As I sat brooding over my fire that same evening, my door was suddenly
opened, and a large burly man, looming even larger from an immense fur
pelisse that he wore, entered. His first care was to divest himself of a
tall Astracan cap, from which he flung off some snow-flakes, and then
to throw off his pelisse, stamping the snow from his great boots, which
reached half-way up the thigh.
“You see,” cried he, at last, with a jovial air,--“you see I come, like
a good comrade, and make myself at home at once.”
“I certainly see so much,” said I, dryly; “but whom have I the honor to
receive?”
“You have the honor to receive Gustave Maurice de Marsac, young man,
a gentleman of Dauphiné, who now masquerades in the character of first
traveller for the respectable house of Hodnig and Oppovich.”
“I am proud to make your acquaintance, M. de Marsac,” said I, offering
my band.
“What age are you?” cried he, staring fixedly at me. “You can't be
twenty?”
“No, I am not twenty.”
“And they purpose to send you down to replace _me!_” cried he; and he
threw himself back in his chair, and shook with laughter.
“I see all the presumption; but I can only say it was none of my doing.”
“No, no; don't say presumption,” said he, in a half-coaxing tone. “But
I may say it, without vanity, it is not every man's gift to be able to
succeed Gustave de Marsac. May I ask for a cigar? Thanks. A real Cuban,
I verily believe. I finished my tobacco two posts from this, and have
been smoking all the samples--pepper and hemp-seed amongst them--since
then.”
“May I offer you something to eat?”
“You may, if you accompany it with something to drink. Would you believe
it, Oppovich and his daughter were at supper when I arrived to report
myself; and neither of them as much as said, Chevalier--I mean Mon. de
Marsac--won't you do us the honor to join us? No. Old Ignaz went on with
his meal,--cold veal and a potato salad, I think it was; and the fair
Sara examined my posting-book to see I had made no delay on the road;
but neither offered me even the courtesy of a glass of wine.”
“I don't suspect it was from any want of hospitality,” I began.
“An utter want of everything, _mon cher_. Want of decency; want of
delicacy; want of due deference to a man of birth and blood. I see you
are sending your servant out. Now, I beg, don't make a stranger--don't
make what we call a 'Prince Russe' of me. A little quiet supper, and
something to wash it down; good fellowship will do the rest. May I give
your man the orders?”
“You will confer a great favor on me,” said I.
He took my servant apart, and whispered a few minutes with him at the
window. “Try Kleptomitz first,” said he aloud, as the man was leaving;
“and mind you say M. Marsac sent you. Smart 'bursche' you've got there.
If you don't take him with you, hand him over to me.”
“I will do so,” said I; “and am happy to have secured him a good
master.”
“You'll not know him when you pass through Fiume again. I believe
there's not my equal in Europe to drill a servant. Give me a Chinese,
an Esquimau; give me a Hottentot, and in six months you shall see him
announce a visitor, deliver a letter, wait at table, or serve coffee,
with the quiet dignity and the impassive steadiness of the most
accomplished lackey. The three servants of Fiume were made by me, and
their fortunes also. One has now the chief restaurant at Rome, in the
Piazza di Spagna; the other is manager of the 'Iron Crown Hotel,' at
Zurich; he wished to have it called the 'Arms of Marsac,' but I forbade
him. I said, 'No, Pierre, no. The De Marsacs are now travelling incog.'
Like the Tavannes and the Rohans, we have to wait and bide our time.
Louis Napoleon is not immortal. Do you think he is?”
“I have no reason to think so.”
“Well, well, you are too young to take interest in politics; not but
that _I_ did at fourteen: I conspired at fourteen! I will show you a
stiletto Mazzini gave me on my birthday; and the motto on the blade was,
'Au service du. Roi.' Ah! you are surprised at what I tell you. I hear
you say to yourself, 'How the devil did he come to this place? what led
him to Fiume?' A long story that; a story poor old Dumas would give
one of his eyes for. There's more adventure, more scrapes by villany,
dangers and deathblows generally, in the last twenty-two years of my
life--I am now thirty-six--than in all the Monte Cristos that ever were
written. I will take the liberty to put another log on your fire. What
do you say if we lay the cloth? It will expedite matters a little.”
“With all my heart. Here are all my household goods,” said I, opening a
little press in the wall.
“And not to be despised, by any means. Show me what a man drinks out of,
and I'll tell you what he drinks. When a man has got thin glasses like
these,--_à la Mousseline_, as we say,--his tipple is Bordeaux.”
“I confess the weakness,” said I, laughing.
“It is my own infirmity too,” said he, sighing. “My theory is, plurality
of wines is as much a mistake as plurality of wives. Coquette, if you
will, with fifty, but give your affections to one. If I am anything,
I am moral. What can keep your fellow so long? I gave him but two
commissions.”
“Perhaps the shops were closed at this hour.”
“If they were, sir,” said he, pompously, “at the word 'Marsac' they
would open. Ha! what do I see here?--a piano? Am I at liberty to open
it?” And without waiting for a reply, he sat down, and ran his hands
over the keys with a masterly facility. As he flew over the octaves, and
struck chords of splendid harmony, I could not help feeling an amount of
credit in all his boastful declarations just from this one trait of real
power about him.
