THE WHITE ROSE
I was too quick for Colonel Gaillarde. As he raised his sword, reckless
of all consequences but my condign punishment and quite resolved to
cleave me to the teeth, I struck him across the side of his head with my
heavy stick, and while he staggered back I struck him another blow,
nearly in the same place, that felled him to the floor, where he lay as
if dead.
I did not care one of his own regimental buttons, whether he was dead or
not; I was, at that moment, carried away by such a tumult of delightful
and diabolical emotions!
I broke his sword under my foot, and flung the pieces across the street.
The old Count de St. Alyre skipped nimbly without looking to the right
or left, or thanking anybody, over the floor, out of the door, down the
steps, and into his carriage. Instantly I was at the side of the
beautiful Countess, thus left to shift for herself; I offered her my
arm, which she took, and I led her to the carriage. She entered, and I
shut the door. All this without a word.
I was about to ask if there were any commands with which she would honor
me--my hand was laid upon the lower edge of the window, which was open.
The lady's hand was laid upon mine timidly and excitedly. Her lips
almost touched my cheek as she whispered hurriedly:
"I may never see you more, and, oh! that I could forget you.
Go--farewell--for God's sake, go!"
I pressed her hand for a moment. She withdrew it, but tremblingly
pressed into mine the rose which she had held in her fingers during the
agitating scene she had just passed through.
All this took place while the Count was commanding, entreating, cursing
his servants, tipsy, and out of the way during the crisis, my conscience
afterwards insinuated, by my clever contrivance. They now mounted to
their places with the agility of alarm. The postilions' whips cracked,
the horses scrambled into a trot, and away rolled the carriage, with its
precious freightage, along the quaint main street, in the moonlight,
toward Paris.
I stood on the pavement till it was quite lost to eye and ear in the
distance.
With a deep sigh, I then turned, my white rose folded in my
handkerchief--the little parting _gage_--the
Favor secret, sweet, and precious,
which no mortal eye but hers and mine had seen conveyed to me.
The care of the host of the Belle Étoile, and his assistants, had raised
the wounded hero of a hundred fights partly against the wall, and
propped him at each side with portmanteaus and pillows, and poured a
glass of brandy, which was duly placed to his account, into his big
mouth, where, for the first time, such a godsend remained unswallowed.
A bald-headed little military surgeon of sixty, with spectacles, who had
cut off eighty-seven legs and arms to his own share, after the battle of
Eylau, having retired with his sword and his saw, his laurels and his
sticking-plaster to this, his native town, was called in, and rather
thought the gallant Colonel's skull was fractured; at all events, there
was concussion of the seat of thought, and quite enough work for his
remarkable self-healing powers to occupy him for a fortnight.
I began to grow a little uneasy. A disagreeable surprise, if my
excursion, in which I was to break banks and hearts, and, as you see,
heads, should end upon the gallows or the guillotine. I was not clear,
in those times of political oscillation, which was the established
apparatus.
The Colonel was conveyed, snorting apoplectically, to his room.
I saw my host in the apartment in which we had supped. Wherever you
employ a force of any sort, to carry a point of real importance, reject
all nice calculations of economy. Better to be a thousand per cent, over
the mark, than the smallest fraction of a unit under it. I instinctively
felt this.
I ordered a bottle of my landlord's very best wine; made him partake
with me, in the proportion of two glasses to one; and then told him that
he must not decline a trifling _souvenir_ from a guest who had been
so charmed with all he had seen of the renowned Belle Étoile. Thus
saying, I placed five-and-thirty Napoleons in his hand: at touch of
which his countenance, by no means encouraging before, grew sunny, his
manners thawed, and it was plain, as he dropped the coins hastily into
his pocket, that benevolent relations had been established between us.
I immediately placed the Colonel's broken head upon the _tapis_. We
both agreed that if I had not given him that rather smart tap of my
walking-cane, he would have beheaded half the inmates of the Belle
Étoile. There was not a waiter in the house who would not verify that
statement on oath.
The reader may suppose that I had other motives, beside the desire to
escape the tedious inquisition of the law, for desiring to recommence my
journey to Paris with the least possible delay. Judge what was my horror
then to learn that, for love or money, horses were nowhere to be had
that night. The last pair in the town had been obtained from the Écu de
France by a gentleman who dined and supped at the Belle Étoile, and was
obliged to proceed to Paris that night.
Who was the gentleman? Had he actually gone? Could he possibly be
induced to wait till morning?
The gentleman was now upstairs getting his things together, and his name
was Monsieur Droqville.
I ran upstairs. I found my servant St. Clair in my room. At sight of
him, for a moment, my thoughts were turned into a different channel.
"Well, St. Clair, tell me this moment who the lady is?" I demanded.
"The lady is the daughter or wife, it matters not which, of the Count
de St. Alyre--the old gentleman who was so near being sliced like a
cucumber tonight, I am informed, by the sword of the general whom
Monsieur, by a turn of fortune, has put to bed of an apoplexy."
"Hold your tongue, fool! The man's beastly drunk--he's sulking--he
could talk if he liked--who cares? Pack up my things. Which are Monsieur
Droqville's apartments?"
He knew, of course; he always knew everything.
