Madame de Lorcy ushered Samuel into the salon, where he had scarcely set
foot when he descried an old woman lounging on a _causeuse_, fanning
herself as she chatted with Abbe Miollens. He remained motionless, his
eyes fixed, scarcely breathing, cold as marble; it seemed to him that
the four walls of the salon swayed from right to left and left to right,
and that the floor was sliding from under his feet like the deck of a
pitching vessel.
The previous day, Antoinette once departed, Madame de Lorcy had resumed
her attack on Princess Gulof, and the princess had ended by consenting
to delay her departure, to dine with the adventurer of the green eyes,
and to subject him to a close scrutiny. There she was; yes, it was
indeed she! The first impulse of Samuel Brohl was to regain the door as
speedily as possible; but he did nothing of the kind. He looked at
Madame de Lorcy: she herself was regarding him with astonishment; she
wondered what could suddenly have overcome him; she could find no
explanation for the bewilderment apparent in his countenance.
"It is a mere chance," he thought at last; "she has not intentionally
drawn me into a snare." This thought was productive of a sort of
half-relief.
"_Eh bien!_ what is it?" she asked. "Has my poor salon still the
misfortune to be hurtful to you?"
He pointed to a jardiniere, saying: "You are fond of hyacinths and
tuberoses; their perfume overpowered me for a moment. I fear you think
me very effeminate."
She replied in a caressing voice: "I take you for a most worthy man who
has terrible nerves; but you know by experience that if you have
weaknesses I have salts. Will you have my smelling-bottle?"
"You are a thousand times too good," he rejoined, and bravely marched
forward to face the danger. It is a well-known fact that dangers in a
silken robe are the most formidable of all.
Madame de Lorcy presented him to the princess, who raised her chin to
examine him with her little glittering eyes. It seemed to him that those
gray orbs directed at him were two balls, which struck him in the
heart; he quivered from head to foot and asked himself confusedly
whether he were dead or living. He soon perceived that he was still
living; the princess had remained impassible--not a muscle of her face
had moved. She ended by bestowing upon Samuel a smile which was almost
gracious, and addressing to him some insignificant words which he only
half understood, but which seemed to him exquisite--delicious. He
fancied that she was saying to him: "You have a chance--you were born
lucky; my sight has been impaired for some years, and I do not recognize
you. Bless your star, you are saved!" He experienced such a transport of
joy that he could have flung his arms about the neck of Abbe Miollens,
who came up to him with extended hand, saying:--
"What have you been thinking about, my dear count? Since we last met a
very great event has been accomplished. What woman wishes, God wishes;
but after all, my own humble efforts were not without avail, and I am
proud of it."
Madame de Lorcy requested Count Larinski to offer his arm to Princess
Gulof and lead her out to dinner. He mechanically complied; but he had
not the strength to utter a syllable as he conducted the princess to
table. She herself said nothing; she seemed wholly busied in arranging
with her unoccupied hand a lock of her gray hair, which had strayed too
far over her forehead. He looked fixedly at this short plump hand, which
one day in a fit of jealous fury had administered to him two smart
blows; his cheeks recognized it.
During dinner the princess was very gay: she paid more attention to Abbe
Miollens than to Count Larinski; she took pleasure in teasing the good
priest--in endeavoring to shock him a little. It was not easy to shock
him; to his natural easy good-nature he united an innate respect for
grandeurs and for princesses. She did not neglect so good an opportunity
to air her monkey-development theories. He merrily flung back the ball;
he declared that he should prefer to be a fallen angel rather than a
perfected monkey; that in his estimation a parvenu made a much sorrier
figure in the world than the descendant of an old family of ruined
nobility. She replied that she was more democratic than he. "It is
pleasant to me," said she, "to think that I am a progressive ape, who
has a wide future before him, and who by taking proper pains may hope to
attain new advancement."
