Kitabı oku: «The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)», sayfa 10

CHAPTER V

DON MARCOS had never seen the Prince so vexed as he was that morning, when he announced that the Duchess de Delille was waiting for him down-stairs in the hall.

"You should have told her I'd gone out; any sort of a pretext – a lunch at Nice… There must be some understanding between you. You certainly look out for your Infanta!"

The Colonel, flushed with emotion, made an effort to reply to these accusations. If the Duchess had now suddenly presented herself, it was perhaps because he had refused to take any of her messages for the Prince.

As the latter went down to the hall, he ran straight into Alicia, who was standing close to a window, and looking at the gardens and the sea. Her back was towards him, just as he had seen her coming out of the concert. When she turned her head, Michael thought to himself that he would surely never have recognized her had he met her anywhere else. She was a beautiful woman, but scarcely like the person he had seen that last time in the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, with its weird oriental nick-nacks and unwholesome perfumes. Several years of her life had passed away since then, and yet she seemed fresher, and younger. Her eyes had lost the veiled disturbing fire, that made them look larger, and gave them a fixed, unnatural stare. The dull, sickly whiteness of her skin had taken on color from the sun and the open air. Her airy, undulating litheness had become less willowy, giving her person the calm tranquillity of bodies that are beginning to crystallize in their definitive form.

The Prince, interrupted by Alicia's smiling glance, was unable to continue his scrutiny. It seemed from her quiet easy manner as though she had been there in that very place only the day before. Moreover, Michael suddenly began to wonder how he should start the conversation. Should he talk English or French? Should he speak informally as before?.. She put an end to his hesitation, speaking familiarly in Spanish, just as when they were children.

"How hard it is to get in touch with you! Practically impossible," Alicia said as she sat down, after shaking hands with him. "So I decided to pay you this visit. It isn't exactly proper for a lady to call on a person with such a terrible reputation as you have; but I'm not the first one who has come here. There have been lots of others!"

She laughed teasingly as she said this. Immediately she became serious, and said timidly:

"I came here on business – a money matter."

Not wanting to take up such a subject at once, she talked about the obstacles which had obliged her to come unannounced to Villa Sirena. The Prince could have absolute confidence in the fidelity with which his "chamberlain" carried out his orders. This Colonel was a nice fellow, but there was no approaching him, any more than a ferocious dog, when some one tries to make him disobey his master. She had vainly asked him to announce her visit; and he had even refused to accept her card for his Prince.

"I might have written you; but I was afraid you wouldn't reply, or would simply tell me to deal with your agent in Paris. It has been such a long time since we've seen each other! Our friendship has been so intermittent! So that is why I finally decided last night to come and surprise you in your den, with the hope that you wouldn't show me the door."

Michael smiled, making a gesture of indignant denial.

"I came about my debt … the loans your mother made me some time ago. I didn't know how much they amounted to. Your agent now says they are over four hundred thousand francs. It must be so, if he maintains it. At times when I was in straits I asked for something, and the Princess, who was such a great lady, kept giving and giving, without either of us paying any attention to the amounts. Now I see how tremendously generous she must have been."

This was surprising news for Lubimoff. Then he gradually recalled that when his mother died she had left a long memorandum of all the loans she had made, and that Alicia's name figured among the debtors. But he had left the papers in the hands of his administrator, without thinking any more about the matter.

He immediately understood the reason for Alicia's visit. His agent had wanted to raise some money, and owing to the lack of funds from Russia, he was raising all he could in the West: credits … advances made to friends or dependents, guaranty deposits, and even the loans made by the Princess, which, according to his express orders, were not to be demanded except in case of strict necessity.

The general pressure of circumstances had reached Alicia. For the last four months the Lubimoff estate had been sending her letter after letter, demanding the payment of her enormous debt. Already the agent's last note had become threatening because of her silence. It notified her that action would be brought against her in court. The estate was holding many of her letters thanking the Princess for the latter's generosity. Besides, all the money had been paid by checks cashed by the Duchess herself.

