THE BLOCKHEAD
We have stated that Marshal Simon occupied a small house in the Rue des
Trois-Freres. Two o'clock in the afternoon had just struck in the
marshal's sleeping-chamber, a room furnished with military simplicity. In
the recess, in which stood the bed, hung a trophy composed of the arms
used by the marshal during his campaigns. On the secretary opposite was a
small bronze bust of the emperor, the only ornament of the apartment. Out
of doors the temperature was far from warm, and the marshal had become
susceptible to cold during his long residence in India. A good fire
therefore blazed upon the hearth. A door, concealed by the hangings, and
leading to a back staircase, opened slowly, and a man entered the
chamber. He carried a basket of wood, and advanced leisurely to the
fireplace, before which he knelt clown, and began to arrange the logs
symmetrically in a box that stood besides the hearth. After some minutes
occupied in this manner, still kneeling, he gradually approached another
door, at a little distance from the chimney, and appeared to listen with
deep attention, as if he wished to hear what was passing in the next
room.
This man, employed as an inferior servant in the house, had the most
ridiculously stupid look that can be imagined. His functions consisted in
carrying wood, running errands, etc. In other respects he was a kind of
laughing-stock to the other servants. In a moment of good humor,
Dagobert, who filled the post of major-domo, had given this idiot the
name of "Loony" (lunatic), which he had retained ever since, and which he
deserved in every respect, as well for his awkwardness and folly as for
his unmeaning face, with its grotesquely flat nose, sloping chin, and
wide, staring eyes. Add to this description a jacket of red stuff, and a
triangular white apron, and we must acknowledge that the simpleton was
quite worthy of his name.
Yet, at the moment when Loony listened so attentively at the door of the
adjoining room, a ray of quick intelligence animated for an instant his
dull and stupid countenance.
When he had thus listened for a short time, Loony returned to the
fireplace, still crawling on his knees; then rising, he again took his
basket half full of wood, and once more approaching the door at which he
had listened knocked discreetly. No one answered. He knocked a second
time, and more loudly. Still there was the same silence.
Then he said, in a harsh, squeaking, laughable voice: "Ladies, do you
want any wood, if you please, for your fire?"
Receiving no answer, Loony placed his basket on the ground, opened the
door gently, and entered the next room, after casting a rapid glance
around. He came out again in a few seconds, looking from side to side
with an anxious air, like a man who had just accomplished some important
and mysterious task.
Taking up his basket, he was about to leave Marshal Simon's room, when
the door of the private staircase was opened slowly and with precaution,
and Dagobert appeared.
The soldier, evidently surprised at the servant's presence, knitted his
brows, and exclaimed abruptly, "What are you doing here?"
At this sudden interrogation, accompanied by a growl expressive of the
ill-humor of Spoil-sport, who followed close on his master's heels, Loony
uttered a cry of real or pretended terror. To give, perhaps, an
appearance of greater reality to his dread, the supposed simpleton let
his basket fall on the ground, as if astonishment and fear had loosened
his hold of it.
"What are you doing, numbskull?" resumed Dagobert, whose countenance was
impressed with deep sadness, and who seemed little disposed to laugh at
the fellow's stupidity.
"Oh, M. Dagobert! how you frighten me! Dear me! what a pity I had not an
armful of plates, to prove it was not my fault if I broke them all."
"I ask what you are doing," resumed the soldier.
"You see, M. Dagobert," replied Loony, pointing to his basket, "that I
came with some wood to master's room, so that he might burn it, if it was
cold--which it is."
"Very well. Pick up your wood, and begone!"
"Oh, M. Dagobert! my legs tremble under me. How you did scare me, to be
sure!"
"Will you begone, brute?" resumed the veteran; and seizing Loony by the
arm, he pushed him towards the door, while Spoil-sport, with recumbent
ears, and hair standing up like the quills of a porcupine, seemed
inclined to accelerate his retreat.
"I am going, M. Dagobert, I am going," replied the simpleton, as he
hastily gathered up his basket; "only please to tell the dog--"
"Go to the devil, you stupid chatterbox!" cried Dagobert, as he pushed
Loony through the doorway.
Then the soldier bolted the door which led to the private staircase, and
going to that which communicated with the apartments of the two sisters,
he double-locked it. Having done this, he hastened to the alcove in which
stood the bed and taking down a pair of loaded pistols, he carefully
removed the percussion caps, and, unable to repress a deep sigh, restored
the weapons to the place in which he had found them. Then, as if on
second thoughts, he took down an Indian dagger with a very sharp blade,
and drawing it from its silver-gilt sheath, proceeded to break the point
of this murderous instrument, by twisting it beneath one of the iron
castors of the bed.