While they were thus chatting, Samuel Brohl was striving with all his
might to recover from the terrible blow he had received. He noted with
keen satisfaction that the eyesight of the princess was considerably
impaired; that the microscopic studies for which she had always had a
taste had resulted in rendering her somewhat near-sighted; that she was
obliged to look out carefully to find her way among her wine-glasses.
"She has not seen me for six years," thought he, "and I have become a
different man; I have undergone a complete metamorphosis; I have
difficulty sometimes in recognizing myself. Formerly my face was
close-shaven; now I have let my entire beard grow. My voice, my accent,
the poise of my head, my manners, the expression of my countenance, all
are changed; Poland has entered into my blood--I am Samuel no longer, I
am Larinski." He blessed the microscope, which enfeebled the sight of
old women; he blessed Count Abel Larinski, who had made of him his twin
brother. Before the end of the repast he had recovered all his
assurance, all his aplomb. He began to take part in the conversation: he
recounted in a sorrowful tone a sorrowful little story; he retailed
sundry playful anecdotes with a melancholy grace and sprightliness; he
expressed the most chivalrous sentiments; shaking his lion's mane, he
spoke of the prisoner at the Vatican with tears in his voice. It were
impossible to be a more thorough Larinski.
The princess manifested, in listening to him, an astonished curiosity;
she concluded by saying to him, "Count, I admire you; but I believe only
in physiology, and you are a little too much of a Pole for me."
After they had left the table and repaired to the salon, several callers
dropped in. It was like a deliverance to Samuel. If the society was not
numerous enough for him to lose himself in it, at least it served him as
a shield. He held it for a certainty that the princess had not
recognized him; yet he did not cease feeling in her presence unutterably
ill at ease. This Calmuck visage of hers recalled to him all the
miseries, the shame, the hard grinding slavery of his youth; he could
not look at her without feeling his brow burn as though it were being
seared with a hot iron.
He entered into conversation with a supercilious, haughty, and pedantic
counselor-at-law, whose interminable monologues distilled ennui. This
fine speaker seemed charming to Samuel, who found in him wit,
knowledge, scholarship, and taste; he possessed the (in his eyes)
meritorious quality of not knowing Samuel Brohl. For Samuel had come to
divide the human race into two categories: the first comprehended those
well-to-do, thriving people who did not know a certain Brohl; he placed
in the second, old women who did know him. He interrogated the counselor
with deference, he hung upon his words, he smiled with an air of
approbation at all the absurdities which escaped him; he would have been
willing to have his discourse last three hours by the watch; if this
charming bore had shown symptoms of escaping him, he would have held him
back by the button.
Suddenly he heard a harsh voice saying to Madame de Lorcy, "Where is
Count Larinski? Bring him to me; I want to have a discussion with him."
He could not do otherwise than comply; he quitted his counselor with
regret, went over and took a seat in the arm-chair that Madame de Lorcy
drew up for him at the side of the princess, and which had for him the
effect of a stool of repentance. Madame de Lorcy moved away, and he was
left _tete-a-tete_ with Princess Gulof, who said to him, "I have been
told that congratulations are due you, and I must make them at
once--although we are enemies."
"By what right are we enemies, princess?" he asked, with a slightly
troubled feeling, which quickly passed away as she answered, "I am a
Russian and you are a Pole; but we shall have no time for fighting: I
leave for London to-morrow morning at seven o'clock."
He was on the point of casting himself at her feet and tenderly kissing
her two hands in testimony of his gratitude. "To-morrow at seven
o'clock," he mentally ejaculated. "I have slandered her: she has some
good in her."
"When I say that I am a Russian," resumed the princess, "it is merely a
formal speech. Love of country is a prejudice, an idea which has had its
day, which had sense in the times of Epaminondas or of Theseus, but
which has it no longer. We live in the age of the telegraph, the
locomotive; and I know of nothing more absurd now than a frontier, or
more ridiculous than a patriot. Rumor says that you fought like a hero
in the insurrection of 1863; that you gave proof of incomparable
prowess, and that you killed with your own hand ten Cossacks. What harm
had they done you, those poor Cossacks? Do they not sometimes haunt
your dreams? Can you think of your victims without disquietude and
without remorse?"