"Your administrator is certainly an insolent fellow. The other day I saw you in the Casino, – I saw you from behind as you were running away from people. You frightened me: I imagined then that you had changed, that you were very different from the man I knew, and that we would never come to an understanding. Later I thought you mustn't be quite so terrible as you seem … and I came."

Michael, remaining silent, seemed to be saying something with his eyes, which were fixed on Alicia. Well, why had she come? What was it she wished to propose to him?

She smiled with an expression of cynical amusement.

"I came to tell you that I can't pay now – and perhaps never; to beg you to wait, I don't know how long, and to ask you to see that that disagreeable fellow who is managing your estate doesn't annoy me with his insolence."

And as the Prince made no move, she continued,

"I'm ruined."

"So am I," said Michael. "We're all ruined. The munition makers are the only people with any money now."

"Oh! You ruined!" Alicia protested. "With you it is simply a question of being hard pressed for the moment. Things in Russia will be straightened out some time or other. Besides, you are Prince Lubimoff, the famous millionaire. If I had your name, who would refuse me a loan?"

Suddenly she lost the audacious smile which she had worked up for the interview. Her eyes grew darker; the corners of her mouth drooped.

"I am really ruined. Look."

She pointed to the triangle of bare flesh visible at the throat of her low cut dress. A pearl necklace rested on her white bosom. Michael, as she insisted, finally looked at the pearls. False, scandalously false; all the luster gone, opaque and yellow as drops of wax. He knew something about pearls; he had given away so many necklaces! Then Alicia showed him her hands. Two artistically made finger rings, but without any jewels, and of slight intrinsic value, were all that adorned her fingers.

"This is a last year's dress," she added in a mournful voice, as though confessing something most shameful. "They won't trust me any more in Paris. I owe so much! Nothing but the hat is new. What woman, no matter how poor she might feel, wouldn't buy a hat! It is the most conspicuous thing about one, – something that changes all the time; and must be looked after at all costs. Luckily, on account of the war, they are not using plumes… I'm poor, Michael, poorer than any woman you ever knew."

"And your mother?"

The Prince asked this instinctively, without thinking. A moment later he suspected that he had read, some years before, he didn't know where, perhaps while he was roving the seas, the news of the death of Doña Mercedes. He was not sure; but her daughter removed all doubt.

"Poor señora! Let's not talk about her."

But nevertheless Alicia did talk, but only to lament her mother's devout prodigality. She had given millions for the construction of an enormous hospital in Spain, on the advice of her Aragonese chaplain, the astronomer of the Champs-Élysées. Marble was used in the construction for the mere masonry; the garden fence was forged by a celebrated Parisian artist who devoted himself to molding bronze statues for drawing-rooms. But when the vicar left, tired of such generosity, the monster building remained unfinished, and the precious fence lay on the ground in pieces, like so much old iron. Later, the "Monsignor" directed the worthy lady's funds into other channels. It was necessary to spread the faith by means of the "good book," and a new publishing house arose in Paris, which was most extraordinary and unheard of. Packages of books were stored on mahogany shelves, and the leaves were folded on lacquer tables.

"The priests got everything that belonged to me," Alicia continued. "At times they egged mamma on to the most absurd outlays of money just for the sake of collecting commissions from the contractors. From numerous belfries in both hemispheres chimes rang thanks to Doña Mercedes. One entire bell foundry was kept going just on mamma's gifts. Besides, she was often carried away by a sort of loving weakness for all the saints who were not especially famous.

"In her last years she devoted herself to 'launching' saints. Every one in the calendar who was little known, or of some unusual name, aroused in her the desire to repair a great injustice. She had their lives written, churches dedicated to them; and corresponded with the high dignitaries of Rome to push many a dead man, who had waited centuries in vain for the hour when he should become a Saint."

Lubimoff finally began to laugh at the resentful tone in which Alicia spoke of her mother's mystic pleasures. Doña Mercedes was a great one! And finally she began to laugh likewise.

"In that way all our income, which was enormous, was spent. She should have left me a real fortune, unencumbered, in the bank. A lady that spent so little on herself! And nevertheless, I had to pay out huge sums for all the orders she had contracted before her death. You can be sure the Monsignor and the rest of them are much richer than I."

