Quand on se mefie on se trompe, quand on ne se mefie pas, on est
trompe.
Charles Darragon had come to Dantzig a year earlier. He was a
lieutenant in an infantry regiment, and he was twenty-five. Many of his
contemporaries were colonels in these days of quick promotion, when men
lived at such a rate that few of them lived long. But Charles was too
easy-going to envy any man.
When he arrived he knew no one in Dantzig, had few friends in the army
of occupation. In six months he possessed acquaintances in every street,
and was on terms of easy familiarity with all his fellow-officers.
“If the army of occupation had more officers like young Darragon,” a
town councillor had grimly said to Rapp, “the Dantzigers would soon be
resigned to your presence.”
It seemed that Charles had the gift of popularity. He was open and
hearty, hail-fellow-well-met with the new-comers, who were numerous
enough at this time, quick to understand the quiet men, ready to make
merry with the gay. Regarding himself, he was quite open and frank.
“I am a poor devil of a lieutenant,” he said, “that is all.”
Reserve is fatal to popularity, yet friendship cannot exist without
it. Charles had, it seemed, nothing to hide, and was indifferent to the
secrets of others. It is such people who receive many confidences.
“But it must go no farther...” a hundred men had said to him.
“My friend, by to-morrow I shall have forgotten all about it,” he
invariably replied, which men remembered afterwards and were glad.
A certain sort of friendship seemed to exist between Charles Darragon
and Colonel de Casimir--not without patronage on one side and a slightly
constraining sense of obligation on the other. It was de Casimir who
had introduced Charles to Mathilde Sebastian at a formal reception at
General Rapp's. Charles, of course, fell in love with Mathilde, and out
again after half-an-hour's conversation. There was something cold and
calculating about Mathilde which held him at arm's length with as much
efficacy as the strictest duenna. Indeed, there are some maidens who
require no better chaperon for their hearts than their own heads.
A few days after this introduction Charles met Mathilde and Desiree in
the Langgasse, and he fell in love with Desiree. He went about for
a whole week seeking opportunity to tell her without delay what had
happened to him. The opportunity presented itself before long; for
one morning he saw her walking quickly towards the Kuh-brucke with her
skates swinging from her wrist. It was a sunny, still, winter morning,
such as temperate countries never know. Desiree's eyes were bright
with youth and happiness. The cold air had slightly emphasized the rosy
colour of her cheeks.
Charles caught his breath at the sight of her, though she did not happen
to perceive him. He called a sleigh and drove to the barracks for his
own skates. Then to the Kuh-brucke, where a reach of the Mottlau was
cleared and kept in order for skating. He overpaid the sleigh-driver and
laughed aloud at the man's boorish surprise. There was no one so happy
as Charles Darragon in all the world. He was going to tell Desiree that
he loved her.
At first Desiree was surprised, as was only natural. For she had
not thought again of the pleasant young officer introduced to her by
Mathilde. They had not even commented on him after he had made his gay
bow and gone.
She had of course thought of these things in the abstract when her
busy mind had nothing more material and immediate to consider. She had
probably arranged how some abstract person should some day tell her of
his love and how she should make reply. But she had never imagined the
incident as it actually happened. She had never pictured a youth in a
gay uniform looking down at her with ardent eyes as he skated by her
side through the crisp still air, while the ice sang a high clear song
beneath their feet in accompaniment to his hurried laughing words of
protestation. He seemed to touch life lightly and to anticipate nothing
but happiness. In truth, it was difficult to be tragic on such a
morning.
These were the heedless days of the beginning of the century, when men
not only threw away their lives, but played ducks-and-drakes with their
chances of happiness in a manner quite incomprehensible to the careful
method of human thought to-day. Charles Darragon lived only in the
present moment. He was in love with her. Desiree must marry him.
It was quite different from what she had anticipated. She had looked
forward to such a moment with a secret misgiving. The abstract person
of her thoughts had always inspired her with a painful shyness and an
indefinite, breathless fear. But the lover who was here now in the flesh
by her side inspired none of these feelings. On the contrary, she felt
easy and natural and quite at home with him. There was nothing alarming
about his flushed face and laughing eyes. She was not at all afraid of
him. She even felt in some vague way older than he, though he had just
told her that he was twenty-five, and four years her senior.
She accepted the violets which he had hurriedly bought for her as he
came through the Langenmarkt, but she would not say that she loved him,
because she did not. She was in most ways quite a matter-of-fact person,
and she was of an honest mind. She said she would think about it. She
did not love him now--she knew that. She could not say that she would
not learn to love him some day, but there seemed no likelihood of it at
present. Then he would shoot himself! He would certainly shoot himself
unless she learnt to love him! And she asked “When?” and they both
laughed. They changed the subject, but after a time they came back to
it; which is the worst of love--one always comes back to it.
