Kitabı oku: «Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician», sayfa 14

"What kind of help could I expect from you, had I applied?" asked the Rohan, confounded.

"Such as a man gives who can make gold. And you ought to want gold when you have to pay five hundred thousand francs in forty-eight hours. You want to know what good a man is who makes gold? Why, he is the very one where you will find the cash demanded. You could easily tell my house in Saint Claude Street in the swamp, as the knocker is a brass griffin."

"When could I call?"

"Six, to-morrow afternoon, please your eminence, and whenever after you like. But we have finished our chat in time, for the princess has concluded her devotions."

The cardinal was conquered.

"Your highness," he said, "I am forced to acknowledge that Count Fenix is quite right; the document he produces is most reliable, and the explanations he has furnished have completely satisfied me."

"Your highness' orders?" asked the count, bowing.

"Let me put one last question to this young lady."

Again the count bowed in assent.

"Is it of your own free will that you quit the abbey of St. Denis, where you came to seek refuge?"

"Her highness," repeated Fenix, quickly, "asks you whether you are leaving this place of your own free will. Speak out Lorenza."

"I go of my own free will," replied the Italian.

"In order to accompany Count Fenix, your husband?" prompted the magician.

"To accompany my husband."

"In this case I retain neither of you," said the princess, "for it would be running counter to my feelings. But, if there be anything in all this out of the natural order of things, may the divine punishment fall on whomsoever disturbs the harmony of nature for his profit or interests. Go, my Lord Count Fenix; and you, Lorenza Feliciani – I detain you no more. But take back your jewels."

"They are for the poor," replied Balsamo; "distributed by your hands, the alms will be doubly agreeable to God. All I ask is to have my horse Djerid."

"Take him as you go forth. Begone!"

Bowing to the speaker, the count presented his arm to Lorenza, who leaned upon it and walked out without a word.

"Alas, my lord cardinal," sighed the abbess, sadly shaking her head, "in the very air we breathe are fatal and incomprehensible things!"

CHAPTER XXXIV
NEAR NEIGHBORS

On parting from young Taverney, Gilbert had plunged into the crowd. But not with a heart bounding with glee and expectation – rather with the soul ulcerated by grief which the noble's kind welcome and obliging offers of assistance could not mollify.

Andrea never suspected that she had been cruel to the youth. The fair and serene maiden was completely unaware that there could be any link between her and her foster-brother, for joy or sorrow. She soared over earthly spheres, casting on them shine or shadow according to her being smiling or gloomy. This time it chanced that her shade of disdain had chilled Gilbert; as she had merely followed the impulse of her temper, she was ignorant that she had been scornful.

But Gilbert, like a disarmed gladiator, had received the proud speech and the scorning looks straight in the heart. He was not enough of a philosopher yet not to console himself with despair while the wound was bleeding.

Hence he did not notice men or horses in the press. Gathering up his strength, he rushed into it, at the risk of being crushed, like a wild boar cutting through the pack of hounds.

At length breathing more freely, he reached the green sward, water side and loneliness. He had run to the river Seine, and came out opposite St. Denis island. Exhausted, not by bodily fatigue but by spiritual anguish, he rolled on the grass, and roared like a lion transfixed by a spear, as if the animal's voice better expressed his woes than human tongue.

Was not all the vague and undecided hope which had flung a little light on the mad ideas, not to be accounted for to himself, now extinguished at a blow? To whatever step on the social ladder Gilbert might rise by dint of genius, science and study, he would always be a man or a thing – according to her own words, for which her father was wrong in paying any attention, and not worth her lowering her eyes upon.

He had briefly fancied that, on seeing him in the capital, and learning his resolution to struggle till he came up through the darkness, Andrea would applaud the effort. Not only had the cheer failed the brave boy, but he had met the haughty indifference always had for the dependent by the young lady of the manor.

Furthermore she had shown anger that he should have looked at her music book; had he touched it, he did not doubt that he would be thought fit to be burned at the stake.