"How about your mines? And your lands in Mexico?"

The Duchess repeated the same gesture of despair. It was as though they did not exist! She was poor, absolutely poor.

"You say you are ruined, and you haven't suffered from the money shortage for more than the last two years, perhaps less. I haven't seen a cent of my fortune for some time before the war. Every one is talking about Russia, and Bolshevism, because it is something that concerns the Old World directly. But how about Mexico, and the situation there which goes back to the time when Europe was at peace?"

Her lands had been lost as though they were so much personal property, that could be transported and hidden. An agrarian revolution, the echoes of which had scarcely reached the Old Continent, had swallowed them up, suppressing all traces of her former property rights. The half-breeds had divided them to suit themselves, to work them, or leave them more unproductive than before. To whom could she appeal, if these lands were in provinces that were constantly changing hands, and the Mexican government had no authority over them?

The silver mines, which for three generations of Barrios had been the basis of their fortune, were in a still worse situation.

"One of the so-called 'Generals,' an Indian, has fortified himself in the territory where my mines are, and from there he defies the rulers in the Capital. They tell me that every month he takes out half a million francs in silver bars. He cuts them up in disks, puts his stamp on them and makes money thus to pay his men. You can imagine he has plenty of followers, with pure silver money, worth more than that of civilized countries! They will never be able to put him out; all he has to do to create armies for himself is to dig down into what belongs to me. This bad joke has gone on now for several years; I, who live in Europe, getting poorer and poorer every day, am paying for an endless war on the other side of the earth."

In spite of the fact that the Prince had never taken care of his own business he wanted to give her some advice. She ought to go over there and ask for assistance; she was born in the United States.

"I've already seen to that," she replied. "I have some one in New York who looks after my affairs. But would they go to war just on my account? Perhaps I shall take the trip later. Not now: I haven't the strength. There is something that is bothering me terribly just now, and it would be even worse if I were to leave France."

Her eyes began to fill with tears. Her face contracted with an expression of pain, and her hand moved toward her purse for a handkerchief. Michael recalled the young man that Castro had been noticing at Alicia's side during the last few years. Perhaps he was the cause of her emotion, and inability to make the trip.

"Love!" he thought to himself. "Love, even now when she's growing old."

He tried to change the conversation and asked about the Duke de Delille. He knew that he was at the front; and even thought he remembered a report of his being wounded in one of the early battles. Was he still alive?

In speaking of her husband, Alicia looked grave, to Michael's great surprise. Formerly she used to treat him with a certain scorn. He had accepted his wife's freedom, with all its consequences, in exchange for an enormous allowance. They lived apart, and although she found her independence very sweet, she could not help but feel a sort of feminine dislike for her accommodating husband, so little given to tragic jealousy. But at present her ideas seemed to have changed, and she spoke rapidly as though afraid of noticing Lubimoff smile as she used to smile herself, in mentioning the Duke.

"Yes; he joined the service. You know of course that he is some twenty years older than I. He was exempted from bearing arms on account of his age; but he remembered that he had been an officer in his youth, and was one of the first to go. Who would have thought it of a man who didn't seem to have any cares, and made fun of everything that didn't affect his own selfish pleasures!"

The Germans had picked him up in a dying condition during one of their victorious advances at the beginning of the war. He was covered with wounds. After two years as a prisoner they had exchanged him as useless, and he was living interned in Switzerland, with one arm gone.

"Poor man! He writes me every month. He fishes in Lake Geneva, and thinks of me more than he ever thought before. His epistles are almost love letters. What a transformation misfortune can make in a character. He says that he sees life from a different angle; and hopes that after the cataclysm, which will have made us better, we shall be able to come together again, and be happy. Oh, if only I could want to!.."

Her tone was ironical as she spoke of this illusionary happiness, but at the same time there was in it a note of respect and admiration. The Duke whom she had known as a great dowry hunter, accommodating and unscrupulous, was forgotten. At present she saw in him only the white-haired warrior, the invalid, who according to the doctors, would not live long, owing to the operations he had undergone. And she was trying to keep up the exile's hopes, replying to his long letters, with brief, affectionate notes.