Then suddenly he began to assume an air of proprietorship, and burst
into a hundred explanations of what fears he felt for her; for her
happiness and welfare. Her father was absent-minded and heedless. He
was not a fit guardian for her. Was she not the prettiest girl in all
Dantzig--in all the world? Her sister was not fond enough of her to care
for her properly. He announced his intention of seeing her father the
next day. Everything should be done in order. Not a word must be hinted
by the most watchful neighbour against the perfect propriety of their
betrothal.
Desiree laughed and said that he was progressing rather rapidly. She had
only her instinct to guide her through these troubled waters; which was
much better than experience. Experience in a woman is tantamount to a
previous conviction against a prisoner.
Charles was grave, however; a rare tribute. He was in love for the
first time, which often makes men quite honest for a brief period--even
unselfish. Of course, some men are honest and unselfish all their lives;
which perhaps means that they remain in love--for the first time--all
their lives. They are rare, of course. But the sort of woman with whom
it is possible to remain in love all through a lifetime is rarer.
So Charles waylaid Antoine Sebastian the next day as he went out of the
Frauenthor for his walk in the morning sun by the side of the frozen
Mottlau. He was better received than he had any reason to expect.
“I am only a lieutenant,” he said, “but in these days, monsieur, you
know--there are possibilities.”
He laughed gaily as he waved his gloves in the direction of Russia,
across the river. But Sebastian's face clouded, and Charles, who was
quick and sympathetic, abandoned that point in his argument almost
before the words were out of his lips.
“I have a little money,” he said, “in addition to my pay. I assure you,
monsieur, I am not of mean birth.”
“You are an orphan?” said Sebastian curtly.
“Yes.”
“Of the... Terror?”
“Yes; I--well, one does not make much of one's parentage in these rough
times--monsieur.”
“Your father's name was Charles--like your own?”
“Yes.”
“The second son?”
“Yes, monsieur. Did you know him?”
“One remembers a name here and there,” answered Sebastian, in his stiff
manner, looking straight in front of him.
“There was a tone in your voice--,” began Charles, and, again perceiving
that he was on a false scent, broke off abruptly. “If love can make
mademoiselle happy--,” he said; and a gesture of his right hand seemed
to indicate that his passion was beyond the measure of words.
So Charles Darragon was permitted to pay his addresses to Desiree in the
somewhat formal manner of a day which, upon careful consideration,
will be found to have been no more foolish than the present. He made no
inquiries respecting Desiree's parentage. It was Desiree he wanted, and
that was all. They understood the arts of love and war in the great days
of the Empire.
The rest was easy enough, and the gods were kind. Charles had even
succeeded in getting a month's leave of absence. They were to spend
their honeymoon at Zoppot, a little fishing-village hidden in the pines
by the Baltic shore, only eight miles from Dantzig, where the Vistula
loses itself at last in the salt water.
All these arrangements had been made, as Desiree had prepared her
trousseau, with a zest and gaiety which all were invited to enjoy. It is
said that love is an egoist. Charles and Desiree had no desire to keep
their happiness to themselves, but wore it, as it were, upon their
sleeves.
The attitude of the Frauengasse towards Desiree's wedding was only
characteristic of the period. Every house in Dantzig looked askance upon
its neighbour at this time. Each roof covered a number of contending
interests.
Some were for the French, and some for the conqueror's unwilling ally,
William of Prussia. The names above the shops were German and Polish.
There are to-day Scotch names also, here as elsewhere on the Baltic
shores. When the serfs were liberated it was necessary to find surnames
for these free men--these Pauls-the-son-of-Paul; and the nobles of
Esthonia and Lithuania were reading Sir Walter Scott at the time.
The burghers of Dantzig (“They must be made to pay, these rich
Dantzigers,” wrote Napoleon to Rapp) trembled for their wealth, and
stood aghast by their empty counting-houses; for their gods had been
cast down; commerce was at a standstill. There were many, therefore,
who hated the French, and cherished a secret love of those bluff British
captains--so like themselves in build, and thought, and slowness of
speech--who would thrash their wooden brigs through the shallow seas,
despite decrees and threats and sloops-of-war, so long as they could lay
them alongside the granaries of the Vistula. Lately the very tolls had
been collected by a French customs service, and the wholesale smuggling,
to which even Governor Rapp--that long-headed Alsatian--had closed his
eyes, was at an end.
Again, the Poles who looked on Dantzig as the seaport of that great
kingdom of Eastern Europe which was and is no more, had been assured
that France would set up again the throne of the Jagellons and the
Sobieskis. There was a Poniatowski high in the Emperor's service and
esteem. The Poles were for France.
The Jew, hurrying along close by the wall--always in the shadow--traded
with all and trusted none. Who could tell what thoughts were hidden
beneath the ragged fur cap--what revenge awaited its consummation in the
heart crushed by oppression and contempt?
Besides these civilians there were many who had a military air within
their civil garb. For the pendulum of war had swung right across from
Cadiz to Dantzig, and swept northwards in its wake the merchants of
death, the men who live by feeding soldiers and rifling the dead.
