BOLESLAS GORKA
Hardly ten minutes had passed since Dorsenne had spoken as he had to
Florent Chapron, and already the imprudent novelist began to wonder
whether it would not have been wiser not to interfere in any way in an
adventure in which his intervention was of the least importance.
The apprehension of an immediate drama which had possessed him, for the
first time, after the conversation with Montfanon, for the second time,
in a stronger manner, by proving the ignorance of Madame Gorka on the
subject of the husband's return--that frightful and irresistible
evocation in a clandestine chamber, suddenly deluged with blood,
was banished by the simplest event. The six visitors exchanged their
last impressions on the melancholy and magnificence of the Castagna
apartments, and they ended by descending the grand staircase with the
pillars, through the windows of which staircase smiled beneath the
scorching sun the small garden which Dorsenne had compared to a face.
The young man walked a little in advance, beside Alba Steno, whom he now
tried, but in vain, to cheer. Suddenly, at the last turn of the broad
steps which tempered the decline gradually, her face brightened with
surprise and pleasure. She uttered a slight cry and said: "There is my
mother!" And Julien saw the Madame Steno, whom he had seen, in an access
of almost delirious anxiety, surprised, assassinated by a betrayed lover.
She was standing upon the gray and black mosaic of the peristyle, dressed
in the most charming morning toilette. Her golden hair was gathered up
under a large hat of flowers, over which was a white veil; her hand toyed
with the silver handle of a white parasol, and in the reflection of that
whiteness, with her clear, fair complexion, with her lovely blue eyes in
which sparkled passion and intelligence, with her faultless teeth which
gleamed when she smiled, with her form still slender notwithstanding the
fulness of her bust, she seemed to be a creature so youthful, so
vigorous, so little touched by age that a stranger would never have taken
her to be the mother of the tall young girl who was already beside her
and who said to her
"What imprudence! Ill as you were this morning, to go out in this sun.
Why did you do so?"
"To fetch you and to take you home!" replied the Countess gayly. "I was
ashamed of having indulged myself! I rose, and here I am. Good-day,
Dorsenne. I hope you kept your eyes open up there. A story might be
written on the Ardea affair. I will tell it to you. Good-day, Maud.
How kind of you to make lazy Alba exercise a little! She would have
quite a different color if she walked every morning. Goodday, Florent.
Good-day, Lydia. The master is not here? And you, old friend, what have
you done with Fanny?"
She distributed these simple "good-days" with a grace so delicate, a
smile so rare for each one--tender for her daughter, spirituelle for the
author, grateful for Madame Gorka, amicably surprised for Chapron and
Madame Maitland, familiar and confiding for her old friend, as she called
the Baron. She was evidently the soul of the small party, for her mere
presence seemed to have caused animation to sparkle in every eye.
All talked at once, and she replied, as they walked toward the carriages,
which waited in a court of honor capable of holding seventy gala
chariots. One after the other these carriages advanced. The horses
pawed the ground; the harnesses shone; the footmen and coachmen were
dressed in perfect liveries; the porter of the Palais Castagna, with his
long redingote, on the buttons of which were the symbolical chestnuts of
the family, had beneath his laced hat such a dignified bearing that
Julien suddenly found it absurd to have imagined an impassioned drama in
connection with such people. The last one left, while watching the
others depart, he once more experienced the sensation so common to those
who are familiar with the worst side of the splendor of society and who
perceive in them the moral misery and ironical gayety.
"You are becoming a great simpleton, my friend, Dorsenne," said he,
seating himself more democratically in one of those open cabs called in
Rome a botte. "To fear a tragical adventure for the woman who is
mistress of herself to such a degree is something like casting one's self
into the water to prevent a shark from drowning. If she had not upon her
lips Maitland's kisses, and in her eyes the memory of happiness, I am
very much mistaken. She came from a rendezvous. It was written for me,
in her toilette, in the color upon her cheeks, in her tiny shoes, easy to
remove, which had not taken thirty steps. And with what mastery she
uttered her string of falsehoods! Her daughter, Madame Gorka, Madame
Maitland, how quickly she included them all! That is why I do not like
the theatre, where one finds the actress who employs that tone to utter
her: 'Is the master not here?'"
He laughed aloud, then his thoughts, relieved of all anxiety, took a new
course, and, using the word of German origin familiar to Cosmopolitans,
to express an absurd action, he said: "I have made a pretty schlemylade,
as Hafner would say, in relating to Florent Gorka's unexpected arrival.
It was just the same as telling him that Maitland was the Countess's
lover. That is a conversation at which I should like to assist, that
which will take place between the two brothers-in-law. Should I be very
much surprised to learn that this unattached negro is the confidant of
his great friend? It is a subject to paint, which has never been well
treated; the passionate friendships of a Tattet for a Musset, of an
Eckermann for a Goethe, of an Asselineau for a Beaudelaire, the total
absorption of the admirer in the admired. Florent found that the genius
of the great painter had need of a fortune, and he gave him his sister.