"So it's on account of your husband that you don't take the trip?" Michael asked, pretending that he was inquiring in good faith.

Alicia was ruffled by such a supposition. Poor Delille! It was something else that was troubling her. Her husband wasn't the only one who had gone to war. There were others, who were younger, and had better reasons to love life, but who had suffered the same fate. How many hidden griefs there were these days!

The Duchess's eyes moistened, and her eyes and lips frankly expressed her sorrow.

"It's the little lover; there's no doubt of it," Michael said to himself. "It's the young chap Castro saw."

As though she read his thoughts and were anxious to switch them, Alicia began to talk once more about the reason for her visit, and about her situation.

The Prince nodded when she described to him her amazement at finding that wealth was not something infinite and immutable, and that it was slipping from her grasp … slipping and slipping, without her being able to do anything to avoid the gradual ruin.

"I sold inopportunely; I took the money they cared to give me, without paying any attention to the conditions. All my jewels went; I sold some in Paris, others here in this very place. You say you are ruined. No, you don't know what it means; but I know all right! I've been shipwrecked longer than you; my boat was smaller. I don't want to bore you with an account of my poverty. I haven't a house in Paris any more. I shall never go back there again, unless my affairs are straightened out. The only house I have is a villa here, which I bought in the good old days. Don't smile; there are two mortgages on it. Almost any day they may put me out of it. It was a very pleasant sort of house before, when I had money; but now, with everything so scarce on account of the war! There's no coal, and wood is dear; it gets cold at night, and it takes a fortune to keep the old furnace going. Besides, I haven't any servants except my former lady's maid, the gardener, and his wife who does the cooking. For that reason all the rooms are closed, and Valeria and I live our lives in two rooms on the first floor. We eat there, and sleep there. Valeria is a girl from Paris, a señorita whom I am 'protecting.' Imagine how poor she must be if she trusts her future to me!"

"But you gamble," said the Prince.

Alicia seemed shocked at these words. They sounded like an accusation.

"I play, but what can you expect me to do? I have to do something to keep body and soul together, to earn my living. How else could a woman like myself do it? I know what you're going to say to me: that I've lost a great deal. True; I sold my pearl necklace here, the real one, and a great many other jewels; I have lost large amounts, more than I care to think of. But at that time I didn't know all I know to-day… When as luck will have it, I haven't much money to play!"

Lubimoff was astonished at the way this woman spoke in all seriousness of her present adeptness.

"Besides," she added in a tone of sadness, "what would become of me if I didn't play? Surely you haven't forgotten how I was when we saw each other last. You must have noticed certain tastes of mine."

Michael recalled the invitation to smoke "the pipe," and the odor that filled the "study" in the palace on the Avenue du Bois.

"I put a stop to all that: gambling and something else made me give it up. Now I think of it with disgust. That's why I live in Monte Carlo. I have a feeling deep down in my heart that fortune will come back in search of me here, and nowhere else. Don't you play?"

Michael was annoyed at this question. Hadn't he told her that he was ruined? Was he going to follow her example, and make his situation still worse by losing the remnants of his fortune?

"Ruined!" exclaimed Alicia. "Your hard times can't last long. This Russian business will finally be settled. The great powers have too large interests at stake there, not to take a hand in straightening everything out. It's this affair of mine that won't be arranged for years. The only hope I have is to enjoy a run of luck in the Casino and win some two or three hundred thousand francs, and, with that amount, wait for things to change."

The Prince shrugged his shoulders. He knew gamblers. This woman, dominated by her wild dream, would forget the object of her visit, and go raving on about the possible whims of fortune, like Spadoni, or like Castro himself.

"And what do you want of me?"

Alicia seemed to wake up, and once more her smile became bold, and engaging, as it had been at the beginning of the interview; the smile of a petitioner who comes with the firm determination to get what he wants. She had already told him at the very beginning what her object was; that the Prince's agent shouldn't bother her any more in regard to that forgotten debt.