As he writhed on the turf, he knew not whether he loved or hated his torturer; he suffered, that was all. But as he was not capable of long patience, he sprang out of his prostration, decided to invent some energetic course.

"Granted that she does not love me," he reasoned, "I must not hope that she never will. I had the right to expect from her the mild interest attached to those who wrestle with their misfortune. She did not understand what her brother saw. He thought that I might become a celebrity; should it happen so, he would act fairly and let me have his sister, in reward of my earned glory, as he would have exchanged her for my native aristocracy, had I been born his equal.

"But I shall always be plain Gilbert in her eyes, for she looks down in me upon what nothing can efface, gild or cover – my low birth. As though, supposing I attain my mark, it would not be greater of me than if I had started on her high level! Oh, mad creature! senseless being! oh, woman, woman – your other name is Imperfection.

"Do not be deluded by the splendid gaze, intelligent smile, and queenly port of Andrea de Taverney, whose beauty makes her fit to rule society – she is but a rustic dame, straitlaced, limited, swathed in aristocratic prejudices. Equals for her are those empty-headed fops, with effete minds, who had the means to learn everything and know nothing; they are the men to whom she pays heed. Gilbert is but a dog, less than a dog, for I believe she asked after Mahon, and not about my welfare.

"Ah, she is ignorant that I am fit to cope with them; when I wear the like coats, I shall look as well; and that, with my inflexible determination, I shall grasp – "

A dreadful smile was defined on his lips where the sentence died away unfinished. Frowning, he slowly lowered his head.

What passed in that obscure soul? What terrible plan bent the pale forehead, already sallow with sleepless nights, and furrowed by thinking? Who shall tell?

At the close of half an hour's profound meditation, Gilbert rose, coldly determined. He went to the river, drank a long draft, and looking round, saw the distant waves of the people in a sea coming out of St. Denis.

They so crowded in upon the first coaches that the horses had to go at a walk, on the road to St. Ouen.

The dauphin wanted the ceremony to be a national family festival. So the French family abused the privilege; a number of Parisians climbed on the footboards and hung there without being disturbed.

Very soon Gilbert recognized the Taverney carriage, with Philip holding in his capering horse by the side.

"I must know where she goes," thought the lover; "and so shall follow them."

It was intended that the dauphiness should sup with the royal family in private at Muette, but Louis XV. had broken the etiquette so far as to make up a larger party. He handed a list of guests to the dauphiness, with a pencil, and suggested she should strike out the names of any not liked to come. When she came to the last name, Countess Dubarry's, she felt her lips quiver and lose blood; but sustained by her mother's instructions, she summoned up her powers to her aid, and with a charming smile returned the paper and pencil to the king, saying that she was very happy to be let into the bosom of all his family at the very first.

Gilbert knew nothing about this, and it was only when he got to Muette that he recognized the coach of Dubarry, with Zamore mounted on a high white horse. Luckily it was dark, and Gilbert threw himself on the ground in a grove and waited.

The king, then, shared supper between mistress and daughter-in-law, and was merry especially on seeing that the newcomer treated the usurper more kindly even than at Compiegne.

But the dauphin, gloomy and careworn, spoke of having the headache, and retired before they sat at table.

The supper was prolonged to eleven o'clock.

The king sent a band of music to play to the repast for the gentry of the retinue – of which our proud Andrea had to admit she was a member; as the accommodation was limited, fifty masters had to picnic on the lawn, served by men in royal livery. In the thicket, Gilbert lost nothing of this scene. Taking out a piece of bread, he ate along with the guests, while watching that those he attended to did not slip away.

After the meal, the dauphiness came out on the balcony to take leave of her hosts. Near her stood the king. Countess Dubarry kept out of sight in the back of the room, with that exquisite tact which even her enemies allowed she had.

