Everybody knows the garden of the Élysée, that charming little park,
planted with the most beautiful trees in the world, whose fresh green
turf is watered by a clear winding river; a terraced walk, shaded by
elms a century old, borders this park on the side of the avenue called
Marigny; a similar walk, parallel to it, bounds it on the opposite side,
and a very low wall separates it from the neighbouring gardens. This
last mentioned walk ended a short distance from the window where M.
Pascal was so comfortably seated, and soon his attention was keenly
awakened by several incidents.
The young man who had passed through the parlour, occupied by
secretaries and gentlemen, and who had, for reason of his timidity, been
the subject of several remarks, was slowly promenading the shaded walk.
He was of slender and graceful stature. Every few moments he stopped,
stooped down, and remained immovable a second, then continued his
promenade. When he reached the extremity of the walk, he approached,
almost by stealth, the wall bordering upon the adjacent garden, and, as
at this point the wall was hardly more than four feet high, he leaned
upon it, apparently absorbed in reflection or the expectation of meeting
another person.
So long as the promenader kept his back turned to M. Pascal, who now
began to feel very curious concerning him, his features of course could
not be distinguished; but when he turned, after having made some
desired discovery, and retraced his steps, he was face to face with his
observer at the window.
Count Frantz de Neuberg, as we have said, passed for the godson of the
archduke, by whom he was tenderly loved. According to the rumours of the
court, his Royal Highness, having had no children since his marriage
with the Princess of Saxe-Teschen, had abundant reason for exercising
paternal interest in Frantz de Neuberg, the secret fruit of a first
love.
Frantz, scarcely twenty years old at the time of this history, presented
the perfect type of the melancholy beauty of the North. His long blond
hair, parted in the middle of a brow as white and ingenuous as that of a
young girl, framed a face whose regularity was without a flaw. His large
blue eyes, soft and dreaming, seemed to reflect the purity of his soul,
and an incipient beard, shading his chin and upper lip with a silken,
golden down, accentuated the virility of his charming face.
As he came up the walk, Frantz more and more attracted the attention of
M. Pascal, who looked at him with a sort of admiring surprise, for it
would have been difficult not to observe the rare perfection of the
young man's features; but when at a short distance from the window he
encountered the fixed and persistent gaze of M. Pascal, he appeared not
less provoked than embarrassed, blushed, looked downward, and, turning
on his heel, abruptly, quickened his pace until he reached the middle of
the walk, where he began again his slow promenade, evidently constrained
by the thought that a stranger was watching his movements. He hardly
dared approach the boundary of the neighbouring garden, but suddenly,
forgetting all preoccupation, he ran toward the wall at the sight of a
little straw hat which appeared on the other side, and encased in its
frame lined with rose-coloured silk was the freshest, most entrancing
countenance of fifteen years that ever entered into a young man's
dream.
"Mlle. Antonine," said Frantz quickly, in a low voice, "some one is
looking at us."
"This evening," murmured a sweet voice, in reply.
And the little straw hat disappeared as by enchantment, as the young
girl jumped from a bench she had mounted on the other side of the wall.
But as compensation, no doubt, for this abrupt retreat, a beautiful rose
fell at the feet of Frantz, who picked it up and passionately pressed it
to his lips, then, hiding the flower in his waistcoat, the young man
disappeared in a thicket instead of continuing his promenade in the long
walk. Notwithstanding the rapidity with which these incidents
transpired, and the instantaneous disappearance of the little straw hat,
M. Pascal had seen distinctly the exquisite loveliness of the young
girl's face, and Frantz also, as he kissed the rose which fell at his
feet.
The hard and saturnine features of M. Pascal took on a strange and
gloomy expression, where one could read violent anger mingled with
jealousy, pain, and hatred. For some moments, his physiognomy, almost
terrifying in its malevolence, betrayed the man, who, accustomed to see
all bend before him, is capable of sentiments and actions of diabolical
wickedness when an unforeseen obstacle contradicts his iron will.
"She! she! here in this garden near the Élysée!" exclaimed he, with
concentrated rage. "What is she doing there? Triple fool that I am! she
comes here to coquet with this puny, blond youth. Perhaps she lives in
the next hôtel. Misery! misery! to find out the place where she dwells
after having done everything in vain to discover it since this damned
pretty face of fifteen struck my eyes, and made me a fool,--I, who
believed myself dead to these sudden and frantic caprices, compared to
which what are called violent passions of the heart are ice. I have met
this little girl three times, and feel myself, as in my young days,
capable of anything in order to possess her. How jealousy irritates and
devours me this moment! Misery! it is stupid, it is silly, but oh, how I
suffer!"
As he uttered these words, M. Pascal's face expressed malicious and
ferocious grief; then shaking his fist at the side of the wall where the
little straw hat had disappeared, he muttered, in a voice of
concentrated rage:
"You shall pay for it. Go, little girl, and whatever it may cost me, you
shall belong to me."
And sitting with his elbows on the balustrade, unable to detach his
angry glances from the spot where he had seen Frantz speak to the young
girl, M. Pascal presented a picture of fury and despair, when one of the
doors of the parlour softly opened, and the archduke entered.
The prince, evidently, felt so sure that he would meet his expected
visitor face to face, that, beforehand, instead of his usual cold
arrogance, he had assumed a most agreeable expression, entering the room
with a smile upon his lips.
But M. Pascal, leaning half way out of the window, had not heard the
door open, and, never suspecting the presence of the prince, he remained
seated, his back to the Royal Highness, and his elbows on the sill of
the window.