Were he to find that that genius required a passion in order to develop
still more, he would not object. My word of honor! He glanced at the
Countess just now with gratitude! Why not, after all? Lincoln is a
colorist of the highest order, although his desire to be with the tide
has led him into too many imitations. But it is his race. Young Madame
Maitland has as much sense as the handle of a basket; and Madame Steno is
one of those extraordinary women truly created to exalt the ideals of an
artist. Never has he painted anything as he painted the portrait of
Alba. I can hear this dialogue:
"'You know the Pole has returned? What Pole? The Countess's. What?
You believe those calumnies?' Ah, what comedies here below! 'Gad! The
cabman has also committed his 'schlemylade'. I told him Rue Sistina,
near La Trinite-des-Monts, and here he is going through Place Barberini
instead of cutting across Capo le Case. It is my fault as well.
I should not have heeded it had there been an earthquake. Let us at
least admire the Triton of Bernin. What a sculptor that man was! yet he
never thought of nature except to falsify it."
These incoherent remarks were made with a good-nature decidedly
optimistic, as could be seen, when the fiacre finally drew up at the
given address. It was that of a very modest restaurant decorated with
this signboard: 'Trattoria al Marzocco.' And the 'Marzocco', the lion
symbolical of Florence, was represented above the door, resting his paw
on the escutcheon ornamented with the national lys. The appearance of
that front did not justify the choice which the elegant Dorsenne
had made of the place at which to dine when he did not dine in society.
But his dilettantism liked nothing better than those sudden leaps from
society, and M. Egiste Brancadori, who kept the Marzocco, was one of
those unconscious buffoons of whom he was continually in search in real
life, one of those whom he called his "Thebans", in reference to King
Lear. "I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban," cried the mad
king, one knows not why, when he meets "poor Tom" on the heath.
That Dorsenne's Parisian friends, the Casals, the Machaults, the De
Vardes, those habitues of the club, might not judge him too severely, he
explained that the Theban born in Florence was a cook of the first order
and that the modest restaurant had its story. It amused so paradoxical
an observer as Julien was. He often said, "Who will ever dare to write
the truth of the history?" This, for example: Pope Pius IX, having asked
the Emperor to send him some troops to protect his dominions, the latter
agreed to do so--an occupation which bore two results: a Corsican hatred
of the half of Italy against France and the founding of the Marzocco by
Egiste Brancadori, says the Theban or the doctor. It was one of the
pleasantries of the novelist to pretend to have cured his dyspepsia in
Italy, thanks to the wise and wholesome cooking of the said Egiste. In
reality, and more simply, Brancadori was the old cook of a Russian lord,
one of the Werekiews, the cousin of pretty Alba Steno's real father.
That Werekiew, renowned in Rome for the daintiness of his dinners, died
suddenly in 1866. Several of the frequenters of his house, advised by a
French officer of the army of occupation, and tired of clubs, hotels, and
ordinary restaurants, determined to form a syndicate and to employ his
former cook. They, with his cooperation, established a sort of superior
cafe, to which with some pride they gave the name of the Culinary Club.
By assuring to each one a minimum of sixteen meals for seven francs, they
kept for four years an excellent table, at which were to be found all the
distinguished tourists in Rome. The year 1870 had disbanded that little
society of connoisseurs and of conversationalists, and the club was
metamorphosed into a restaurant, almost unknown, except to a few artists
or diplomats who were attracted by the ancient splendors of the place,
and, above all, by the knowledge of the "doctor's" talents.
It was not unusual at eight o'clock for the three small rooms which
composed the establishment to be full of men in white cravats, white
waistcoats and evening coats. To cosmopolitan Dorsenne this was a
singularly interesting sight; a member of the English embassy here, of
the Russian embassy farther on, two German attaches elsewhere, two French
secretaries near at hand from St. Siege, another from the Quirinal. What
interested the novelist still more was the conversation of the doctor
himself, genial Brancadori, who could neither read nor write. But he had
preserved a faithful remembrance of all his old customers, and when he
felt confidential, standing erect upon the threshold of his kitchen, of
the possession of which he was so insolently proud, he repeated curious
stories of Rome in the days of his youth. His gestures, so conformable
to the appearance of things, his mobile face and his Tuscan tongue, which
softened into h all the harsh e's between two vowels, gave a savor to his
stories which delighted a seeker after local truths. It was in the
morning especially, when there was no one in the restaurant, that he
voluntarily left his ovens to chat, and if Dorsenne gave the address of
the Marzocco to his cabman, it was in the hope that the old cook would in
his manner sketch for him the story of the ruin of Ardea. Brancadori was
standing by the bar where was enthroned his niece, Signorina Sabatina,
with a charming Florentine face, chin a trifle long, forehead somewhat
broad, nose somewhat short, a sinuous mouth, large, black eyes, an olive
complexion and waving hair, which recalled in a forcible manner the
favorite type of the first of the Ghirlandajos.