Half an hour later Monsieur Droqville and I were traveling towards Paris
in my carriage and with his horses. I ventured to ask the Marquis
d'Harmonville, in a little while, whether the lady, who accompanied the
Count, was certainly the Countess. "Has he not a daughter?"
"Yes; I believe a very beautiful and charming young lady--I cannot
say--it may have been she, his daughter by an earlier marriage. I saw
only the Count himself today."
The Marquis was growing a little sleepy, and, in a little while, he
actually fell asleep in his corner. I dozed and nodded; but the Marquis
slept like a top. He awoke only for a minute or two at the next
posting-house where he had fortunately secured horses by sending on his
man, he told me. "You will excuse my being so dull a companion," he
said, "but till tonight I have had but two hours' sleep, for more than
sixty hours. I shall have a cup of coffee here; I have had my nap.
Permit me to recommend you to do likewise. Their coffee is really
excellent." He ordered two cups of _café noir_, and waited, with
his head from the window. "We will keep the cups," he said, as he
received them from the waiter, "and the tray. Thank you."
There was a little delay as he paid for these things; and then he took
in the little tray, and handed me a cup of coffee.
I declined the tray; so he placed it on his own knees, to act as a
miniature table.
"I can't endure being waited for and hurried," he said, "I like to sip
my coffee at leisure."
I agreed. It really _was_ the very perfection of coffee.
"I, like Monsieur le Marquis, have slept very little for the last two or
three nights; and find it difficult to keep awake. This coffee will do
wonders for me; it refreshes one so."
Before we had half done, the carriage was again in motion.
For a time our coffee made us chatty, and our conversation was animated.
The Marquis was extremely good-natured, as well as clever, and gave me a
brilliant and amusing account of Parisian life, schemes, and dangers,
all put so as to furnish me with practical warnings of the most valuable
kind.
In spite of the amusing and curious stories which the Marquis related
with so much point and color, I felt myself again becoming gradually
drowsy and dreamy.
Perceiving this, no doubt, the Marquis good-naturedly suffered our
conversation to subside into silence. The window next him was open. He
threw his cup out of it; and did the same kind office for mine, and
finally the little tray flew after, and I heard it clank on the road; a
valuable waif, no doubt, for some early wayfarer in wooden shoes.
I leaned back in my corner; I had my beloved souvenir--my white
rose--close to my heart, folded, now, in white paper. It inspired all
manner of romantic dreams. I began to grow more and more sleepy. But
actual slumber did not come. I was still viewing, with my half-closed
eyes, from my corner, diagonally, the interior of the carriage.
I wished for sleep; but the barrier between waking and sleeping seemed
absolutely insurmountable; and, instead, I entered into a state of novel
and indescribable indolence.
The Marquis lifted his dispatch-box from the floor, placed it on his
knees, unlocked it, and took out what proved to be a lamp, which he hung
with two hooks, attached to it, to the window opposite to him. He
lighted it with a match, put on his spectacles, and taking out a bundle
of letters began to read them carefully.
We were making way very slowly. My impatience had hitherto employed four
horses from stage to stage. We were in this emergency, only too happy to
have secured two. But the difference in pace was depressing.
I grew tired of the monotony of seeing the spectacled Marquis reading,
folding, and docketing, letter after letter. I wished to shut out the
image which wearied me, but something prevented my being able to shut my
eyes. I tried again and again; but, positively, I had lost the power of
closing them.
I would have rubbed my eyes, but I could not stir my hand, my will no
longer acted on my body--I found that I could not move one joint, or
muscle, no more than I could, by an effort of my will, have turned the
carriage about.
Up to this I had experienced no sense of horror. Whatever it was, simple
night-mare was not the cause. I was awfully frightened! Was I in a fit?
It was horrible to see my good-natured companion pursue his occupation
so serenely, when he might have dissipated my horrors by a single shake.
I made a stupendous exertion to call out, but in vain; I repeated the
effort again and again, with no result.
My companion now tied up his letters, and looked out of the window,
humming an air from an opera. He drew back his head, and said, turning
to me:
"Yes, I see the lights; we shall be there in two or three minutes."
He looked more closely at me, and with a kind smile, and a little shrug,
he said, "Poor child! how fatigued he must have been--how profoundly he
sleeps! when the carriage stops he will waken."
He then replaced his letters in the box-box, locked it, put his
spectacles in his pocket, and again looked out of the window.
We had entered a little town. I suppose it was past two o'clock by this
time. The carriage drew up, I saw an inn-door open, and a light issuing
from it.
"Here we are!" said my companion, turning gaily to me. But I did not
awake.
"Yes, how tired he must have been!" he exclaimed, after he had waited
for an answer. My servant was at the carriage door, and opened it.
"Your master sleeps soundly, he is so fatigued! It would be cruel to
disturb him. You and I will go in, while they change the horses, and
take some refreshment, and choose something that Monsieur Beckett will
like to take in the carriage, for when he awakes by-and-by, he will, I
am sure, be hungry."
He trimmed his lamp, poured in some oil; and taking care not to disturb
me, with another kind smile and another word of caution to my servant he
got out, and I heard him talking to St. Clair, as they entered the
inn-door, and I was left in my corner, in the carriage, in the same
state.