"I shall pay it some day, if it is possible for me… But you had better count on my never paying it at all. Give it up as lost, and tell that horrid gentleman not to write me any more."

Michael, fascinated by the simple way in which this woman announced her extraordinary desire, imitated the tone of her voice.

"Very well; I shall tell this horrid gentleman not to bother you; to forget you."

And he laughed like a child, without paying any attention to the fact that his own interests were at stake. The only thing he thought of was the expression on the face of his solemn agent when he received such an order.

"I always thought you were kind and generous," she said. "Thanks, Michael! At times I have had a discussion with the 'General' about you, to convince her that you are a big hearted man."

"Oh, so Doña Clorinda is an enemy of mine? Why I've never seen her!"

"She's an extraordinary woman. In her eyes, every man who has a good time, and doesn't do wonderful things, is displeasing to her. Only yesterday we quarreled for good. Let's not talk about her. I have something more to ask of you."

More? The Prince looked at her in astonishment, but Alicia hastened to add that what she wanted was some advice.

War had upset their modes of life with amazing rapidity. Social values were reversed: the fortunes that seemed most solid were crumbling.

"Things will change, surely? It's impossible for this to last."

"Yes it is impossible," he said gravely.

Both of them seemed to be living in another world, surrounded by the senseless visions of a nightmare. To think that they would have to worry of money, after it had been, up to that time, a natural part of their existence, much as sunlight, air, or water is for every one! To think that they should find themselves obliged to pursue it in its flight through unknown ways! No, it wasn't logical; surely a passing whim of destiny. Their lives would again be the same as before, with the regularity of the laws of nature, which seem to swerve at times, but finally return to their orderly predestined course.

Being harder pressed, and having suffered economic hardships for a longer time, it was impossible for her to adopt the serenity with which Lubimoff accepted his momentary ruin.

"Things will change, that's certain; but in the meantime, how can I live? You have just freed me from a moral burden by forgetting about this debt. I thank you. But I must work, I want to earn some money! What is your advice?"

He was astounded. What work could Alicia do? Her question was laughable. But there she was, gravely facing him, convinced of her determination to work, and expecting illuminating counsel, as though her fate depended on him.

Fortunately Alicia herself, unable to bear the silence, began to explain her own ideas on the subject. The topsy-turvy state of things at the present time justified the wildest plans. A great lady might adopt means of support which some years previously would have caused a scandal. She knew a number of Russian ladies in Nice who used to give wonderful parties in their drawing rooms before the war, and who at present, having been reduced to poverty, were devising schemes to earn their living in their own way. One was going to open a millinery shop, and count on her former friendships to form a circle of customers. Another had changed her villa on the Promenade des Anglais into a boarding house. She would admit only people of distinction. Allied officers, from Colonels up. She intended to treat her boarders like visitors, with all the courtesy of a great lady receiving her guests; save that from now on every day in the week would be her reception day.

"What do you think of my turning my villa into a boarding house? Could you help me with a little money to renew the furniture, and buy whatever is lacking? Nothing but aristocratic guests; generals, and retired ambassadors who come here in quest of sunlight."

The Prince replied with a burst of laughter.

"Why, you're crazy. They would all make love to you. In a few weeks your establishment would be a regular inferno."

Alicia, considering his observation quite accurate, did not insist any further. The Russian lady in Nice was old and terrible looking compared with her. Besides, she thought it perfectly natural and logical that her guests should become enamored of her.

The "General" had suggested another plan to her. She might open a tea-room in Monte Carlo, a very elegant one. The attraction of seeing her at the counter would draw people. For this she would not need a financial backer.

Once more Lubimoff burst out laughing.

"The Duchess de Delille's tea-room! That would be delightful; but once people's curiosity had been satisfied the only customers you would have would be those who were interested in your charms. No; that's not business."

She gave a look of somewhat comic dismay; what was she to do? A lady who is anxious for work can find no occupation in a world controlled and monopolized by men. She had nothing to fall back on except gambling. It was an exciting pleasure which made her forget her worries, and at the same time gave her hope. Each day with gambling she opened a window to fortune, in case it should deign to remember her. Who knows but what some time it might fold its golden wings and alight on a Casino table, and allow Alicia's slender hands to caress it, like a tame eagle!