"Uncle," said the young girl, as soon as she perceived Dorsenne, "where
have you put the letter brought for the Prince?"
In Italy every foreigner is a prince or a count, and the profound good-
nature which reigns in the habit gives to those titles, in the mouths of
those who employ them, an amiability often free from calculation. There
is no country in the world where there is a truer, a more charming
familiarity of class for class, and Brancadori immediately gave a proof
of it in addressing as "Carolei"--that is to say, "my dear"--him whom his
daughter had blazoned with a coronet, and he cried, fumbling in the
pockets of the alpaca waistcoat which he wore over his apron of office:
"The brain is often lacking in a gray head. I put it in the pocket of my
coat in order to be more sure of not forgetting it. I changed my coat,
because it was warm, and left it with the letter in my apartments."
"You can look for it after lunch," said Dorsenne.
"No," replied the young girl, rising, "it is not two steps from here;
I will go. The concierge of the palace where your Excellency lives
brought it himself, and said it must be delivered immediately."
"Very well, go and fetch it," replied Julien, who could not suppress a
smile at the honor paid his dwelling, "and I will remain here and talk
with my doctor, while he gives me the prescription for this morning--that
is to say, his bill of fare. Guess whence I come, Brancadori," he added,
assured of first stirring the cook's curiosity, then his power of speech.
"From the Palais Castagna, where they are selling everything."
"Ah! Per Bacco!" exclaimed the Tuscan, with evident sorrow upon his old
parchment-like face, scorched from forty years of cooking. "If the
deceased Prince Urban can see it in the other world, his heart will
break, I assure you. The last time he came to dine here, about ten years
ago, on Saint Joseph's Day, he said to me: 'Make me some fritters,
Egiste, like those we used to have at Monsieur d'Epinag's, Monsieur
Clairin's, Fortuny's, and poor Henri Regnault's.' And he was happy!
'Egiste,' said he to me, 'I can die contented! I have only one son, but
I shall leave him six millions and the palace. If it was Gigi I should
be less easy, but Peppino !' Gigi was the other one, the elder, who died,
the gay one, who used to come here every day--a fine fellow, but bad!
You should have heard him tell of his visit to Pius Ninth on the day upon
which he converted an Englishman. Yes, Excellency, he converted him by
lending him by mistake a pious book instead of a novel. The Englishman
took the book, read it, read another, a third, and became a Catholic.
Gigi, who was not in favor at the Vatican, hastened to tell the Holy
Father of his good deed. 'You see, my son,' said Pius Ninth, 'what means
our Lord God employs!' Ah, he would have used those millions for his
amusement, while Peppino! They were all squandered in signatures. Just
think, the name of Prince d'Ardea meant money! He speculated, he lost,
he won, he lost again, he drew up bills of exchange after bills of
exchange. And every time he made a move such as I am making with my
pencil--only I can not sign my name--it meant one hundred, two hundred
thousand francs to go into the world. And now he must leave his house
and Rome. What will he do, Excellency, I ask you?" With a shake of his
head he added: "He should reconstruct his fortune abroad. We have this
saying: 'He who squanders gold with his hands will search for it with his
feet.' But Sabatino is coming! She has been as nimble as a cat."
The good man's invaluable mimetic art, his proverbs, the story of the
fete of St. Joseph, the original evocation of the heir of the Castagnas
continually signing and signing, the coarse explanation of his ruin--very
true, however--everything in the recital had amused Dorsenne. He knew
enough Italian to appreciate the untranslatable passages of the language
of the man of the people. He was again on the verge of laughter, when
the fresco madonna, as he sometimes designated the young girl, handed him
an envelope the address upon which soon converted his smile into an
undisguised expression of annoyance. He pushed aside the day's bill of
fare which the old cook presented to him and said, brusquely: "I fear I
can not remain to breakfast." Then, opening the letter: "No, I can not;
adieu." And he went out, in a manner so precipitate and troubled that
the uncle and niece exchanged smiling glances. Those typical Southerners
could not think of any other trouble in connection with so handsome a man
as Dorsenne than that of the heart.
"Chi ha l'amor nel petto," said Signorina Sabatina.
"Ha lo spron nei fianchi," replied the uncle.
That naive adage which compares the sharp sting which passion drives into
our breasts to the spurring given the flanks of a horse, was not true of
Dorsenne. The application of the proverb to the circumstance was not,
however, entirely erroneous, and the novelist commented upon it in his
passion, although in another form, by repeating to himself, as he went
along the Rue Sistina: "No, no, I can not interfere in that affair, and I
shall tell him so firmly."
