I spent the winter at Nice, finding plenty of amusement and friends, and cutting myself off completely from Paris, communicating only with my guardian and with Franzius and his wife, who were living at the Pavilion.
The 4th of April was the date for the production of his opera, "Undine." It was based on De la Motte Fouquet's lovely tale; and its success, as far as I could learn from Carvalho, was assured, for one can say of certain artistic productions, just as one can say of sunlight or pure gold: "This is assured. Let the tastes or the fashions alter, this will always be reckoned at its full value, a treasure indestructible."
I had fixed to return to Paris on the 30th of March, but I came back sooner; for on the 15th of March, driving on the Promenade des Anglais, I passed a carriage in which were seated the Comte de Coigny and the Baron Carl von Lichtenberg.
It was the morning of the day of "Undine's" production. I had ridden over to the Pavilion from Paris to breakfast with Franzius and Eloise.
The rehearsal had almost wrecked Franzius, but he was all right now; the ship was built; only the launching remained. As to Eloise, in six months she had altered subtly yet marvellously. I had last seen her a girl in her bridal dress; she was now a woman, for in six months she had aged years, without gaining a wrinkle or losing a trace of the beauty of youth. Love had ripened her; her every movement was marked by that self-contained grace which comes from maturity of mind; the wild beauty of spring had vanished, giving place to the full beauty of summer—the grace of Demeter gazing upon the fields of immortal wheat.
It was the wish of both my guardian and myself that Franzius and Eloise should inhabit the Pavilion as much as they chose. We had offered the place to them, indeed, as a wedding gift, but the permission to live there was all they would take.
This morning we breakfasted with the windows open. The swallows had not come back, yet the wind that puffed the chintz curtains was warm as the wind of May. Its sound amidst the trees was like the sound of April walking in the woods.
We came out and walked to the cottage of old Fauchard, whose wife was ill. Eloise had made her some soup, and she carried it in one of those tins the workmen use for their food.
The birds were calling to each other from tree to tree; clumps of violets were showing their blue amidst the brown of last autumn's fallen leaves, and the forest, half fledged, was breathing in the delicious breeze, sighing and shivering under the kiss of April.
It was no poetic fancy that presence which we felt around us, that call to which every fibre of my being responded. It was very real, and reaching far. The swallows were listening to it away at Luxor and Carnac; it touched the sun-baked Pyramids and the reeds of the Mareotid lakes, that call from the green fields of France; fields that in a few short months were to be ploughed by the cannon and watered with blood and tears.
We came to Paris in the afternoon, and, leaving Eloise with the Vicomte at the Place Vendôme, I accompanied Franzius to the Opera House, where he had some business to transact.
The last rehearsal had taken place the day before, and the huge building seemed very grim, empty and deserted as it was.
"Franzius," I said, as we stood looking at the empty orchestra, "do you remember that night in the Schloss Lichtenberg when you and Marx and the rest of your band played in the great hall, and a child in his nightshirt peeped at you from the gallery?"
"My friend," replied Franzius, "do I remember? Ach Gott! but for that night I would never have met you, I would never have met Eloise, I would be now second violin at the Closerie de Lilas, a man without love and without a future. It is to you I owe all."
"Not a bit. It is to chance. And if it comes to that, it is to you I owe all. But for you I would have been killed that night in my sleep. You remember the hunting-song that held me—you gave me the words of it last autumn. I wish some time you would write out the music for me."
Franzius smiled; then, as if speaking with an effort: "It was to have been a surprise. I have written out the music of it for you; it is in the score of the opera; it forms part of the overture."
I have never felt more excited than I felt that night. Despite the assurance of Carvalho, I felt that the fate of my friend was hanging in the balance; and I am sure I felt far more nervous than he, for he seemed quite calm and certain of success.
We dined early, and he departed before us, for he was to conduct.
We arrived before the house was half filled, and took our places in M. le Vicomte's box, which was situated in the first tier. Then the flood-gates of the world where all the inhabitants are wealthy slowly opened; box after box became a galaxy of stars; diamonds, ribbons, and orders reflected the brilliant light which flooded the house, fans fluttered like gorgeous butterflies, and the house, no longer half deserted, became a scene of splendour filled with the perfume of flowers, the intoxication of brilliancy; and my heart leapt to think of Franzius as I had met him that night in the Boul' Miche, going along in his old threadbare coat, with his violin under his arm, poor, unfriended, and unknown, and to think of him now, like a magician, compelling the wealth and beauty of Europe to his will!
Ah, yes! there is something in genius after all, something in it, if it is not trampled to death by fools before it has time to expand its wings.
The Empress was unable to attend, but the Emperor was there; and in the box with him were the Duc de Gramont and the Duc de Bassano. The Faubourg St. Germain was there, and the Chaussée d'Antin, old nobility and new, at daggers drawn, yet brought under the same roof by Art.
There was an electrical feeling in the place, a something I could not describe, till the Vicomte de Chatellan gave it a name.
"Success is in the air!" said he; then it seemed to me that I could hear her wings, that glorious goddess more beautiful than the Athena of the Parthenon.
And now from the orchestra came the complaint of the violin-strings, proclaiming their readiness, and the deep, gasping grunts of the 'cellos, saying as plainly as 'cellos could speak: "Begin! begin!" And there was Franzius, in correct evening attire (how different from the long coat of the Schloss Lichtenberg!), and I was swept right back to the gallery overlooking the hall; and it seemed to me that I was standing once more in my nightshirt, looking down at the guests, at General Hahn, and my father, and the Countess Feliciani; at Major von der Goltz, at the jägers crowding to the doorway, and then—three taps of the conductor's magic bâton; and with the first bars of the overture, Spring, who had been walking all day in the forest of Sènart, Spring herself entered the Opera House; the rush of the wind over leagues of blowing trees swept Paris and the glittering ceiling away; and the jewels and decorations, the Faubourg St. Germain and the Chaussée d'Antin, became trash under the blue of immortal skies.