The courtiers passed under the balcony to salute the king, who named such of them to the dauphiness as she did not already know. From time to time some happy allusion or pleasant saying dropped from his lips, to delight those who received it. Seeing this servility, Gilbert muttered to himself:

"I am a touch above these slaves, for I would not crouch like that for all the gold in the world."

He rose on one knee when the turn came for the Taverneys to pass.

"Captain Taverney," said the dauphiness, "I grant you leave to conduct your father and sister to Paris."

In the nightly silence and amid the attention of those drinking in the august words, Gilbert caught the sound coming in his direction.

"My lord baron," continued the princess, "I have no accommodation yet for you among my household; so guard your daughter in town until I set up my establishment at Versailles. Keep me in mind, my dear young lady."

The baron passed on with son and daughter. Others came up for whom the princess had pretty stuff to say, but that little mattered to Gilbert. Gliding out of the covert, he followed the baron among the two hundred footmen shouting out their master's names, fifty coachmen roaring out in answer to the lackeys, while sixty coaches rolled over the pavement like thunder.

As Taverney had a royal carriage, it waited for him aside from the common herd. He stepped in, with Andrea and Philip, and the door closed after them.

"Get on the box with the driver," said Philip to the footman. "He has been on his feet all day, and must be worn out."

The baron grumbled some remonstrance not heard by Gilbert, but the lackey mounted beside the driver. Gilbert went nearer. At the time of starting a trace got loose and the driver had to alight to set it right.

"It is very late," said the baron.

"I am dreadfully tired," sighed Andrea. "I hope we shall find a sleeping place somewhere."

"I expect so," replied her brother. "I sent Labrie and Nicole straight to Paris from Soissons. I gave him a letter to a friend for him to let us have a little house in the rear of his, where his mother and sister live when they come up from the country. It is not luxury, but it is comfortable. You do not want to make a show while you are waiting for the coming out in the suitable style."

"Anything will easily beat Taverney," said the old lord.

"Unfortunately, yes," added the captain.

"Any garden?" asked Andrea.

"Quite a little park, for town, with fine trees. However, you will not long enjoy it, as you will be presented as soon as the wedding is over."

"We are in a bright dream – do not waken us. Did you give the coachman the address?"

"Yes, father," replied the young noble, while Gilbert greedily listened.

He had hoped to catch the address.

"Never mind," he muttered; "it is only a league to town. I will follow them."

But the royal horses could go at a rattling gait when not kept in line with others. The trace being mended, the man mounted his box and drove off rapidly – so rapidly that this reminded poor Gilbert of how he had fallen on the road under the hoofs of Chon's post-horses.

Making a spurt, he reached the untenanted footboard, and hung on behind for an instant. But the thought struck him that he was in the menial's place behind Andrea's carriage, and he muttered:

"No! it shall not be said that I did not fight it out to the last. My legs are tired, but not my arms."

Seizing the edge of the footboard with both hands, the inflexible youth swung his feet up under the body of the coach so as to get them on the foresprings; thus suspended, he was carried on, spite of the jerking, over the wretched rutty road. He stuck to the desperate situation by strength of arm, rather than capitulate with his conscience.

"I shall learn her address," he thought. "It will be another wakeful night; but to-morrow I shall have repose, seated while I am copying music. I have a trifle of money, too, and I will take a little rest."

He reflected that Paris was very large and that he might be lost after seeing the baron to his house. Happily it was near midnight, and dawn came at half after three.

As he was pondering he remarked that they crossed an open place where stood an equestrian statue in the midst.

"Victories Place," he thought gleefully; "I know it."

The vehicle turning partly round and Andrea put her head out to see the statue.

"The late king," explained her brother. "We are pretty nearly there now."

They went down so steep a hill that Gilbert was nearly scraped off.

"Here we are," cried the dragoon captain.

Gilbert dropped and slipped out from beneath to hide behind a horseblock on the other side.

Young Taverney got out first, rang at a house doorbell, and returned to receive Andrea in his arms. The baron was the last out.