He examined again the note, the perusal of which had rendered him more
uneasy than he had been twice before that morning. He had not been
mistaken in recognizing on the envelope the handwriting of Boleslas
Gorka, and these were the terms, teeming with mystery under the
circumstances, in which the brief message was worded:
"I know you to be such a friend to me, dear Julien, and I have for your
character, so chivalrous and so French, such esteem that I have
determined to turn to you in an era of my life thoroughly tragical.
I wish to see you immediately. I shall await you at your lodging.
I have sent a similar note to the Cercle de la Chasse, another to the
bookshop on the Corso, another to your antiquary's. Wheresoever my
appeal finds you, leave all and come at once. You will save more for me
than life. For a reason which I will tell you, my return is a profound
secret. No one, you understand, knows of it but you. I need not write
more to a friend as sincere as you are, and whom I embrace with all my
heart."
"It is unequalled.!" said Dorsenne, crumpling the letter with rising
anger. "He embraces me with all his heart. I am his most sincere
friend! I am chivalrous, French, the only person he esteems! What
disagreeable commission does he wish me to undertake for him? Into what
scrape is he about to ask me to enter, if he has not already got me into
it? I know that school of protestation. We are allied for life and
death, are we not? Do me a favor! And they upset your habits, encroach
upon your time, embark you in tragedies, and when you say 'No' to them-
then they squarely accuse you of selfishness and of treason! It is my
fault, too. Why did I listen to his confidences? Have I not known for
years that a man who relates his love-affairs on so short an acquaintance
as ours is a scoundrel and a fool? And with such people there can be no
possible connection. He amused me at the beginning, when he told me his
sly intrigue, without naming the person, as they all do at first. He
amused me still more by the way he managed to name her without violating
that which people in society call honor. And to think that the women
believe in that honor and that discretion! And yet it was the surest
means of entering Steno's, and approaching Alba.... I believe I am about
to pay for my Roman flirtation. If Gorka is a Pole, I am from Lorraine,
and the heir of the Castellans will only make me do what I agree to,
nothing more."
In such an ill-humor and with such a resolution, Julien reached the door
of his house. If that dwelling was not the palace alluded to by
Signorina Sabatina, it was neither the usually common house as common
today in new Rome as in contemporary Paris, modern Berlin, and in certain
streets of London opened of late in the neighborhood of Hyde Park. It
was an old building on the Place de la Trinite-des-Monts, at an angle of
the two streets Sistina and Gregoriana. Although reduced to the state of
a simple pension, more or less bourgeoise, that house had its name marked
in certain guide-books, and like all the corners of ancient Rome it
preserved the traces of a glorious, artistic history. The small columns
of the porch gave it the name of the tempietto, or little temple, while
several personages dear to litterateurs had lived there, from the
landscape painter Claude Lorrain to the poet Francois Coppee. A few
paces distant, almost opposite, lived Poussin, and one of the greatest
among modern English poets, Keats, died quite near by, the John Keats
whose tomb is to be seen in Rome, with that melancholy epitaph upon it,
written by himself:
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
It was seldom that Dorsenne returned home without repeating to himself
the translation he had attempted of that beautiful 'Ci-git un don't le
nom, jut ecrit sur de l'eau'.
Sometimes he repeated, at evening, this delicious fragment:
The sky was tinged with tender green and pink.
This time he entered in a more prosaic manner; for he addressed the
concierge in the tone of a jealous husband or a debtor hunted by
creditors:
"Have you given the key to any one, Tonino?" he asked.
"Count Gorka said that your Excellency asked him to await you here,"
replied the man, with a timidity rendered all the more comical by the
formidable cut of his gray moustache and his imperial, which made him a
caricature of the late King Victor Emmanuel.
He had served in '59 under the Galantuomo, and he paid the homage of a
veteran of Solferino to that glorious memory. His large eyes rolled with
fear at the least confusion, and he repeated:
"Yes, he said that your Excellency asked him to wait," while Dorsenne
ascended the staircase, saying aloud: "More and more perfect. But this
time the familiarity passes all bounds; and it is better so. I have been
so surprised and annoyed from the first that I shall be easily able to
refuse the imprudent fellow what he will ask of me." In his anger the
novelist sought to arm himself against his weakness, of which he was
aware--not the weakness of insufficient will, but of a too vivid
perception of the motives which the person with whom he was in conflict
obeyed. He, however, was to learn that there is no greater dissolvent of
rancor than intelligent curiosity. His was, indeed, aroused by a simple
detail, which consisted in ascertaining under what conditions the Pole
had travelled; his dressing-case, his overcoat and his hat, still white
with the dust of travel, were lying upon the table in the antechamber.
