A PRETEXT.
At a few minutes past four D'Harmental saw Buvat turning the corner of
the Rue du Temps-Perdu. The chevalier thought he could recognize in the
worthy writer an air of greater haste than usual, and instead of holding
his stick perpendicularly, as a bourgeois always does when he is
walking, he held it horizontally, like a runner. As to that air of
majesty which had so struck Monsieur Boniface, it had entirely vanished,
and had given place to a slight expression of uneasiness. He could not
be mistaken. Buvat would not return so quickly if he was not uneasy
about Bathilde. Bathilde, then, was suffering.
The chevalier followed Buvat with his eyes till the moment when he
disappeared in his own door. D'Harmental, with reason, imagined that
Buvat would go into Bathilde's room, instead of mounting to his own, and
he hoped that Buvat would open the window to admit the last rays of the
sun, which had been caressing it all day.
But D'Harmental was wrong; Buvat contented himself with raising the
curtain, and pressing his good round face against the window, and
drumming on the panes with his hands; but even this apparition was of
short duration, for he turned round suddenly, as a man does when any one
calls him, and let fall the muslin curtain behind him and disappeared.
D'Harmental presumed that his disappearance was caused by some appeal to
his appetite, and this reminded him, that in his preoccupation about the
obstinacy of that unlucky window in refusing to open, he had forgotten
his own breakfast, which, it must be confessed, to the shame of his
sensibility, was a very great infraction on his habits. Now, however, as
there was no chance that the window would open while his neighbors were
at dinner, the chevalier determined to profit by the interval by dining
himself; consequently he rang for the porter, and ordered him to get
from the confectioner the fattest pullet, and from the fruiterer the
finest fruit that he could find. As to wine, he had still got some
bottles of that which the Abbe Brigaud had sent him.
D'Harmental ate with a certain remorse. He could not understand how he
could be at the same time so tormented, and have such a good appetite.
Luckily he remembered reading in the works of some moralist or other
that sorrow sharpened hunger wonderfully. This maxim set his conscience
at rest, and the result was, that the unfortunate pullet was eaten up to
the very bones.
Although the act of dining was very natural, and by no means
reprehensible, D'Harmental shut the window, leaving, however, a corner
of the curtain raised; and, thanks to this precaution, he saw
Buvat--who had doubtless finished his repast--appear at the window of
his terrace. As we have said, the weather was splendid, and Buvat seemed
disposed to profit by it; but as he belonged to that class of beings who
enjoy nothing alone, he turned round, with a gesture, which D'Harmental
took to be an invitation to Bathilde--who had doubtless followed him
into his room--to come on to the terrace to him; consequently he hoped
for an instant that Bathilde would appear, and he rose with a beating
heart; but he was mistaken. However tempting might be the beautiful
evening, and however pressing the invitations of Buvat, both were
useless; but it was not thus with Mirza, who, jumping out of the window
without being invited, began to bound joyously about the terrace,
holding in her mouth a purple ribbon, which she caused to flutter like a
streamer, and which D'Harmental recognized as the one which had fastened
his neighbor's veil on the preceding night. Apparently, Buvat recognized
it also, for he started off in pursuit of Mirza as fast as his little
legs would allow him; a pursuit which would doubtless have been
indefinitely prolonged, if Mirza had not had the imprudence to take
refuge in the arbor. Buvat pursued, and an instant afterward D'Harmental
saw him return with the ribbon in his hand, and after smoothing it on
his knee, he folded it up, and went in, probably to deposit it in a
place of safety.
[Illustration: THE CHEVALIER SET MIRZA TO EAT SUGAR.--Page 353.]
This was the moment that the chevalier had waited for; he opened his
window and watched. In a minute he saw Mirza put her head out of the
arbor, look about her, and jump on to the terrace; then D'Harmental
called her in the most caressing and seductive tone possible. Mirza
trembled at the sound of his voice, then directed her eyes toward him.