“I see you are a rare musician,” said I.
“And it is what I know least,” said he; “though Flotow said one day,
'If that rascal De Marsac takes to writing operas, I 'll never compose
another. 'But here comes the supper;” and as he spoke my servant entered
with a small basket with six bottles in it; two waiters following him,
bearing a good-sized tin box, with a charcoal fire beneath.
“Well and perfectly done,” exclaimed my guest, as he aided them to place
the soup on the table, and to dispose some _hors d'oeuvre_ of anchovies,
caviare, ham, and fresh butter on the board. “I am sorry we have no
flowers. I love a bouquet A few camellias for color, and some violets
for odor. They relieve the grossness of the material enjoyments; they
poetize the meal; and if you have no women at table, _mon cher_, be sure
to have flowers: not that I object to both together. There, now, is our
little bill of fare,--a white soup, a devilled mackerel, some truffles,
with butter, and a capon with stewed mushrooms. Oysters there are
none, not even those native shrimps they call scampi; but the wine
will compensate for much: the wine is Roediger; champagne, with a faint
suspicion of dryness. And as he has brought ice, we 'll attack that
Bordeaux you spoke of till the other be cool enough for drinking.”
As he rattled on thus, it was not very easy for me to assure myself
whether I was host or guest; but as I saw that this consideration did
not distress _him_, I resolved it should not weigh heavily on me.
“I ordered a _compote_ of peaches with maraschino. Go after them and
say it has been forgotten.” And now, as he dismissed my servant on this
errand, he sat down and served the soup, doing the honors of the board
in all form. “You are called--”
“Digby is my Christian name,” interrupted I, “and you can call me by
it.”
“Digby, I drink to your health; and if the wine had been only a little
warmer, I 'd say I could not wish to do so in a more generous fluid. No
fellow of your age knows how to air his Bordeaux; hot flannels to the
caraffe before decanting are all that is necessary, and let your glasses
also be slightly warmed. To sip such claret as this, and then turn one's
eyes to that champagne yonder in the ice-pail, is like the sensation
of a man who in his honeymoon fancies how happy he will be one of
these days, _en secondes noces_. Don't you feel a sense of triumphant
enjoyment at this moment? Is there not something at your heart that
says, 'Hodnig and Oppovich, I despise you! To the regions I soar in you
cannot come! To the blue ether I have risen, your very vision cannot
reach!' Eh, boy! tell me this.”
“No; I don't think you have rightly measured my feelings. On the whole,
I rather suspect I bear a very good will to these same people who have
enabled me to have these comforts.”
“You pretend, then, to what they call gratitude?”
“I have that weakness.”
“I could as soon believe in the heathen mythology! I like the man who
is kind to me while he is doing the kindness, and I could, if occasion
served, be kind to him in turn; but to say that I could retain such a
memory of the service after years that it would renew in me the first
pleasant sensations it created, and with these sensations the goodwill
to requite them, is downright rubbish. You might as well tell me that I
could get drank simply by remembering the orgie I assisted at ten years
ago.”
“I protest against your sentiment and your logic too.”
“Then we won't dispute the matter. We'll talk of something we can agree
upon. Let us abuse Sara.”
“If you do, you'll choose some other place to do it.”
“What, do you mean to tell me that you can stand the haughty airs and
proud pretensions of the young Jewess?”
“I mean to tell you that I know nothing of the Fräulein Oppovich but
what is amiable and good.”
“What do I care for amiable and good? I want a girl to be graceful,
well-mannered, pleasing, lively to talk, and eager to listen. There,
now, don't get purple about the cheeks, and flash at me such fiery
looks. Here's the champagne, and we 'll drink a bumper to her.”
“Take some other name for your toast, or I 'll fling your bottle out of
the window.”
“You will, will you!” said he, setting down his glass, and measuring me
from head to foot.
“I swear it”
“I like that spirit, Digby; I'll be shot if I don't,” said he, taking my
hand, which I did not give very willingly. “You are just what I was some
fifteen or twenty years ago,--warm, impulsive, and headstrong. It's the
world--that vile old mill, the world--grinds that generous nature out
of one! I declare I don't believe that a spark of real trustfulness
survives a man's first moustaches,--and yours are very faint, very faint
indeed; there 's a suspicion of smut on the upper lip, and some small
capillary flourishes along your cheek. That wine is too sweet. I 'll
return to the Bordeaux.”
“I grieve to say I have no more than that bottle of it. It was some I
bought when I was ill and threatened with ague.”
“What profanation! anything would be good enough for ague. It is in
a man's days of vigorous health he merits cherishing. Let us console
ourselves with Rodiger. Now, boy,” said he, as he cleared off a bumper
from a large goblet, “I 'll give you some hints for your future, far
more precious than this wine, good as it is. Gustave de Marsac, like
Homer's hero, can give gold for brass, and instead of wine he will give
you wisdom. First of all for a word of warning: don't fall in love
with Sara. It's the popular error down here to do so, but it's a
cruel mistake. That fellow that has the hemp-trade here,--what's his
name,--the vulgar dog that wears mutton-chop whiskers, and fancies he's
English because he gets his coats from London? I 'll remember his name
presently,--he has all his life been proposing for Sara, and begging
off--as matters go ill or well with the House of Oppovich; and as he is
a shrewd fellow in business, all the young men here think they ought to
'go in' for Sara too.”