Evidently he had come direct from Warsaw to the Place de la Trinite-des-
Monts. A prey to what delirium of passion? Dorsenne had not time to ask
the question any more than he had presence of mind to compose his manner
to such severity that it would cut short all familiarity on the part of
his strange visitor. At the noise made by the opening of the antechamber
door, Boleslas started up. He seized both hands of the man into whose
apartments he had obtruded himself. He pressed them. He gazed at him
with feverish eyes, with eyes which had not closed for hours, and he
murmured, drawing the novelist into the tiny salon:
"You have come, Julien, you are here! Ah, I thank you for having
answered my call at once! Let me look at you, for I am sure I have a
friend beside me, one in whom I can trust, with whom I can speak frankly,
upon whom I can depend. If this solitude had lasted much longer I should
have become mad."
Although Madame Steno's lover belonged to the class of excitable, nervous
people who exaggerate their feelings by an unconscious wildness of tone
and of manner, his face bore the traces of a trouble too deep not to be
startling.
Julien, who had seen him set out, three months before, so radiantly
handsome, was struck by the change which had taken place during such a
brief absence. He was the same Boleslas Gorka, that handsome man, that
admirable human animal, so refined and so strong, in which was embodied
centuries of aristocracy--the Counts de Gorka belong to the ancient house
of Lodzia, with which are connected so many illustrious Polish families,
the Opalenice-Opalenskis, the Bnin-Bninskis, the Ponin-Poniniskis and
many others--but his cheeks were sunken beneath his long, brown beard,
in which were glints of gold; his eyes were heavy as if from wakeful
nights, his nostrils were pinched and his face was pale. The travel-
stains upon his face accentuated the alteration.
Yet the native elegance of that face and form gave grace to his
lassitude. Boleslas, in the vigorous and supple maturity of his thirty-
four years, realized one of those types of manly beauty so perfect that
they resist the strongest tests. The excesses of emotion, as those of
libertinism, seem only to invest the man with a new prestige; the fact is
that the novelist's room, with its collection of books, photographs,
engravings, paintings and moldings, invested that form, tortured by the
bitter sufferings of passion, with a poesy to which Dorsenne could not
remain altogether insensible. The atmosphere, impregnated with Russian
tobacco and the bluish vapor which filled the room, revealed in what
manner the betrayed lover had diverted his impatience, and in the centre
of the writing-table a cup with a bacchanal painted in red on a black
ground, of which Julien was very proud, contained the remains of about
thirty cigarettes, thrown aside almost as soon as lighted. Their paper
ends had been gnawed with a nervousness which betrayed the young man's
condition, while he repeated, in a tone so sad that it almost called
forth a shudder:
"Yes, I should have gone mad."
"Calm yourself, my dear Boleslas, I implore you," replied Dorsenne. What
had become of his ill-humor? How could he preserve it in the presence of
a person so evidently beside himself? Julien continued, speaking to his
companion as one speaks to a sick child: "Come, be seated. Be a little
more tranquil, since I am here, and you have reason to count on my
friendship. Speak to me. Explain to me what has happened. If there is
any advice to give you, I am ready. I am prepared to render you a
service. My God! In what a state you are!"
"Is it not so?" said the other, with a sort of ironical pride. It was
sufficient that he had a witness of his grief for him to display it with
secret vanity. "Is it not so?" he continued. "Could you only know how
I have suffered. This is nothing," said he, alluding to his haggard
appearance. "It is here that you should read," he struck his breast,
then passing his hands over his brow and his eyes, as if to exorcise a
nightmare. "You are right. I must be calm, or I am lost."
After a prolonged silence, during which he seemed to have gathered
together his thoughts and to collect his will, for his voice had become
decided and sharp, he began: "You know that I am here unknown to any
one, even to my wife."
"I know it," replied Dorsenne. "I have just left the Countess. This
morning I visited the Palais Castagna with her, Hafner, Madame Maitland,
Florent Chapron." He paused and added, thinking it better not to lie on
minor points, "Madame Steno and Alba were there, too."
"Any one else?" asked Boleslas, with so keen a glance that the author
had to employ all his strength to reply:
"No one else."
There was a silence between the two men.