He replied in a dry, haughty tone: "I really do not know, princess, how
many Cossacks I have killed; but I do know that there are some subjects
on which I do not love to expatiate."
"You are right--I should not comprehend you. Don Quixote did not do
Sancho the honor to explain himself to him every day."
"Ah, I beg of you, let us talk a little of the man-monkey," he observed,
in a rather more pliant tone than he had at first assumed. "That is a
question which has the advantage of being neither Russian nor Polish."
"You will not succeed that way in throwing me off the track. I mean to
tell you all the evil I think of you, no matter how it may incense you.
You uttered, at table, theories which displeased me. You are not only a
Polish patriot,--you are an idealist, a true disciple of Plato, and you
do not know how I have always detested this man. In all these sixty
years that I have been in this world, I have seen nothing but
selfishness and grasping after self-gratification. Twice during dinner
you spoke of an ideal world. What is an ideal world? Where is it
situated? You speak of it as of a house whose inhabitants you are well
acquainted with, whose key is in your pocket. Can you show me the key? I
promise not to steal it from you. O Poet!--for you are quite as much of
a poet as of a Pole, which is not saying much--"
"Nothing remains but to hang me," he interposed, smilingly.
"No, I shall not hang you. Opinions are free, and there is room enough
in the world for all, even idealists. Besides, if you were to be hanged,
it would bring to the verge of despair a charming girl who adores you,
who was created expressly for you, and whom you will shortly marry. When
will the ceremony take place?"
"If I dared hope that you would do me the honor of being present,
princess, I should postpone it until your return from England."
"You are too amiable; but I could not on any consideration retard the
happiness of Mademoiselle Moriaz. There, my dear count, I congratulate
you sincerely. I had the pleasure to meet here the future Countess
Larinski. She is adorable! It is an exquisite nature, hers--a true
poet's wife. She must have brains, discernment; she has chosen you that
says everything. As to her fortune, I dare not ask you if she has any;
you would turn away from me in disgust. Do idealists trouble their heads
with such vile questions?"
She leaned toward him, and fanning herself excitedly, added, "These poor
idealists! they have one misfortune."
"And what is that, princess?"
"They dream with open eyes, and the awakening is sometimes disagreeable.
Ah, my dear Count Larinski, this, that, and the other, _et caetera_. Thus
endeth the adventure."
Then stretching out her neck until her face was close to his, she darted
at him a venomous viper-like look, and in a voice that seemed to cut
into his tympanum like a sharp-toothed saw, she hissed, "Samuel Brohl,
the man with the green eyes, sooner or later the mountains must meet!"
It seemed to him that the candelabra on the mantel-piece darted out jets
of flame, whose green, blue, and rose-colored tongues ascended to the
ceiling; and it appeared to him as though his heart was beating as
noisily as a clock pendulum, and that every one would turn to inquire
whence came the noise. But every one was occupied; no one turned round;
no one suspected that there was a man present on whom a thunderbolt had
just fallen.
The man passed his hand over his brow, which was covered with a cold
sweat; then dispelling by an effort of will the cloud that veiled his
eyes, he in turn leaned toward the princess and with quivering lip and
evil sardonic glance, said to her in a low voice:--
"Princess, I have a slight acquaintance with this Samuel Brohl of whom
you speak. He is not a man who will allow himself to be strangled
without a great deal of outcry. You are not much in the habit of
writing; nevertheless he received from you two letters, which he copied,
placing the originals in safety. If ever he sees the necessity of
appearing in a court of justice, these two letters can be made to create
quite a sensation, and unquestionably they will be the delight of all
the petty journals of Paris."
Thereupon he made a profound bow, respectfully took leave of Madame de
Lorcy, and retired, followed by Abbe Miollens, who inflicted a real
torture by insisting on accompanying him to the station.