A physiognomist witnessing this silent scene would have found in it a
curious study of the reaction of feeling in the countenance of the
prince.
At the sight of M. Pascal leaning out of the window, wearing a summer
greatcoat, and violating all propriety by keeping his hat on his head,
the archduke stopped short; his assumed smile vanished from his lips,
and, taking a prouder attitude than ordinary, he stiffened himself in
his handsome uniform, turned purple with anger, knit his eyebrows, while
his eyes flashed with indignation. But soon reflection, doubtless,
appeasing this inner storm, the features of the prince took on an
expression of resignation as bitter as it was sad, and he bowed his
head, as if he submitted to a fatal necessity.
Stifling a sigh of offended pride as he threw a glance of vindictive
contempt on Pascal at the window, the prince again assumed, as we have
said, his smile of affability, and walked toward the casement, coughing
loud enough to announce his presence, and spare himself the last
humiliation of touching the shoulder of our familiar visitor in order to
attract his attention.
At the sonorous "hum-hum!" of his Royal Highness, M. Pascal turned
around suddenly. The gloomy expression of his face was succeeded by a
sort of cruel and malicious satisfaction, as if the occasion had
furnished a victim upon whom he could vent his suppressed wrath.
M. Pascal approached the prince, saluted him in a free and easy manner,
and holding his hat in one hand, while the other was plunged deep in his
pocket, he said:
"A thousand pardons, monseigneur, really I did not know you were there."
"I am persuaded of that, M. Pascal," replied the prince, with
ill-disguised haughtiness.
Then he added:
"Please follow me into my study, sir. I have some official news to
communicate to you."
And he walked toward his study, when M. Pascal, with apparent calmness,
for this man had a wonderful control over himself when it was necessary,
said:
"Monseigneur, will you permit me one question?"
"Speak, sir," replied the prince, stopping and turning to his visitor,
with surprise.
"Monseigneur, who is that young man of twenty at the most, with long
blond hair, who promenades in the walk which can be seen from this
window? Who is he, monseigneur?"
"You mean, no doubt, monsieur, my godson, Count Frantz de Neuberg."
"Ah, this young man is your godson, monseigneur? I congratulate you
sincerely,--one could not see a prettier boy."
"Is he not?" replied the prince, sensible of this praise, even in the
mouth of Pascal. "Has he not a charming face?"
"That is what I have just been observing at my leisure, monseigneur."
"And Count Frantz has not only a charming face," added the prince; "he
has fine qualities of heart and great bravery."
"I am enchanted, monseigneur, to know that you have such an accomplished
godson. Has he been in Paris long?"
"He arrived with me."
"And he will depart with you, monseigneur, for it must be painful for
you to be separated from this amiable young man?"
"Yes, monsieur, I hope to take Count Frantz with me back to Germany."
"A thousand pardons, monseigneur, for my indiscreet curiosity, but your
godson is one of those persons in whom one is interested in spite of
himself. Now, I am at your service."
"Then follow me, if you please, monsieur."
Pascal nodded his head in assent, and, walking side by side with the
archduke, he reached the door of the study with him, then, stopping with
a gesture of deference, which was only another impertinence, he bowed
slightly, and said to the prince, as if his Highness had hesitated to
enter first:
"After you, monseigneur, after you."
The prince understood the insolence, but swallowed it, and entered his
study, making a sign to Pascal to follow him.
The latter, although unaccustomed to the ceremonial of the court, had
too much penetration not to comprehend the import of his acts and words.
He had not only the consciousness of his insolence, instigated by his
recent and suppressed resentment, but this insolence he had actually
studied and calculated, and even in his interview had considered the
question of addressing his Royal Highness as monsieur, simply; but, by a
refinement of intelligent impertinence, he thought the ceremonious
appellation of monseigneur would render his familiarities still more
disagreeable to the dignity and good breeding of the prince.
Let us turn back to an analysis of the character of Pascal,--a character
less eccentric, perhaps, than it appears at first to be. Let us say,
simply, that for ten years of his life this man, born in a humble and
precarious position, had as a day-labourer and drudge submitted to the
most painful humiliations, the most insolent domination, and the most
outrageous contempt. Thus, bitter and implacable hatreds were massed
together in his soul, and the day when, in his turn, he became powerful,
he abandoned himself without scruple and without remorse to the fierce
joy of reprisal, and it gave him little concern if his revenge fell upon
an innocent head.
The archduke, instead of a superior mind, possessed a long, practical
acquaintance with men, acquired in the exercise of supreme authority in
the military hierarchy of his country; besides, in his second interview
with M. Pascal,--at which interview we have assisted,--he had understood
the significance of the studied insolence of this person, and when, as
he entered his study with him, he saw him, without invitation, seat
himself familiarly in the armchair just occupied by a prime minister,
whom he found full of courtesy and deference, the prince felt a new and
cruel oppression of the heart.
The penetrating glance of Pascal surprised the expression of this
feeling on the face of the archduke, and he said to himself, with
triumphant disdain: "Here is a prince born on the steps of a throne, a
cousin, at least, of all the kings of Europe, a generalissimo of an
army of a hundred thousand soldiers, here he is in all the glory of his
battle uniform, adorned with all the insignia of honour and war. This
highness, this man, despises me in his pride of a sovereign race. He
hates me because he has need of me, and knows well that he must
humiliate himself; nevertheless, this man, in spite of his contempt, in
spite of his hatred, I hold in my power, and I intend to make him feel
it keenly, for to-day my heart is steeped in gall."