart, and I did not care by what means I won
you. Why did I ever meet you? Why couldn't I have passed you by, without
you becoming the dream of my whole life? I have lied. Who would not lie
to be loved by you?"
Never had Samuel Brohl appeared so beautiful. Despair and passion
lighted up his strange green eyes with a sombre flame. He had the
sinister charm of a fallen archangel, and he fixed on Antoinette a wild,
fascinating glance, that said:
"What do my name, my deceptions and the rest, matter to you? My face at
least is not a mask, and the man who moved you, the man who won you, was
I."
Mlle. Moriaz, however, divined the thought in the eyes of Samuel Brohl.
"You are a good actor," she said between her teeth. "But it is time that
this comedy came to an end."
He threw himself on the grass at her feet, and then sprang up, and tried
to clasp her in his arms.
"Camille! Camille!" she cried, "save me from this man."
Langis darted out after Brohl, and the Jew took to his heels. Langis
would have followed him as gladly as a hound follows a fox, but he saw
Antoinette's strength had given way, and running up to her, he caught
her in his arms as she reeled, and tenderly carried her into the house.
That evening, Count Abel Larinski disappeared from the world. Samuel
Brohl rose up from his grave at Bucharest, and took the name of Kicks,
and emigrated to America some time before the marriage of Mlle. Moriaz
to M. Camille Langis was announced in the "Figaro."
* * * * *