"Are those rascals going to keep us out all night?" he snarled.

At this the voices of Labrie and Nicole were heard, and a door opened. The three Taverneys were engulfed in a dark courtyard where the door closed upon them. The vehicle and attendants went their way to the royal stables.

Nothing remarkable was apparent on the house; but the carriage lamps had flashed on the next doorway, which had a label: "This is the mansion of the Armenonvilles." Gilbert did not know what street it was as yet, but going to the far end, the same the carriage had gone out of, he was startled to see the public fountain at which he drank in the mornings. Going ten paces up the street he saw the baker's shop where he supplied himself. Still doubting, he returned to the corner. By the gleam of a swinging lamp, he could read on a white stone the name read three days before when coming from Meudon Wood with Rousseau:

"Plastrière Street."

It followed that Andrea was lodged a hundred steps apart, nearer than she was to him at Taverney.

So he went to his own door, hoping that the latchet might not be drawn altogether within. It was pulled in, but it was frayed and a few threads stuck out. He drew one and then another so that the thong itself came forth at last. He lifted the latch, and entered, for it was one of his lucky days.

He groped up the stairs one by one, without making any noise, and finally touched the padlock on his own bedroom door, in which Rousseau had thoughtfully left the key.

CHAPTER XXXV
THE GARDEN HOUSE

From coming home so late, and dropping off to sleep so soon and heavily, Gilbert forgot to hang up the linen cloth which served as curtain to the garret window. The unintercepted sunbeam struck his eyes at five and speedily woke him. He rose, vexed at having overslept.

Brought up in the country, he could exactly tell the time by the sun's inclination and the amount of heat it emitted. He hastened to consult this clock. The pallor of the dawn, scarcely clearing the high trees, set him at ease; he was rising too early, not too late.

He made his ablutions at the skylight, thinking over what had happened over night, and gladly baring his burning and burdened forehead to the fresh morning breeze. Then it came to his mind that Andrea was housed next door to Armenonville House, in an adjoining street. He wanted to distinguish this residence.

The sight of shade-trees reminded him of her question to her brother, – Was there a garden where they were going?

"Why may it not be just such a house in the back garden as we have yonder?" he asked himself.

By a strange coincidence with his thought, a sound and a movement quite unusual drew his attention where it was turning; one of the long fastened up windows of a house built at the rear of the one on the other street shook under a rough or clumsy hand. The frame gave way at the top; but it stuck probably with damp swelling it at the bottom. A still rougher push started the two folds of the sash, which opened like a door, and the gap showed a girl, red with the exertion she had to make and shaking her dusty hands.

Gilbert uttered an outcry in astonishment and quickly drew back, for this sleepy and yawning girl was Nicole.

He could harbor no doubt now. Philip Taverney had told his father that he had sent on Labrie and their maid servant to get a lodging ready in Paris. Hence this was the one. The house in Coq-Heron Street, where the travelers had disappeared – was this with the extra building in the rear.

Gilbert's withdrawal had been so marked that Nicole must have noticed it only for her being absorbed in that idle fit seizing one just arisen. But he had retired swiftly, not to be caught by her while looking out of a garret window. Perhaps if he had lived on the first floor, and his window had given a view within of a richly furnished apartment, he would have called her attention on it. But the fifth flat still classed him among social inferiors, so that he wanted to keep in the background.

Besides, it is always an advantage to see without being seen.

Again, if Andrea saw him, might she not consider that enough to induce her to move away, or at least not to stroll about the garden?

Alas, for Gilbert's conceit! it enlarged him in his own eyes; but what mattered Gilbert to the patrician, and what would make her move a step nearer or further from him? Was she not of the class of women who would come out from a bath with a peasant or a footman by, and not regard them as men?

But Nicole was not of this degree, and she had to be avoided.

But Gilbert did not keep away from the window. He returned to peep out at the corner.

