"AM I AVENGED?"
After this episode, the Prince lived a more solitary existence than
before, and troubled himself no further about the outside world. Why
should he care, that some penny-aliner had slipped those odious lines
into a newspaper? His sorrow was not the publishing of the treachery,
it was the treachery itself; and his hourly suffering caused him to long
for death to end his torture.
"And yet I must live," he thought, "if to exist with a dagger through
one's heart is to live."
Then, to escape from the present, he plunged into the memories of the
war, as into a bath of oblivion, a strange oblivion, where he found all
his patriotic regrets of other days. He read, with spasmodic eagerness,
the books in which Georgei and Klapka, the actors of the drama, presented
their excuses, or poured forth their complaints; and it seemed to him
that his country would make him forget his love.
In the magnificent picture-gallery, where he spent most of his time, his
eyes rested upon the battle-scenes of Matejks, the Polish artist, and the
landscapes of Munkacsy, that painter of his own country, who took his
name from the town of Munkacs, where tradition says that the Magyars
settled when they came from the Orient, ages ago. Then a bitter longing
took possession of him to breathe a different air, to fly from Paris, and
place a wide distance between himself and Marsa; to take a trip around
the world, where new scenes might soften his grief, or, better still,
some accident put an end to his life; and, besides, chance might bring
him in contact with Menko.
But, just as he was ready to depart, a sort of lassitude overpowered him;
he felt the inert sensation of a wounded man who has not the strength to
move, and he remained where he was, sadly and bitterly wondering at times
if he should not appeal to the courts, dissolve his marriage, and demand
back his name from the one who had stolen it.
Appeal to the courts? The idea of doing that was repugnant to him.
What! to hear the proud and stainless name of the Zilahs resound,
no longer above the clash of sabres and the neighing of furious horses,
but within the walls of a courtroom, and in presence of a gaping crowd
of sensation seekers? No! silence was better than that; anything was
better than publicity and scandal. Divorce! He could obtain that, since
Marsa, her mind destroyed, was like one dead. And what would a divorce
give him? His freedom? He had it already. But what nothing could give
back, was his ruined faith, his shattered hopes, his happiness lost
forever.
At times he had a wild desire to see Marsa again, and vent once more upon
her his anger and contempt. When he happened to see the name of Maisons-
Lafitte, his body tingled from head to foot, as by an electric shock.
Maisons! The sunlit garden, the shaded alleys, the glowing parterres of
flowers, the old oaks, the white-walled villa, all appeared before him,
brutally distinct, like a lost, or rather poisoned, Eden! And, besides,
she, Marsa, was no longer there; and the thought that the woman whom he
had so passionately loved, with her exquisite, flower-like face, was shut
up among maniacs at Vaugirard, caused him the acutest agony. The asylum
which was Marsa's prison was so constantly in his mind that he felt the
necessity of flight, in order not to allow his weakness to get the bettor
of him, lest he should attempt to see Marsa again.
"What a coward I am!" he thought.
One evening he announced to Varhely that he was going to the lonely villa
of Sainte-Adresse, where they had so many times together watched the sea
and talked of their country.
"I am going there to be alone, my dear Yanski," he said, "but to be with
you is to be with myself. I hope that you will accompany me."
"Most certainly," replied Varhely.
The Prince took only one domestic, wishing to live as quietly and
primitively as possible; but Varhely, really alarmed at the rapid change
in the Prince, and the terrible pallor of his face, followed him, hoping
at least to distract him and arouse him from his morbidness by talking
over with him the great days of the past, and even, if possible, to
interest him in the humble lives of the fishermen about him.
Zilah and his friend, therefore, passed long hours upon the terrace of
the villa, watching the sun set at their feet, while the grayish-blue sea
was enveloped in a luminous mist, and the fading light was reflected upon
the red walls and white blinds of the houses, and tinged with glowing
purple the distant hills of Ingouville.
This calm, quiet spot gradually produced upon Andras the salutary effect
of a bath after a night of feverish excitement. His reflections became
less bitter, and, strange to relate, it was rough old Yanski Varhely,
who, by his tenderness and thoughtfulness, led his friend to a more
resigned frame of mind.
Very often, after nightfall, would Zilah descend with him to the shore
below. The sea lay at their feet a plain of silver, and the moonbeams
danced over the waves in broken lines of luminous atoms; boats passed to
and fro, their red lights flashing like glowworms; and it seemed to
Andras and Varhely, as they approached the sea, receding over the wet,
gleaming sands, that they were walking upon quicksilver.
As they strolled and talked together here, it seemed to Andras that this
grief was, for the moment, carried away by the fresh, salt breeze; and
these two men, in a different manner buffeted by fate, resembled two
wounded soldiers who mutually aid one another to advance, and not to fall
by the way before the combat is over. Yanski made special efforts to
rouse in Andras the old memories of his fatherland, and to inspire in him
again his love for Hungary.