At the first look she recognized the man of the bits of sugar--gave a
little growl of joy--then, with a rapid gastronomic instinct, she darted
through Buvat's window with a single bound, and disappeared.
D'Harmental lowered his head, and, almost at the same instant, saw
Mirza coming across the street like a flash of lightning; and before he
had time to shut his window, she was already scratching at the door.
Luckily for D'Harmental, Mirza had the memory of sugar as strongly
developed as he had that of sounds.
It will be easily understood that the chevalier did not make the
charming little creature wait; and she darted into the room, bounding,
and giving the most unequivocal signs of her joy at his unexpected
return. As to D'Harmental, he was almost as happy as if he had seen
Bathilde. Mirza was something to the young girl; she was her dearly
loved greyhound, so caressed and kissed by her--who laid his head on her
knees during the day, and slept on the foot of her bed during the night.
The chevalier set Mirza to eat sugar, and sat down; and letting his
heart speak, and his pen flow, wrote the following letter:
"DEAREST BATHILDE--You believe me very guilty, do you
not? But you cannot know the strange circumstances in
which I find myself, and which are my excuse; if I
could be happy enough to see you for an instant--even
for an instant--you would understand that there are in
me two different persons--the young student of the
attic, and the gentleman of the fetes at Sceaux. Open
your window then, so that I may see you--or your door,
so that I may speak to you. Let me come and sue for
your pardon on my knees. I am certain that when you
know how unfortunate I am, and how devotedly I love
you, you will have pity on me.
"Adieu, once more; I love you more than I can
express!--more than you can believe--more than you can
ever imagine.
"RAOUL."
This billet, which would have appeared very cold to a woman of these
days, because it only said just what the writer intended, seemed
sufficient to the chevalier, and was really impassioned for the epoch;
thus D'Harmental folded it up, and attached it, as he had the first, to
Mirza's collar; then, taking up the sugar, which the greedy little
animal followed with her eyes to the cupboard, where D'Harmental shut
it up, the chevalier opened the door of his room, and showed Mirza, with
a gesture, what there remained for her to do. Whether it was pride or
intelligence, the little creature did not wait to be told twice; darted
out on the staircase as if she had wings, and only stopped on the way to
bite Monsieur Boniface, whom she met coming home from his office;
crossed the road, and disappeared in Bathilde's house. D'Harmental
remained at the window for a minute, fearing that Mirza would take his
note to Buvat instead of Bathilde, but she was too intelligent for that,
and he soon saw her appear in Bathilde's room. Consequently, in order
not to frighten poor Bathilde too much, he shut his window, hoping that
by this concession he should obtain some sign, which would indicate to
him that he was pardoned.
But it did not turn out so. D'Harmental waited in vain all the evening,
and a great part of the night. At eleven o'clock, the light scarcely
seen through the double curtains, still hermetically closed, went out
altogether, and D'Harmental was obliged to renounce the hope of seeing
Bathilde till the next day.
The next day brought the same rigor; it was a settled plan of defense,
which, with a man less in love than D'Harmental, would simply have
indicated fear of defeat; but the chevalier, with a simplicity worthy of
the age of gold, saw nothing but a coldness, in the eternity of which he
began to believe, and it is true that it had lasted four and twenty
hours.
D'Harmental passed the morning in turning in his mind a thousand
projects, each more absurd than the preceding one. The only one which
had common sense was to cross the street, mount boldly to Bathilde's
room, and tell her everything. It came to his mind like all the rest;
and as it was the only reasonable one, D'Harmental did well to stop at
it. However, it would be a great boldness to present himself thus before
Bathilde, without being authorized by the least sign, and without having
any pretext to give. Such a course of conduct could but wound Bathilde,
who was only too much irritated already; it was better to wait then, and
D'Harmental waited. At two o'clock Brigaud returned, and found
D'Harmental in a very savage state of mind. The abbe threw a glance
toward the window, still hermetically closed, and divined everything. He
took a chair, and sat down opposite D'Harmental, twisting his thumbs
round one another, as he saw the chevalier doing.