Dorsenne anticipated from his question toward what subject the
conversation was drifting. Gorka, now lying rather than sitting upon the
divan in the small room, appeared like a beast that, at any moment, might
bound. Evidently he had come to Julien's a prey to the mad desire to
find out something, which is to jealousy what thirst is to certain
punishments. When one has tasted the bitter draught of certainty, one
does not suffer less. Yet one walks toward it, barefooted, on the heated
pavement, heedless of the heat. The motives which led Boleslas to choose
the French novelist as the one from whom to obtain his information,
demonstrated that the feline character of his physiognomy was not
deceptive. He understood Dorsenne much better than Dorsenne understood
him. He knew him to be nervous, on the one hand, and perspicacious on
the other. If there was an intrigue between Maitland and Madame Steno,
Julien had surely observed it, and, approached in a certain manner,
he would surely betray it. Moreover--for that violent and crafty nature
abounded in perplexities--Boleslas, who passionately admired the author's
talent, experienced a sort of indefinable attraction in exhibiting
himself before him in the role of a frantic lover. He was one of the
persons who would have his photograph taken on his deathbed, so much
importance did he attach to his person. He would, no doubt, have been
insulted, if the author of 'Une Eglogue Mondaine' had portrayed in a book
himself and his love for Countess Steno, and yet he had only approached
the author, had only chosen him as a confidant with the vague hope of
impressing him. He had even thought of suggesting to him some creation
resembling himself. Yes, Gorka was very complex, for he was not
contented with deceiving his wife, he allowed the confiding creature to
form a friendship with the daughter of her husband's mistress. Still,
he deceived her with remorse, and had never ceased bearing her an
affection as sorrowful as it was respectful. But it required Dorsenne to
admit the like anomalies, and the rare sensation of being observed in his
passionate frenzy attracted the young man to some one who was at once a
sure confidant, a possible portrayer, a moral accomplice. It was
necessary now, but it would not be an easy matter, to make of him his
involuntary detective.
"You see," resumed he suddenly, "to what miserable, detailed inquiries
I have descended, I who always had a horror of espionage, as of some
terrible degradation. I shall question you frankly, for you are my
friend. And what a friend! I intended to use artifice with you at
first, but I was ashamed. Passion takes possession of me and distorts
me. No matter what infamy presents itself, I rush into it, and then I am
afraid. Yes, I am afraid of myself! But I have suffered so much! You
do not understand? Well! Listen," continued he, covering Dorsenne with
one of those glances so scrutinizing that not a gesture, not a quiver of
his eyelids, escaped him, "and tell me if you have ever imagined for one
of your romances a situation similar to mine. You remember the mortal
fear in which I lived last winter, with the presence of my brother-in-
law, and the danger of his denouncing me to my poor Maud, from stupidity,
from a British sense of virtue, from hatred. You remember, also, what
that voyage to Poland cost me, after those long months of anxiety? The
press of affairs and the illness of my aunt coming just at the moment
when I was freed from Ardrahan, inspired me with miserable forebodings.
I have always believed in presentiments. I had one. I was not mistaken.
From the first letter I received--from whom you can guess--I saw that
there was taking place in Rome something which threatened me in what I
held dearest on earth, in that love for which I sacrificed all, toward
which I walked by trampling on the noblest of hearts. Was Catherine
ceasing to love me? When one has spent two years of one's life in a
passion--and what years!--one clings to it with every fibre! I will
spare you the recital of those first weeks spent in going here and there,
in paying visits to relatives, in consulting lawyers, in caring for my
sick aunt, in fulfilling my duty toward my son, since the greater part of
the fortune will go to him. And always with this firm conviction: She no
longer writes to me as formerly, she no longer loves me. Ah! if I could
show you the letter she wrote when I was absent once before. You have a
great deal of talent, Julien, but you have never composed anything more
beautiful."
He paused, as if the part of the confession he was approaching cost him a
great effort, while Dorsenne interpolated:
"A change of tone in correspondence is not, however, sufficient to
explain the fever in which I see you."
"No," resumed Gorka, "but it was not merely a change of tone. I
complained. For the first time my complaint found no echo. I threatened
to cease writing. No reply. I wrote to ask forgiveness. I received a
letter so cold that in my turn I wrote an angry one. Another silence!
Ah! You can imagine the terrible effect produced upon me by an unsigned
letter which I received fifteen days since. It arrived one morning. It
bore the Roman postmark. I did not recognize the handwriting. I opened
it. I saw two sheets of paper on which were pasted cuttings from a
French journal. I repeat it was unsigned; it was an anonymous letter."
"And you read it?" interrupted Dorsenne. "What folly!"
"I read it," replied the Count. "It began with words of startling truth
relative to my own situation. That our affairs are known to others we
may be sure, since we know theirs. We should, consequently, remember
that we are at the mercy of their indiscretion, as they are at ours.
The beginning of the note served as a guarantee of the truth of the end,
which was a detailed, minute recital of an intrigue which Madame Steno
had been carrying on during my absence, and with whom? With the man whom
I always mistrusted, that dauber who wanted to paint Alba's portrait--but
whose desires I nipped in the bud--with the fellow who degraded himself
by a shameful marriage for money, and who calls himself an artist--with
that American--with Lincoln Maitland!"