All these were in the streets, rubbing shoulders with the gay epaulettes
of the Saxons, the Badeners, the Wurtembergers, the Westphalians, and
the Hessians, who had been poured into Dantzig by Napoleon during the
months when he had continued to exchange courteous and affectionate
letters with Alexander of Russia. For more than a year the broad-faced
Bavarians (who have borne the brunt of every war in Central Europe) had
been peaceably quartered in the town. Half a dozen different tongues
were daily heard in this city of the plain, and no man knew who might
be his friend and who his enemy. For some who were allies to-day were
commanded by their kings to slay each other to-morrow.
In the wine-cellars and the humbler beer-shops, in the great houses of
the councillors, and behind the snowy lace curtains of the Frauengasse
and the Portchaisengasse a thousand slow Northerners spoke of these
things and kept them in their hearts. A hundred secret societies passed
from mouth to mouth instruction, warning, encouragement. Germany has
always been the home of the secret society. Northern Europe gave birth
to those countless associations which have proved stronger than
kings and surer than a throne. The Hanseatic League, the first of the
commercial unions which were destined to build up the greatest empire of
the world, lived longest in Dantzig.
The Tugendbund, men whispered, was not dead but sleeping. Napoleon, who
had crushed it once, was watching for its revival; had a whole army of
his matchless secret police ready for it. And the Tugendbund had had its
centre in Dantzig.
Perhaps, in the Rathskeller itself--one of the largest wine stores in
the world, where tables and chairs are set beneath the arches of the
Exchange, a vast cave under the streets--perhaps here the Tugendbund
still encouraged men to be virtuous and self-denying for no other or
higher purpose than the overthrow of the Scourge of Europe. Here the
richer citizens have met from time immemorial to drink with solemnity
and a decent leisure the wines sent hither in their own ships from the
Rhine, from Greece and the Crimea, from Bordeaux and Burgundy, from
the Champagne and Tokay. This is not only the Rathskeller, but the real
Rathhaus, where the Dantzigers have taken counsel over their afternoon
wine from generation to generation, whence have been issued to all the
world those decrees of probity and a commercial uprightness between
buyer and seller, debtor and creditor, master and man, which reached to
every corner of the commercial world. And now it was whispered that
the latter-day Dantzigers--the sons of those who formed the Hanseatic
League: mostly fat men with large faces and shrewd, calculating eyes;
high foreheads; good solid men, who knew the world, and how to make
their way in it; withal, good judges of a wine and great drinkers, like
that William the Silent, who braved and met and conquered the European
scourge of mediaeval times--it was whispered that these were reviving
the Tugendbund.
Amid such contending interests, and in a free city so near to several
frontiers, men came and went without attracting undesired attention.
Each party suspected a new-comer of belonging to the other.
“He scrapes a fiddle,” Koch had explained to the inquiring fishwife. And
perhaps he knew no more than this of Antoine Sebastian. Sebastian was
poor. All the Frauengasse knew that. But the Frauengasse itself was
poor, and no man in Dantzig was so foolish at this time as to admit that
he had possessions.
This was, moreover, not the day of display or snobbery. The king of
snobs, Louis XVI., had died to some purpose, for a wave of manliness had
swept across human thought at the beginning of the century. The world
has rarely been the poorer for the demise of a Bourbon.
The Frauengasse knew that Antoine Sebastian played the fiddle to gain
his daily bread, while his two daughters taught dancing for that same
safest and most satisfactory of all motives.
“But he holds his head so high!” once observed the stout and
matter-of-fact daughter of a Councillor. “Why has he that grand manner?”
“Because he is a dancing-master,” replied Desiree with a grave
assurance. “He does it so that you may copy him. Chin up. Oh! how fat
you are.”
Desiree herself was slim enough and as yet only half grown. She did not
dance so well as Mathilde, who moved through a quadrille with the air of
a duchess, and threw into a polonaise or mazurka a quiet grace which was
the envy and despair of her pupils. Mathilde was patient with the slow
and heavy of foot, while Desiree told them bluntly that they were fat.
Nevertheless, they were afraid of Mathilde, and only laughed at Desiree
when she rushed angrily at them, and, seizing them by the arms, danced
them round the room with the energy of despair.
Sebastian, who had an oddly judicial air, such as men acquire who are
in authority, held the balance evenly between the sisters, and
smiled apologetically over his fiddle towards the victim of Desiree's
impetuosity.
“Yes,” he would reply to watching mothers, who tried to lead him to say
that their daughter was the best dancer in the school: “Yes, Mathilde
puts it into their heads, and Desiree shakes it down to their feet.”
In all matters of the household Desiree played a similar part. She was
up early and still astir after nine o'clock at night, when the other
houses in the Frauengasse were quiet, if there were work to do.
“It is because she has no method,” said Mathilde, who had herself a
well-ordered mind, and that quickness which never needs to hurry.