"My dear pupil," said he, after an instant's silence, "either I am a bad
physiognomist, or I read on your face that something profoundly sad has
happened to you."
"And you read right, my dear abbe," said the chevalier; "I am ennuied."
"Ah, indeed!"
"So much so," said D'Harmental, "that I am ready to send your conspiracy
to the devil."
"Oh, chevalier, one must not throw the helve after the hatchet! What!
send the conspiracy to the devil, when it is going on wheels! Nonsense;
and what will the others say?"
"Oh, you are charming, you and your others. The others, my dear abbe,
have society, balls, the opera, duels, mistresses, amusements in fact,
and they are not shut up like me in a nasty garret."
"Yes; but the piano, the drawing?"
"Even with this, it is not amusing."
"Ah, it is not amusing when one sings or draws alone; but when one sings
or draws in company, it begins to do better."
"And with whom, in the devil's name, should I sing or draw?"
"In the first place there are the Demoiselles Denis."
"Oh, yes, they sing beautifully and draw well, do they not?"
"Mon Dieu! I do not propose them to you as virtuosos and artists; they
have not the talents of your neighbor. But, by-the-by, there is your
neighbor."
"Well, my neighbor?"
"Why do you not sing with her, since she sings so well? That will amuse
you."
"Do I know her? Does she even open her window? Look, since yesterday
she has barricaded herself in her own room. Ah, yes, my neighbor is
amiable."
"Yes, they told me that she was charming."
"Besides, it seems to me, that both singing in our own rooms, we should
have a singular duet."
"Then go to her room."
"To her room! Have I been introduced to her? Do I know her?"
"Well, make a pretext."
"I have been searching for one since yesterday."
"And you have not found one, a man of imagination like you? My dear
pupil, I do not recognize you there."
"Listen, abbe! A truce to your pleasantries--I am not in the humor for
them to-day: every one has his stupid days."
"Well, on those days one addresses one's self to one's friends."
"To one's friends--and what for?"
"To find the pretext which one has sought for vainly one's self."
"Well, then, abbe, you are my friend; find the pretext; I wait for it."
"Nothing is easier."
"Really!"
"Do you want it?"
"Take care what you engage to do."
"I engage to open your neighbor's door to you."
"In a proper manner?"
"How! do I know any others?"
"Abbe, I will strangle you if your pretext is bad."
"But it is good."
"Then you are an adorable man."
"You remember what the Comte de Laval said about the descent which the
police have made upon the house in the Val-de-Grace, and the necessity
he was under of sending away his workmen and burying his press?"
"Perfectly."
"You remember the determination which was come to in consequence?"
"To employ a copyist."
"Finally, you remember that I undertook to find that copyist?"
"I do."
"Well, this copyist on whom I had cast my eyes, this honest man whom I
promised to discover, is discovered, and is no other than the guardian
of Bathilde."
"Buvat?"
"Himself! Well, I give you full powers, you go to his house, you offer
him gold, the door is opened to you on the instant, and you can sing as
much as you like with Bathilde."
"My dear abbe," cried D'Harmental, "you have saved my life!"
D'Harmental took his hat, and darted toward the door; now that he had a
pretext he doubted of nothing.
"Stop, stop," said Brigaud; "you do not even ask me where the good man
must go for the papers in question."
"To your house, pardieu!"
"Certainly not, young man, certainly not."
"Where then?"
"At the Prince de Listhnay's, Rue du Bac, 110."
"The Prince de Listhnay! And who is he?"
"One of our own making--D'Avranches, the valet-de-chambre to Madame de
Maine."
"And you think that he will play his part well?"
"Not for you, perhaps, who are accustomed to see princes, but for
Buvat."
"You are right. Au revoir, abbe!"
"You find the pretext good?"
"Capital."
"Go, then, and good luck go with you."
D'Harmental descended the stairs four at a time; then, having arrived at
the middle of the street, and seeing the abbe watching him from the
window, he made a parting sign to him with his hand, and disappeared
through the door of Bathilde's house.