UNPACKING BY CANDLE-LIGHT.
About ten o'clock in the evening, Mlle. Virginie Sambucco said it was
time to think of going home: the ladies lived with monastic regularity.
Leon protested; but Clementine obeyed, though not without pouting a
little. Already the parlor door was open, and the old lady had taken her
hood in the hall, when the engineer, suddenly struck with an idea,
exclaimed:
"You surely won't go without helping me to open my trunks! I demand it
of you as a favor, my good Mademoiselle Sambucco!"
The respectable lady paused: custom urged her to go; kindness inclined
her to stay; an atom of curiosity swayed the balance.
"I'm so glad!" cried Clementine, replacing her aunt's hood on the rack.
Mme. Renault did not yet know where they had put Leon's baggage. Gothon
came to say that everything had been thrown pell-mell into the
sorcerer's den, to remain there until Monsieur should point out what he
wanted taken to his own room. The whole company, armed with lamps and
candles, betook themselves to a vast room on the ground floor, where
furnaces, retorts, philosophical instruments, boxes, trunks, clothes
bags, hat boxes and the famous steam-engine, formed a confused and
entertaining spectacle. The light played about this interior, as it
appears to in certain pictures of the Dutch school. It glanced upon the
great yellow cylinders of the electric machine, struck upon the long
glass bottles, rebounded from two silver reflectors, and rested, in
passing, upon a magnificent Fortin barometer. The Renaults and their
friends, grouped in the midst of the boxes--some sitting, some standing,
one holding a lamp, another a candle--detracted nothing from the
picturesqueness of the scene.
Leon, with a bunch of little keys, opened the boxes one after another.
Clementine was seated opposite him on a great oblong box, and watched
him with all her eyes, more from affection than curiosity. They began by
setting to one side two enormous square boxes which contained nothing
but mineralogical specimens. After this they passed in review the riches
of all kinds which the engineer had crowded among his linen and
clothing.
A pleasant odor of Russia leather, tea from the caravans, Levant
tobacco, and attar of roses soon permeated the laboratory. Leon brought
forth a little at a time, as is the custom of all rich travellers who,
on leaving home, left a family and good stock of friends behind. He
exhibited, in turn, fabrics of the Asiatic looms, narghiles of embossed
silver from Persia, boxes of tea, sherbets flavored with rose, precious
extracts, golden webs from Tarjok, antique armor, a service of frosted
silver of Toula make, jewelry mounted in the Russian style, Caucasian
bracelets, necklaces of milky amber, and a leather sack full of
turquoises such as they sell at the fair of Nijni Novgorod. Each object
passed from hand to hand amid questions, explanations, and interjections
of all kinds. All the friends present received the gifts intended for
them. There was a concert of polite refusals, friendly urgings, and
'thank-yous' in all sorts of voices. It is unnecessary to say that much
the greater share fell to the lot of Clementine; but she did not wait to
be urged to accept them, for, in the existing state of affairs, all
these pretty things would be but as a part of the wedding gifts--not
going out of the family.
Leon had brought his father an exceedingly handsome dressing gown of a
cloth embroidered with gold, some antiquarian books found in Moscow, a
pretty picture by Greuze, which had been stuck out of the way, by the
luckiest of accidents, in a mean shop at Gastinitvor; two magnificent
specimens of rock-crystal, and a cane that had belonged to Humboldt.
"You see," said he to M. Renault, on handing him this historic staff,
"that the postscript of your last letter did not fall overboard." The
old professor received the present with visible emotion.
"I will never use it," said he to his son. "The Napoleon of science has
held it in his hand: what would one think if an old sergeant like me
should permit himself to carry it in his walks in the woods? And the
collections? Were you not able to buy anything from them? Did they sell
very high?"
"They were not sold," answered Leon. "All were placed in the National
Museum at Berlin. But in my eagerness to satisfy you, I made a thief of
myself in a strange way. The very day of my arrival, I told your wish to
a guide who was showing me the place. He told me that a friend of his, a
little Jew broker by the name of Ritter, wanted to sell a very fine
anatomical specimen that had belonged to the estate. I ran to the Jew's,
examined the mummy, for such it was, and, without any haggling, paid the
price he asked. But the next day, a friend of Humboldt, Professor Hirtz,
told me the history of this shred of a man, which had been lying around
the shop for more than ten years, and never belonged to Humboldt at all.
Where the deuce has Gothon stowed it? Ah! Mlle. Clementine is sitting on
it."
Clementine attempted to rise, but Leon made her keep seated.
"We have plenty of time," said he, "to take a look at the old baggage;
meanwhile you can well imagine that it is not a very cheerful sight.
This is the history that good old Hirtz told me; he promised to send
me, in addition, a copy of a very curious memoir on the same subject.
Don't go yet, my dear Mademoiselle Sambucco; I have a little military
and scientific romance for you. We will look at the mummy as soon as I
have acquainted you with his misfortunes."
"Aha!" cried M. Audret, the architect of the chateau, "it's the romance
of the mummy, is it, that you're going to tell us? Too late my poor
Leon! Theophile Gautier has gotten ahead of you, in the supplement to
the _Moniteur_, and all the world knows your Egyptian history."
"My history," said Leon, "is no more Egyptian than Manon Lescault. Our
excellent doctor Martout, here, ought to know the name of professor John
Meiser, of Dantzic; he lived at the beginning of this century, and I
think that his last work appeared in 1824 or 1825."
"In 1823," replied M. Martout. "Meiser is one of the scientific men who
have done Germany most honor. In the midst of terrible wars which
drenched his country in blood, he followed up the researches of
Leeuwenkoeck, Baker, Needham, Fontana, and Spallanzani, on the
revivification of animals. Our profession honors in him, one of the
fathers of modern biology."
"Heavens! What ugly big words!" cried Mlle. Sambucco. "Is it decent to
keep people till this time of night, to make them listen to Dutch."
"Don't listen to the big words, dear little auntey. Save yourself for
the romance, since there is one."
"A terrible one!" said Leon. "Mlle. Clementine is seated over a human
victim, sacrificed to science by professor Meiser."
Clementine instantly got up. Her fiancé handed her a chair, and seated
himself in the place she had just left. The listeners, fearing that
Leon's romance might be in several volumes, took their places around
him, some on boxes, some on chairs.