A second window, exactly beneath the other, opened also, and the white figure appearing there was Andrea's. In a morning gown, she was stooping to look after her slipper fallen under a chair.

In vain did Gilbert, every time he saw his beloved, make a vow to resist his passion within a rampart of hate; the same effect followed the cause. He was obliged to lean on the wall, with his heart throbbing as if to burst and the blood boiling all over his body.

As the arteries cooled gradually, he reflected. The main point was to spy without being seen. He took one of Madame Rousseau's old dresses off the clothesline, and fastened it with a pin on a string across his window so that he might watch Andrea under the improvised screen.

Andrea imitated Nicole in stretching her lovely arms, which, by this extension, parted the gown an instant; then she leaned out to examine the neighboring grounds at her leisure. Her face expressed rare satisfaction, for while she seldom smiled on men, she made up for it by often smiling on things.

On all sides the rear house was shaded by fine trees.

Rousseau's house attracted her gaze like all the other buildings, but no more. From her point, the upper part alone could be espied, but what concern had she in the servants' quarters in a house?

Andrea therefore came to the conclusion that she was unseen and alone, with no curious or joking face of Parisians on the edge of this tranquil retreat, so dreaded by country ladies.

Leaving her window wide open for the sunshine to flush the remotest corners, the young lady went to pull the bellrope at the fire-place side and began to dress in the twilight. Nicole ran in and opening the straps of a shagreen dressing-case dating from a previous reign, took a tortoise-shell comb and disentangled her mistress' tresses.

Gilbert smothered a sigh. He could hardly be said to recognize the hair, for Andrea followed the fashion in powdering it, but he knew her a hundred times fairer without the frippery than in the most pompous decorations. His mouth dried up, his fingers scorched with fever, and his eye ceased to see from his staring too hard.

Chance ruled that Andrea's gaze, idle as it was from her sitting still to have her hair brushed, fell on Rousseau's attic.

"Yes, yes, keep on staring," uttered the youth, "but you will see nothing and I shall see all."

But he was wrong, for she descried the novel screen of the old dress which floated round the man's head as a kind of turban. She pointed out this odd curtain to her maid. Nicole stopped and pointed with the comb to the object to ask whether that were the reason for her mistress' amusement.

Without his suspecting it, this had a fourth spectator.

He suddenly felt a hasty hand snatch Madame Rousseau's dress from his brow, and he fell back thunderstricken at recognizing the master.

"What the deuse are you up to?" queried the philosopher, with a frowning brow and a sour grin as he examined the gown.

"Nothing," stammered the other, trying to divert the intruder's sight from the window.

"Then why hide up in this dress?"

"The sun was too bright for me."

"The sun is at the back of us, and I think it is you who are too bright for me. You have very weak eyes, young man."

Rousseau walked straight up to the window. By a very natural feeling to be a veil to his beauty, Gilbert, who had shrunk away, now rushed in between.

"Bless me, the rear house is lived in now!" The tone froze the blood in Gilbert's veins, and he could not get out a word. "And by people who know my house, for they are pointing up to it," added the suspicious author.

Gilbert, fearful now that he was too forward, retreated. Neither the movement nor its cause escaped Rousseau, who saw that his employee trembled to be seen.

"No, you don't, young man!" he said, grasping him by the wrist; "there is some plot afoot, for they are pointing out your garret. Stand here, pray."

He placed him before the window, in the uncovered glare.

Gilbert would have had to struggle with his idol, and respect restrained him from thus being free.

"You know those women, and they know you," continued Rosseau, "or, why do you shrink from showing yourself?"

"Monsieur Rousseau, you have had secrets in your life. Pity for mine!"

"Traitor!" cried the writer; "I know your sort of secret. You are the tool of my enemies, the Grimms and Holbachs. They taught you a part to captivate my benevolence, and, sneaking into my house, you are betraying me. Threefold fool that I am, stupid lover of nature, to think I was helping one of my kind, and to nourish a spy!"

"A spy?" repeated the other in revolt.

