“The book was entitled _The Set of Emeralds_, and I signed it with my
initials only.
“Since I am not Victor Hugo, nor anybody of the sort, I need not tell
you that I did not get for my novel what the author of _Notre Dame de
Paris_ had for his latest; but what with one thing and another I
gathered together a sufficient sum to begin my plan of campaign.
“The emeralds in question would be worth from fourteen to fifteen
thousand dollars, and toward the purchase I now counted up the
respectable sum of one hundred and fifty. It was necessary, then, to
game.
“I gamed; and I gamed with such good sense and good fortune that in a
single night I won what I needed.
“Apropos of gambling, I have made an observation in which every day has
confirmed me more and more. If one puts down his money with the full
expectation of winning, he wins. One must not approach the green table
with the hesitancy of a man who is going to try his luck, but with the
coolness of him who comes to take his own. For myself, I can assure you
that I should have been as much surprised to lose that night as if a
substantial bank had refused me money on a check with Rothschild’s
signature.
“The next day I went to Samper’s. Will you believe that in throwing down
upon the jeweller’s counter that handful of many-colored notes, those
notes which represented for me at least a year of pleasure, many
beautiful women, a journey to Italy, and champagne and cigars at
discretion, that I wavered a moment? Then don’t believe it. I threw them
down with the same nonchalance--do I say nonchalance?--with the same
satisfaction with which Buckingham, breaking the thread on which they
were strung, strewed with pearls the carpet of his beloved’s palace.
“I bought the jewels and carried them to my lodgings. You can picture
nothing more glorious than that set of emeralds. No wonder the women
sigh now and then as they pass in front of those shops which present to
their eyes such glittering temptations; no wonder that Mephistopheles
selected a collar of precious stones as the object most likely to seduce
Marguerite. I, man that I am, could have wished for an instant to live
in the Orient and be one of those fabulous monarchs who wreathe their
brows with a coil of gold and gems, that I might adorn myself with those
magnificent emerald leaves and diamond flowers.
“A gnome, to buy a kiss from a sylph, would not have been able to find
among the immense treasures hoarded in the avaricious heart of the earth
and known to those elves alone, an emerald larger, clearer, more
beautiful than that which sparkled, fastening a knot of rubies, in the
centre of the diadem.
“Now that I had the gems, I began to think out a way of placing them in
possession of the woman for whom they were intended.
“At the end of several days, I prevailed upon one of her maids--thanks
to the money that I still had left--to promise me that she, when
unobserved, would place the set in the jewel-box; and to assure myself
that she should not, by her conduct, betray the source of the gift, I
gave her what money was left over, several hundred dollars, on condition
that she, as soon as she had put the emeralds in the place agreed upon,
should leave the capital and remove to Barcelona. This, in fact, she
did.
“Judge for yourself what must have been the surprise of her mistress
when, after noticing her sudden disappearance and suspecting that
perhaps she had fled from the house with something stolen, she found in
the jewel-box the magnificent set of emeralds. Who had divined her
thought? Who had been able to surmise that she still, from time to time,
remembered those gems with a sigh?
“The weeks and the months passed on. I knew that she kept my gift; I
knew that great efforts had been made to discover whence it came; and
yet I had never seen her adorned with it.--Did she scorn the offering?
‘Ah!’ I said, ‘if she knew all the merit of that gift! if she knew that
its desert is scarcely surpassed by the gift of that lover who pawned
his cloak in winter to buy a nosegay! Does she perhaps think that it
comes from the hands of some great personage who will one day present
himself, if admitted, to claim its price? What a mistake she makes!’
“One night when there was to be a royal ball I stationed myself at the
door of the palace and, lost in the crowd, waited for her carriage that
I might see her. When it arrived and, the footman opening the door, she
appeared in radiant beauty, a murmur of admiration went up from among
the pressing multitude. The women beheld her with envy; the men with
longing; from me there broke a low, involuntary cry. She was wearing the
set of emeralds.
“That night I went to bed without my supper; I do not remember whether
it was because emotion had taken away my appetite or because I had no
money. In either case, I was happy. In my dreams I thought I heard the
music of the ball and saw her crossing before my eyes, flashing sparks
of a thousand colors, until I dreamed even that I was dancing with her.
“The romance of the emeralds had been conjectured, since they had been
talked about when they first appeared in the cabinet, by some ladies of
rank.
“Now that the set had been seen, there was no longer room for doubt, and
idle tongues began to comment on the affair. She enjoyed a spotless
reputation. Notwithstanding the dissipation of her husband and his
neglect of her, calumny could never reach to the height on which her
virtue had placed her; but yet, on this occasion, there began to stir
that little breath of gossip from which, according to Don Basilio,
scandal begins.
“On a day when I chanced to be in a circle of young men, the
conversation fell on the famous emeralds, and finally a coxcomb said, as
if settling the matter:
“There is no need of discussion. These jewels have as vulgar an origin
as all such presents in this world of ours. The time has gone by when
invisible spirits placed marvellous gifts under the pillows of lovely
ladies, and the man who makes a present of this value makes it with the
hope of a recompense--and this recompense, who knows that it was not
given in advance?”
“The words of that idiot roused my wrath, and all the more because they
found response in those who heard them. Yet I controlled myself. What
right had I to go to the defence of that woman?
“Not a quarter of an hour had passed when I had opportunity to
contradict this man who had insulted her. I do not know exactly what the
point was on which I contradicted him; what I can assure you of is that
I did it with so much sharpness, not to say rudeness, that out of our
dispute grew a quarrel. That is what I was seeking.
“My friends, knowing my disposition, wondered, not only that I should
have sought a duel for so trifling a cause, but at my firm refusal to
give or receive explanations of any kind.
“I fought, I do not know whether to say with good fortune or not, for
although on firing I saw my adversary sway an instant and fall to the
ground, a second after I felt my ears buzzing and my eyes clouding over.
I was wounded, too, and seriously, in the breast.
“They carried me, already in a burning fever, to my mean lodging. There
I know not how many days went by, while I called aloud I know not on
whom; undoubtedly on her. I would have had courage to suffer in silence
all my life for one look of gratitude on the brink of the grave; but to
die without leaving her even a memory of me!
“These ideas were tormenting my imagination one wakeful, fevered night,
when I saw the curtains of my alcove part and in the opening appeared a
woman. I thought that I was dreaming; but no. That woman approached my
bed, that poor, hot bed on which I was tossing in pain, and lifting the
veil which covered her face, disclosed a tear trembling on her long,
dark lashes. It was she!
“I started up with frightened eyes, I started up and--at that moment I
arrived in front of Durán’s bookstore--”
“What!” I exclaimed, interrupting my friend on hearing that change of
tone. “Then you were not wounded and in bed?”
“In bed!--ah! what the deuce! I had forgotten to tell you that all this
is what I was thinking as I came from the jewelry shop of Samper,--where
in sober truth I saw the set of emeralds and heard, on the lips of a
beautiful woman, the exclamation which I have mentioned to you,--to the
_Carrera de San Jerónimo_, where a thrust from the elbow of a porter
roused me from my revery in front of Durán’s, in whose window I observed
a book by Mery with this title, _Histoire de ce qui n’est pas arrivé_,
‘The Story of that which did not happen.’ Do you understand it now?”
On hearing this _dénouement_, I could not repress a shout of laughter.
Really I do not know of what Mery’s book may treat, but I now see how,
with that title, a million incomparable stories might be written.