I should say here that, however distasteful to me this talk, and however
willingly I would have repressed it, it was totally out of my power to
arrest the flow of words which with the force of a swollen torrent came
from him. He drank freely, too, large goblets of champagne as he talked,
and to this, I am obliged to own, I looked as my last hope of being rid
of him. I placed every bottle I possessed on the table, and, lighting my
cigar, resigned myself, with what patience I could, to the result.
“Am I keeping you up, my dear Digby?” cried he, at last, after a burst
of abuse on Fiume and all it contained that lasted about half an hour.
“I seldom sit up so late,” was my cautious reply; “but I must own I have
seldom such a good excuse.”
“You hit it, boy; that was well and truly spoken. As a talker of the
highest order of talk, I yield to no man in Europe. Do you remember
Duvergier saying in the Chambre, as an apology for being late, 'I dined
with DeMarsac'?”
“I cannot say I remember that.”
“How could you? You were an infant at the time.” Away he went after this
into reminiscences of political life,--how deep he was in that Spanish
marriage question, and how it caused a breach,--an irreparable breach
between Guizot and himself, when that woman, “you know whom I mean, let
out the secret to Bulwer. Of course I ought not to have confided it to
her. I know all that as well as you can tell it me, but who is wise, who
is guarded, who is self-possessed at all times?”
Not entirely trustful of what he was telling me, and little interested
in it besides, I brought him back to Fiume, and to the business that was
now about to be confided to me.
“Ah, very true; you want your instructions. You shall have them,
not that you 'll need them long, _mon cher_. Six months--what am I
saying?--three will see it all up with; Hodnig and Oppovich.”
“What do you mean?” cried I, eagerly.
“Just simply what I say.”
It was not very easy for me to follow him here, but I could gather,
amidst a confused mass of self-glorification, prediction, and
lamentation over warnings disregarded, and such like, that the great Jew
house of “Nathanheimer” of Paris was the real head of the firm of Hodnig
and Oppovich.
“The Nathanheimers own all Europe and a very considerable share of
America,” burst he out “You hear of a great wine-house at Xeres, or a
great corn-merchant at Odessa, or a great tallow-exporter at Riga.
It's all Nathanheimer! If a man prospers and shows that he has skill in
business, they 'll stand by him, even to millions. If he blunders, they
sweep him away, as I brush away that cork. There must be no failures
with _them_. That's their creed.”
He proceeded to explain how these great potentates of finance and trade
had agencies in every great centre of Europe, who reported to them
everything that went on, who flourished, and who foundered; how, when
enterprises that promised well presented themselves, Nathanheimer would
advance any sum, no matter how great, that was wanted. If a country
needed a railroad, if a city required a boulevard, if a seaport wanted
a dock, they were ready to furnish each and all of them. The conditions,
too, were never unfair, never ungenerous, but still they bargained
always for something besides money. They desired that this man would aid
such a project here, or oppose that other there. Their interests were so
various and widespread that they needed political power everywhere, and
they had it.
One offence they never pardoned, never condoned, which was any, the
slightest, insubordination amongst those they supported and maintained.
Marsac ran over a catalogue of those they had ruined in London,
Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfort, and Vienna, simply because they had
attempted to emancipate themselves from the serfdom imposed upon
them. Let one of the subordinate firms branch out into an enterprise
unauthorized by the great house, and straightway their acceptances
become dishonored, and their credit assailed. In one word, he made it
appear that from one end of Europe to the other the whole financial
system was in the bands of a few crafty men of immense wealth, who
unthroned dynasties, and controlled the fate of nations, with a word.
He went on to show that Oppovich had somehow fallen into disgrace with
these mighty patrons. “Some say that he is too old and too feeble for
business, and hands over to Sara details that she is quite unequal to
deal with; some aver that he has speculated without sanction, and is
intriguing with Greek democrats; others declare that he has been merely
unfortunate; at all events, his hour has struck. Mind my words, three
months hence they 'll not have Nathanheimer's agency in their house,
and I suspect you 'll see our friend Bettmeyer will succeed to that rich
inheritance.”
Rambling on, now talking with a vagueness that savored of imbecility,
now speaking with a purpose-like acuteness and power that brought
conviction, he sat till daybreak, drinking freely all the time, and at
last so overwhelming me with 'strange revelations that I was often at a
loss to know whether it was he that was confounding me, or that I myself
had lost all control of right reason and judgment.
“You're dead beat, my poor fellow,” said he at last, “and it's your own
fault. You 've been drinking nothing but water these last two hours.
Go off to bed now, and leave me to finish this bottle. After that I 'll
have a plunge off the end of the mole, cold enough it will be, but no
ice, and you 'll find me here at ten o'clock with a breakfast appetite
that will astonish you.”
I took him at his word, and said “Good-night.”