"When are you to deliver me to my murderers, O Judas?" demanded Rousseau, draping himself in Therese's dress, which he had mechanically kept in hand, and looking droll when he fancied he was sublime with sorrow.

"You calumniate me, sir," said Gilbert.

"Calumniate this little viper!" said the philosopher, "when I catch you corresponding in dumb show with my enemies – I daresay acquainting them in signs with my latest work."

"Had I come to steal your story, sir, I should better have made a copy of the manuscript, lying on your desk, than to convey it in signs."

This was true, and Rousseau felt that he had made one of those blunders which escaped him in his moments of fear, and he became angry.

"I am sorry for you, but experience makes me stern," he said. "My life has passed amid deceit. I have been betrayed by everybody, denied, sold and martyrized. You know I am one of those illustrious unfortunates whom governments outlaw. Under such circumstances, I may be allowed to be suspicious. As you are a suspicious character, you must take yourself out of this house."

Gilbert had not expected this conclusion. He was to be driven forth! He clenched his fists, and a flash in his eyes made Rousseau start. Gilbert reflected that in going he would lose the mild pleasure of seeing his loved one during the day, and lose Rousseau's affection – it was shame as well as misfortune.

Dropping from his fierce pride, he clasped his hands and implored:

"Listen to me, if only one word!"

"I am merciless," replied the author: "man's injustice has made me more ferocious than a tiger. Go and join my enemies with whom you correspond. League yourself with them, which I do not hinder, but do all this beyond my domicile."

"Those young women are no enemies of yours – they are Mademoiselle Andrea of Taverney, the young lady I told you of, on whose estate I was born, and her maid Nicole. Excuse me troubling you with such matters, but you drive me to it. This is the lady whom I love more than you ever loved all your flames. It is she whom I followed afoot, penniless and wanting bread, until I fell exhausted on the highway and racked with pain. It is she whom I saw once more yesterday at St. Denis, and behind whose coach I came till I housed her in the place yonder. In short, it is she for whom I wish one of these days to be a great man – a Rousseau!"

His hearer knew the human heart, and the gamut of its exclamations. The best actor could hardly have Gilbert's tearful voice and the feverish gesture accompanying the effusion.

"So this is your lady love?"

"My foster-sister, yes."

"Then you lied a while ago when you said you knew her not, and you are a liar, if not a traitor."

"You are racking my heart and you would hurt me less were you to slay me on the spot."

"Pooh! that is a mere piece of fustian out of the Diderot or Marmontel books. You are a liar, sir."

"Have it so, and the worse for you that you do not understand such white lies!" retorted Gilbert. "I shall go, heartbroken, and you will have my despair on your conscience."

Rousseau smoothed his chin and regarded the youth whose case had so much analogy with his own.

"He is either a great rogue or a lad with a big heart," he mused; "but after all, if he is in a plot against me, it will be best to have the wires of the puppets in my hand."

Gilbert strode to the door, but he paused with his hand on the knob, waiting for the last word to recall or banish him.

"Enough on this head, my son," said the man of letters. "It is hard enough for you to be in love, to this degree. But it is getting on, and we have thirty pages of music to copy this day. Look alive, Gilbert, look alive!"

Gilbert grasped the speaker's hand and pressed it to his lips as he would not a king's. While Gilbert leaned up against the doorjamb with emotion, Rousseau took a last peep out of the window. This was the moment when Andrea stood up to put on her dress, but seeing a person up at the attic window, she darted back and bade Nicole shut the sashes.

"My old head frightened her," mumbled the philosopher; "his youthful one would not have done that. Oh, youth, lovely youth!" he broke forth, sighing, "'Spring is the love-time of the year! love is the springtime of life!'"

Hanging up the dress, he melancholically descended the stairs at the heels of Gilbert, for whose youth he would at that time have bartered his reputation, at that juncture counterbalancing Voltaire's and with it sharing the admiration of the entire world.