"Ah! I used to have so many hopes and dreams for her future," said
Andras; "but idealists have no chance in the world of to-day; so now I am
a man who expects nothing of life except its ending. And yet I would
like to see once again that old stone castle where I grew up, full of
hopes! Hopes? Bah! pretty bubbles, that is all!"
One morning they walked along the cliffs, past the low shanties of the
fishermen, as far as Havre; and, as they were sauntering through the
streets of the city, Varhely grasped the Prince's arm, and pointed to an
announcement of a series of concerts to be given at Frascati by a band of
Hungarian gipsies.
"There," he said, "you will certainly emerge from your retreat to hear
those airs once more."
"Yes," replied Andras, after a moment's hesitation.
That evening found him at the casino; but his wound seemed to open again,
and his heart to be grasped as in an iron hand, as he listened to the
plaintive cries and moans of the Tzigani music. Had the strings of the
bows played these czardas upon his own sinews, laid bare, he would not
have trembled more violently. Every note of the well-known airs fell
upon his heart like a corrosive tear, and Marsa, in all her dark, tawny
beauty, rose before him. The Tzigani played now the waltzes which Marsa
used to play; then the slow, sorrowful plaint of the "Song of Plevna;"
and then the air of Janos Nemeth's, the heart-breaking melody, to the
Prince like the lament of his life: 'The World holds but One Fair
Maiden'. And at every note he saw again Marsa, the one love of his
existence.
"Let us go!" he said suddenly to Yanski.
But, as they were about to leave the building, they almost ran into a
laughing, merry group, led by the little Baroness Dinati, who uttered a
cry of delight as she perceived Andras.
"What, you, my dear Prince! Oh, how glad I am to see you!"
And she took his arm, all the clan which accompanied her stopping to
greet Prince Zilah.
"We have come from Etretat, and we are going back there immediately.
There was a fair at Havre in the Quartier Saint-Francois, and we have
eaten up all we could lay our hands on, broken all Aunt Sally's pipes,
and purchased all the china horrors and hideous pincushions we could
find. They are all over there in the break. We are going to raffle them
at Etretat for the poor."
The Prince tried to excuse himself and move on, but the little Baroness
held him tight.
"Why don't you come to Etretat? It is charming there. We don't do
anything but eat and drink and talk scandal--Oh, yes! Yamada sometimes
gives us some music. Come here, Yamada!"
The Japanese approached, in obedience to her call, with his eternal grin
upon his queer little face.
"My dear Prince," rattled on the Baroness, "you don't know, perhaps, that
Yamada is the most Parisian of Parisians? Upon my word, these Japanese
are the Parisians of Asia! Just fancy what he has been doing at Etretat!
He has been writing a French operetta!"
"Japanese!" corrected Yamada, with an apologetic bow.
"Oh, Japanese! Parisian Japanese, then! At all events, it is very
funny, and the title is Little Moo-Moo! There is a scene on board a
flower-decked boat! Oh, it is so amusing, so original, so natural!
and a delightful song for Little Moo-Moo!"
Then, as Zilah glanced at Varhely, uneasy, and anxious to get away, the
Baroness puckered up her rosy lips and sang the stanzas of the Japanese
maestro.
Why, sung by Judic or Theo, it would create a furore! All Paris would be
singing.
"Oh, by the way," she cried, suddenly interrupting herself, "what have you
done to Jacquemin? Yes, my friend Jacquemin?"
"Jacquemin?" repeated Zilah; and he thought of the garret in the Rue
Rochechouart, and the gentle, fairhaired woman, who was probably at this
very moment leaning over the cribs of her little children--the children
of Monsieur Puck, society reporter of 'L'Actualite'
"Yes! Why, Jacquemin has become a savage; oh, indeed! a regular savage!
I wanted to bring him to Etretat; but no, he wouldn't come. It seems
that he is married. Jacquemin married! Isn't it funny? He didn't seem
like a married man! Poor fellow! Well, when I invited him, he refused;
and the other day, when I wanted to know the reason, he answered me (that
is why I speak to you about it), 'Ask Prince Zilah'! So, tell me now,
what have you done to poor Jacquemin?"
"Nothing," said the Prince.
"Oh, yes, you have; you have changed him! He, who used to go everywhere
and be so jolly, now hides himself in his den, and is never seen at all.
Just see how disagreeable it is! If he had come with us, he would have
written an account in 'L'Actualite' of Little Moo-Moo, and Yamada's
operetta would already be celebrated."
"So," continued the Baroness, "when I return to Paris, I am going to hunt
him up. A reporter has no right to make a bear of himself!"
"Don't disturb him, if he cares for his home now," said Zilah, gravely.
"Nothing can compensate for one's own fireside, if one loves and is
loved."
At the first words of the Prince, the Baroness suddenly became serious.
"I beg your pardon," she said, dropping his arm and holding out her tiny
hand: "please forgive me for having annoyed you. Oh, yes, I see it!
I have annoyed you. But be consoled; we are going at once, and then,
you know, that if there is a creature who loves you, respects you,
and is devoted to you, it is this little idiot of a Baroness!