"In the first few months of the war," she continued, "I didn't feel the need of anything to distract my mind; the reality of what was happening was enough. What anguish I went through! But one gets used to everything; the deepest emotions get monotonous if they are too long drawn out. One can't live forever with one's nerves at a high tension. And this war is so long, and so tiresome! I might have had recourse to philanthropic work to take my mind off my troubles; go into a hospital, and take care of the wounded. But I've never been clever at such things, and I don't want to make a nuisance of myself and be a hindrance, out of pure vanity, like a great many other women. Besides, we are in the habit of giving orders, and always coming first, and no matter how deeply we may feel the spirit of sacrifice, we finally leave, unable to endure finding ourselves ordered about by more skillful and useful women, who have previously been our inferiors. Take Clorinda for instance; she was a nurse the first two years; she was one of the prettiest and most interesting with her white dress and her little blue cape. She is attracted by everything great; heroism, sacrifices, etc., but she finally quarreled with her superiors and gave up her fine rôle."

In gesture and facial expression Alicia seemed to be pitying her own uselessness.

"What could I do? I was reduced to worse and worse straits. In Paris my creditors were right at my heels, constantly bothering me; that's why I came to Monte Carlo, and gambled to forget, and to make a living. There is love, an old Academician, a friend of mine, said to me, with a selfish motive to be the first to make advantage of his advice. Just imagine: real passionate love, wholehearted love, as the only solution for the sorrows of life, and at such a time! Oh, if only I could! But I feel I'm old, two thousand years old. You are younger, but you can count your life in centuries too. Love, for such as you and me!"

At first Lubimoff smiled at the tone of irony and disenchantment in which she spoke. Yes, they were very old. The great remedies, useful for the majority of people, had no effect on them. They, as it were, had become insensible from satiety and weariness. Suddenly the Prince was moved by an indiscreet desire. He decided to take advantage of the opportunity to ask her a question that had often occurred to him.

"Indeed," he said with masculine frankness, as though talking with a comrade, "you still believe in love? They told me about a boy, almost a child, whom you used to take everywhere before the war. Really, we are beginning to get old," he added with a smile, "and feel we need the contact of youth. Was he your lover? Is he the reason for your worries?"

At these questions, the Duchess paled, and seemed to hesitate. Then she made an effort to speak. It was evident that she was eager to be sincere. But her pallor was followed by a wave of crimson. Twice she tried to say something, and finally, mastering her desire to talk, she forced a mischievous smile.

"Let's not talk about that. We each have a right to our secrets," she said.

And to keep the Prince from relapsing into his curiosity, she went on talking about gambling. But he was absorbed in his thoughts, and was not listening to her. He had hit the nail on the head; that young stripling was her lover, and she was suffering on his account. Perhaps he was wounded, or a prisoner. That was the great obstacle which stood in the way of her trip; which was keeping her pinned down in Europe, in the superstitious belief that we can ward off dangers better if we remain close at hand. And she seemed very much in love! Here the Prince gave vent to a series of mental exclamations.

"Forty years old, with a past that would fill a book! To feel such a powerful, such a youthful passion! Still to believe in love!"

Michael looked at her with an expression that was almost one of hatred. Her passion for the boy annoyed him, without his being able to tell just why; perhaps because of the indignation which is always aroused by people who cling to some harmful lie, accepting it as truth and consolation. Whatever the cause, her conduct annoyed him.

This sudden feeling of hostility towards Alicia finally caused him to pay attention once more to what she was saying.

"If only I had as much money as I had before, when your mother was still alive, and we used to live in Monte Carlo! But at that time I didn't know as much as I know to-day about gambling. I used to play just for excitement, just to enjoy the sensation of losing, which, as a matter of fact, didn't affect me very deeply. I used only chips for a thousand francs in betting. I thought it was beneath me so much as to touch any others; and besides, I never risked them one at a time. I always staked them in a row."