Although the childish and unjust hatred of the jealous--the hatred which
degrades us in lowering the one we love-had poisoned his discourse with
its bitterness, he did not cease watching Dorsenne. He partly raised
himself on the couch and thrust his head forward as he uttered the name
of his rival, glancing keenly at the novelist meanwhile. The latter
fortunately had been rendered indignant at the news of the anonymous
letter, and he repeated, with an astonishment which in no way aided his
interlocutor:
"Wait," resumed Boleslas; "that was merely a beginning. The next day I
received another letter, written and sent under the same conditions; the
day after, a third. I have twelve of them--do you hear? twelve--in my
portfolio, and all composed with the same atrocious knowledge of the
circle in which we move, as was the first. At the same time I was
receiving letters from my poor wife, and all coincided, in the terrible
series, in a frightful concordance. The anonymous letter told me: 'To-
day they were together two hours and a quarter,' while Maud wrote: 'I
could not go out to-day, as agreed upon, with Madame Steno, for she had a
headache.' Then the portrait of Alba, of which they told me incidentally.
The anonymous letters detailed to me the events, the prolongation of
sitting, while my wife wrote: 'We again went to see Alba's portrait
yesterday. The painter erased what he had done.' Finally it became
impossible for me to endure it. With their abominable minuteness of
detail, the anonymous letters gave me even the address of their
rendezvous! I set out. I said to myself, 'If I announce my arrival to
my wife they will find it out, they will escape me.' I intended to
surprise them. I wanted--Do I know what I wanted? I wanted to suffer no
longer the agony of uncertainty. I took the train. I stopped neither
day nor night. I left my valet yesterday in Florence, and this morning
I was in Rome.
"My plan was made on the way. I would hire apartments near theirs,
in the same street, perhaps in the same house. I would watch them, one,
two days, a week. And then--would you believe it? It was in the cab
which was bearing me directly toward that street that I saw suddenly,
clearly within me, and that I was startled. I had my hand upon this
revolver." He drew the weapon from his pocket and laid it upon the
divan, as if he wished to repulse any new temptation. "I saw myself as
plainly as I see you, killing those two beings like two animals, should
I surprise them. At the same time I saw my son and my wife. Between
murder and me there was, perhaps, just the distance which separated me
from the street, and I felt that it was necessary to fly at once--to fly
that street, to fly from the guilty ones, if they were really guilty; to
fly from myself! I thought of you, and I have come to say to you, 'My
friend, this is how things are; I am drowning, I am lost; save me.'"
"You have yourself found the salvation," replied Dorsenne. "It is in
your son and your wife. See them first, and if I can not promise you
that you will not suffer any more, you will no longer be tempted by that
horrible idea." And he pointed to the pistol, which gleamed in the
sunlight that entered through the casement. Then he added: "And you will
have the idea still less when you will have been able to prove 'de visu'
what those anonymous letters were worth. Twelve letters in fifteen days,
and cuttings from how many papers? And they claim that we invent
heinousness in our books! If you like, we will search together for the
person who can have elaborated that little piece of villany. It must be
a Judas, a Rodin, an Iago--or Iaga. But this is not the moment to waste
in hypotheses.
"Are you sure of your valet? You must send him a despatch, and in that
despatch the copy of another addressed to Madame Gorka, which your man
will send this very evening. You will announce your arrival for
tomorrow, making allusion to a letter written, so to speak, from Poland,
and which was lost. This evening from here you will take the train for
Florence, from which place you will set out again this very night. You
will be in Rome again to-morrow morning. You will have avoided, not only
the misfortune of having become a murderer, though you would not have
surprised any one, I am sure, but the much more grave misfortune of
awakening Madame Gorka's suspicions. Is it a promise?"
Dorsenne rose to prepare a pen and paper: "Come, write the despatch
immediately, and render thanks to your good genius which led you to a
friend whose business consists in imagining the means of solving
insoluble situations."
"You are quite right," Boleslas replied, after taking in his hand the pen
which he offered to the other, "it is fortunate." Then, casting aside
the pen as he had the revolver, "I can not. No, I can not, as long as I
have this doubt within me. Ah, it is too horrible! I can see them
plainly. You speak to me of my wife; but you forget that she loves me,
and at the first glance she would read me, as you did. You can not
imagine what an effort it has cost me for two years never to arouse
suspicion. I was happy, and it is easy to deceive when one has nothing
to hide but happiness. To-day we should not be together five minutes
before she would seek, and she would find. No, no; I can not. I need
something more."
"Unfortunately," replied Julien, "I cannot give it to you. There is no
opium to lull asleep doubts such as those horrible anonymous letters have
awakened. What I know is this, that if you do not follow my advice
Madame Gorka will not have a suspicion, but certainty. It is now perhaps
too late. Do you wish me to tell you what I concealed from you on seeing
you so troubled? You did not lose much time in coming from the station
hither, and probably you did not look out of your cab twice. But you
were seen. By whom? By Montfanon. He told me so this morning almost
on the threshold of the Palais Castagna. If I had not gathered from some
words uttered by your wife that she was ignorant of your presence in
Rome, I--do you hear?--I should have told her of it. Judge now of your
situation!"