Goodnight!"
"Good-night'." said Andras, bowing to the Baroness's friends, Yamada and
the other Parisian exotics.
Glad to escape, Varhely and the Prince returned home along the seashore.
Fragments of the czardas from the illuminated casino reached their ears
above the swish of the waves. Andras felt irritated and nervous.
Everything recalled to him Marsa, and she seemed to be once more taking
possession of his heart, as a vine puts forth fresh tendrils and clings
again to the oak after it has been torn away.
"She also suffers!" he said aloud, after they had walked some distance
in silence.
"Fortunately!" growled Varhely; and then, as if he wished to efface his
harshness, he added, in a voice which trembled a little: "And for that
reason she is, perhaps, not unworthy of pardon."
"Pardon!"
This cry escaped from Zilah in accents of pain which struck Varhely like
a knife.
"Pardon before punishing--the other!" exclaimed the Prince, angrily.
The other! Yanski Varhely instinctively clinched his fist, thinking,
with rage, of that package of letters which he had held in his hands,
and which he might have destroyed if he had known.
It was true: how was pardon possible while Menko lived?
No word more was spoken by either until they reached the villa; then
Prince Zilah shook Yanski's hand and retired to his chamber. Lighting
his lamp, he took out and read and reread, for the hundredth time
perhaps, certain letters--letters not addressed to him--those letters
which Varhely had handed him, and with which Michel Menko had practically
struck him the day of his marriage.
Andras had kept them, reading them over at times with an eager desire for
further suffering, drinking in this species of poison to irritate his
mental pain as he would have injected morphine to soothe a physical one.
These letters caused him a sensation analogous to that which gives repose
to opium-eaters, a cruel shock at first, sharp as the prick of a knife,
then, the pain slowly dying away, a heavy stupor.
The whole story was revived in these letters of Marsa to Menko:--all the
ignorant, credulous love of the young girl for Michel, then her
enthusiasm for love itself, rather than for the object of her love,
and then, again--for Menko had reserved nothing, but sent all together--
the bitter contempt of Marsa, deceived, for the man who had lied to her.
There were, in these notes, a freshness of sentiment and a youthful
credulity which produced the impression of a clear morning in early
spring, all the frankness and faith of a mind ignorant of evil and
destitute of guile; then, in the later ones, the spontaneous outburst of
a heart which believes it has given itself forever, because it thinks it
has encountered incorruptible loyalty and undying devotion.
As he read them over, Andras shook with anger against the two who had
deceived him; and also, and involuntarily, he felt an indefined, timid
pity for the woman who had trusted and been deceived--a pity he
immediately drove away, as if he were afraid of himself, afraid of
forgiving.
"What did Varhely mean by speaking to me of pardon?" he thought. "Am I
yet avenged?"
It was this constant hope that the day would come when justice would be
meted out to Menko's treachery. The letters proved conclusively that
Menko had been Marsa's lover; but they proved, at the same time, that
Michel had taken advantage of her innocence and ignorance, and lied
outrageously in representing himself as free, when he was already bound
to another woman.
All night long Andras Zilah sat there, inflicting torture upon himself,
and taking a bitter delight in his own suffering; engraving upon his
memory every word of love written by Marsa to Michel, as if he felt the
need of fresh pain to give new strength to his hatred.
The next morning at breakfast, Varhely astonished him by announcing that
he was going away.
"To Paris?"
"No, to Vienna," replied Yanski, who looked somewhat paler than usual.
"What an idea! What are you going to do there, Varhely?"
"Angelo Valla arrived yesterday at Havre. He sent for me to come to his
hotel this morning. I have just been there. Valla has given me some
information in regard to a matter of interest to myself, which will
require my presence at Vienna. So I am going there."
Prince Zilah was intimately acquainted with the Valla of whom Varhely
spoke; he had been one of the witnesses of his marriage. Valla was a
former minister of Manin; and, since the siege of Venice, he had lived
partly in Paris and partly in Florence. He was a man for whom Andras
Zilah had the greatest regard.
"When do you go?" asked the Prince of Varhely.
"In an hour. I wish to take the fast mail from Paris this evening."
"Is it so very pressing, then?"
"Very pressing," replied Varhely. "There is another to whose ears the
affair may possibly come, and I wish to get the start of him."
"Farewell, then," said Andras, considerably surprised; "come back as soon
as you can."
He was astonished at the almost violent pressure of the hand which
Varhely gave him, as if he were departing for a very long journey.
"Why didn't Valla come to see me?" he asked. "He is one of the few I am
always glad to see."
"He had no time. He had to be away again at once, and he asked me to
excuse him to you."
The Prince did not make any further attempt to find out what was the
reason of his friend's sudden flight, for Varhely was already descending
the steps of the villa.
Andras then felt a profound sensation of loneliness, and he thought again
of the woman whom his imagination pictured haggard and wan in the asylum
of Vaugirard.