Dagobert then proceeded to unfasten the two doors, and, returning slowly
to the marble chimney-piece, he leaned against it with a gloomy and
pensive air. Crouching before the fire, Spoil-sport followed with an
attentive eye the least movement of his master. The good dog displayed a
rare and intelligent sagacity. The soldier, having drawn out his
handkerchief, let fall, without perceiving it, a paper containing a roll
of tobacco. Spoil-sport, who had all the qualities of a retriever of the
Rutland race, took the paper between his teeth, and, rising upon his
hind-legs, presented it respectfully to Dagobert. But the latter received
it mechanically, and appeared indifferent to the dexterity of his dog.
The grenadier's countenance revealed as much sorrow as anxiety. After
remaining for some minutes near the fire, with fixed and meditative look,
he began to walk about the room in great agitation, one of his hands
thrust into the bosom of his long blue frock-coat, which was buttoned up
to the chin, and the other into one of his hind-pockets.
From time to time he stopped abruptly, and seemed to make reply to his
own thoughts, or uttered an exclamation of doubt and uneasiness; then,
turning towards the trophy of arms, he shook his head mournfully, and
murmured, "No matter--this fear may be idle; but he has acted so
extraordinarily these two days, that it is at all events more prudent--"
He continued his walk, and said, after a new and prolonged silence: "Yes
he must tell me. It makes me too uneasy. And then the poor children--it
is enough to break one's heart."
And Dagobert hastily drew his moustache between his thumb and forefinger,
a nervous movement, which with him was an evident symptom of extreme
agitation. Some minutes after, the soldier resumed, still answering his
inward thoughts: "What can it be? It is hardly possible to be the
letters, they are too infamous; he despises them. And yet But no, no--he
is above that!"
And Dagobert again began to walk with hasty steps. Suddenly, Spoil-sport
pricked up his ears, turned his head in the direction of the staircase
door, and growled hoarsely. A few seconds after, some one knocked at the
door.
"Who is there?" said Dagobert. There was no answer, but the person
knocked again. Losing patience, the soldier went hastily to open it, and
saw the servant's stupid face.
"Why don't you answer, when I ask who knocks!" said the soldier, angrily.
"M. Dagobert, you sent me away just now, and I was afraid of making you
cross, if I said I had come again."
"What do you want? Speak then--come in, stupid!" cried the exasperated.
Dagobert, as he pulled him into the room.
"M. Dagobert, don't be angry--I'll tell you all about it--it is a young
man."
"Well?"
"He wants to speak to you directly, Mr. Dagobert."
"His name?"
"His name, M. Dagobert?" replied Loony, rolling about and laughing with
an idiotic air.
"Yes, his name. Speak, idiot!"
"Oh, M. Dagobert! it's all in joke that you ask me his name!"
"You are determined, fool that you are, to drive me out of my senses!"
cried the soldier, seizing Loony by the collar. "The name of this young
man!"
"Don't be angry, M. Dagobert. I didn't tell you the name because you know
it."
"Beast!" said Dagobert, shaking his fist at him.
"Yes, you do know it, M. Dagobert, for the young man is your own son. He
is downstairs, and wants to speak to you directly--yes, directly."
The stupidity was so well assumed, that Dagobert was the dupe of it.
Moved to compassion rather than anger by such imbecility, he looked
fixedly at the servant, shrugged his shoulders, and said, as he advanced
towards the staircase, "Follow me!"
Loony obeyed; but, before closing the door, he drew a letter secretly
from his pocket, and dropped it behind him without turning his head,
saying all the while to Dagobert, for the purpose of occupying his
attention: "Your son is in the court, M. Dagobert. He would not come
up--that's why he is still downstairs!"
Thus talking, he closed the door, believing he had left the letter on the
floor of Marshal Simon's room. But he had reckoned without Spoil-sport.
Whether he thought it more prudent to bring up the rear, or, from
respectful deference for a biped, the worthy dog had been the last to
leave the room, and, being a famous carrier, as soon as he saw the letter
dropped by Loony, he took it delicately between his teeth, and followed
close on the heels of the servant, without the latter perceiving this new
proof of the intelligence and sagacity of Spoil-sport.