He spoke with an agitation which was not assumed, so much was he troubled
by the evidence of danger which Gorka's obstinacy presented. The latter,
who had begun to collect himself, had a strange light in his eyes.
Without doubt his companion's nervousness marked the moment he was
awaiting to strike a decisive blow. He rose with so sudden a start that
Dorsenne drew back. He seized both of his hands, but with such force
that not a quiver of the muscles escaped him:
"Yes, Julien, you have the means of consoling me, you have it," said he
in a voice again hoarse with emotion.
"What is it?" asked the novelist.
"What is it? You are an honest man, Dorsenne; you are a great artist;
you are my friend, and a friend allied to me by a sacred bond, almost a
brother-in-arms; you, the grandnephew of a hero who shed his blood by the
side of my grandfather at Somo-Sierra. Give me your word of honor that
you are absolutely certain Madame Steno is not Maitland's mistress, that
you never thought it, have never heard it said, and I will believe you,
I will obey you! Come," continued he, pressing the writer's hand with
more fervor, "I see you hesitate!"
"No," said Julien, disengaging himself from the wild grasp, "I do not
hesitate. I am sorry for you. Were I to give you that word, would it
have any weight with you for five minutes? Would you not be persuaded
immediately that I was perjuring myself to avoid a misfortune?"
"You hesitate," interrupted Boleslas. Then, with a burst of wild
laughter, he said, "It is then true! I like that better! It is
frightful to know it, but one suffers less-- To know it' As if I did not
know she had lovers before me, as if it were not written on Alba's every
feature that she is Werekiew's child, as if I had not heard it said
seventy times before knowing her that she had loved Branciforte, San
Giobbe, Strabane, ten others. Before, during, or after, what difference
does it make? Ah, I was sure on knocking at your door--at this door of
honor--I should hear the truth, that I would touch it as I touch this
object," and he laid his hand upon a marble bust on the table.
"You see I hear it like a man. You can speak to me now. Who knows?
Disgust is a great cure for passion. I will listen to you. Do not spare
me!"
"You are mistaken, Gorka," replied Dorsenne. "What I have to say to you,
I can say very simply. I was, and I am, convinced that in a quarter of
an hour, in an hour, tomorrow, the day after, you will consider me a liar
or an imbecile. But, since you misinterpreted my silence, it is my duty
to speak, and I do so. I give you my word of honor I have never had the
least suspicion of a connection between Madame Steno and Maitland,
nor have their relations seemed changed to me for a second since your
absence. I give you my word of honor that no one, do you hear, no one
has spoken of it to me. And, now, act as you please, think as you
please. I have said all I can say."
The novelist uttered those words with a feverish energy which was caused
by the terrible strain he was making upon his conscience. But Gorka's
laugh had terrified him so much the more as at the same instant the
jealous lover's disengaged hand was voluntarily or involuntarily extended
toward the weapon which gleamed upon the couch. The vision of an
immediate catastrophe, this time inevitable, rose before Julien. His
lips had spoken, as his arm would have been out stretched, by an
irresistible instinct, to save several lives, and he had made the false
statement, the first and no doubt the last in his life, without
reflecting. He had no sooner uttered it than he experienced such an
excess of anger that he would at that moment almost have preferred not to
be believed. It would indeed have been a comfort to him if his visitor
had replied by one of those insulting negations which permit one man to
strike another, so great was his irritation. On the contrary, he saw the
face of Madame Steno's lover turned toward him with an expression of
gratitude upon it. Boleslas's lips quivered, his hands were clasped, two
large tears gushed from his burning eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
When he was able to speak, he moaned:
"Ah, my friend, how much good you have done me! From what a nightmare
you have relieved me. Ah! Now I am saved! I believe you, I believe
you. You are intimate with them. You see them every day. If there had
been anything between them you would know it. You would have heard it
talked of. Ah! Thanks! Give me your hand that I may press it. Forget
all I said to you just now, the slander I uttered in a moment of
delirium. I know very well it was untrue. And now, let me embrace you
as I would if you had really saved me from drowning. Ah, my friend, my
only friend!"
And he rushed up to clasp to his bosom the novelist, who replied with the
words uttered at the beginning of this conversation: "Calm yourself, I
beseech you, calm yourself!" and repeating to himself, brave and loyal
man that he was: "I could not act differently, but it is hard!"
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Follow their thoughts instead of heeding objects
Has as much sense as the handle of a basket
Mediocre sensibility
No flies enter a closed mouth
Pitiful checker-board of life
Scarcely a shade of gentle condescension
That you can aid them in leading better lives?
The forests have taught man liberty
There is an intelligent man, who never questions his ideas
Thinking it better not to lie on minor points
Too prudent to risk or gain much
Walked at the rapid pace characteristic of monomaniacs