"All things bright and all things fair," sang the music, flowing and beautiful, gemmed with star-like points of song. The skylark called from the seventh heaven, and the wind and the rivers, the echoes of the hills, the shepherd's song and the bells of sheep, the dim blue violets and dancing daffodils made answer, heaven echoing earth, earth heaven, till, deepening and changing, as a landscape stained with cloud shadows, the music became overcast as if by the shadow of that tragic figure Man. Man, for whom Spring is everything, and for whom Spring cares not at all. Man, who gives a soul to Nature as her mortal lover gave a soul to Undine; Man, who pursues a shadow for ever, even as the mysterious hunters in the hunting-song pursued the shadow stag.
Yes; there it was, the song that seemed woven in the texture of my life; and as I sat, holding Eloise's hand and listening, it seemed to me that the overture of "Undine" was in some way connected with the story of my life, so gay and joyous in the opening bars, deepening now and shadowed by Fate.
There it was, the horn and the echoes of the horn leading the shadowy dogs and the ghostly huntsmen—where? In pursuit of a shadow. Whither?
That was the last mysterious message of the overture, in whose last bars, sublime and peaceful, lay spread the mysterious country where all hunting ceases, recalling from the loveliest of poems that country where Orion, the hunter of the shadowy stag, possessed of Merope, dwells with her in a remote and dense grove of cedars for ever and happily, whilst the tamed shadow-stag drinks for ever at the stream.
When the curtain fell on the first act of "Undine," the opera was already a success.
"Ah, yes," said M. le Vicomte, "that is music. Beside it, the drumming and trumpeting of Wagner sound like the noise of a village fair." Then, turning to Eloise: "My congratulations." Then he left the box, to talk to friends and take his share in the incipient triumph.
It was really a triumph for him. He had boasted at the clubs of the new musician he had discovered; and it was a supreme satisfaction to him that his diamond had not turned out to be a piece of glass.
"Eloise," said I, "it's a success already; and if I had written ten thousand operas of my own, and they had all been successful on the same night, I would not feel the pleasure I feel now. Dear old Franzius——"
As if the name had called for an answer, a light knock came to the door of the box. The door opened, and Baron Carl von Lichtenberg stood before me. M. le Duc de Choiseul and the Marquis de Mérode, two well-known boulevardiers, stood behind him.
"Monsieur," said Von Lichtenberg, advancing towards me, "I have sought you in many places without avail since the incident which occurred at the Mirlitons, on the 1st of October last. I sought you to pay you this compliment." And he flicked me on the shoulder with the white glove which he had drawn from his hand.
I bowed, and he withdrew.
That was all. A deadly insult, very nicely wrapped up, lay in "this compliment"—and he had struck me.
Ah, well! it was to be. Although I was a living man with a will of my own, it seemed that my will could not prevent my meeting Von Lichtenberg; and, to point the matter, the challenge would have to come from me. I could not escape. Heaven knows I have a sufficiency of animal courage, yet for a moment the thought came to me of leaving Paris and ignoring the insult, sacrificing honour and name rather than submit to the unknown destination towards which Fate was driving me. Some instinct told me that this duel would have consequences far beyond what I could imagine; that it was a turning-point in my life, having passed which my fate would be irremediably fixed.
Only for a moment came the suicidal thought of flight, to be immediately dismissed. Let come what might, it was not my fault. I would send my seconds to Von Lichtenberg in the morning. Then I turned to Eloise, and found her leaning against the side of the box, pale, and seemingly in a fainting state.
"I am all right," she murmured, "but, oh, Toto, it was his face!"
"His face?"
"His face I saw deep down in the water of the moat, drowned, and with the weeds floating across it."
I remembered that day when, leaning on the drawbridge rail, and looking down into the moat water, she had seen what seemed a face.
"Eloise," I said, taking her hands in mine, "come to yourself. The second act is about to begin. Do not let other people see you pale like this. What matters it? He and I have an account to settle: what matters it? You have Franzius to think of. Listen to me. Do you know who he is? He is Baron Carl von Lichtenberg—he was little Carl. Do you remember the gardens of Lichtenberg and the drum, and how we marched away into the forest——"
And before Eloise could answer, the Vicomte returned, and the curtain rose on the forest of the lovely land where Undine met her lover.
The opera was a great success. Not since the marvellous first night of "The Barber of Seville" had Paris shown such enthusiasm. But the pleasure was dimmed for me, and I saw everything at a distance.
During the interval between the second and third acts, I sent a message to De Brissac and another friend who were in the house, to meet me at the Place Vendôme that night; and towards one in the morning we met in my apartments, and I gave them their commission.
Then I went to bed and to sleep, with the music of "Undine" ringing in my ears, and in my heart the knowledge of Franzius' triumph, and the knowledge that I had helped him to it.
At eleven o'clock next morning De Brissac was announced.
Von Lichtenberg had accepted my challenge, with an extraordinary proviso: the duel was not to take place till that day three months.
"He will fight you to-day if you press the point," said De Brissac, "but he asked me to lay before you the fact that he will require three months in which to arrange his affairs, which are partly political. He added," continued De Brissac grimly, "that, as you have evaded him for three months and more, you cannot in courtesy refuse him this favour."
"I accept. So he added that—another insult!"
"He is a strange person," said De Brissac, "though in all outward respects a perfect nobleman. He is a strange person, and I do not care for him. In my eyes this is a forced business—une mauvaise querelle."
"There have been several duels to the death between our houses," replied I. "Well, let it be so. On the 5th of July we shall meet."
On the afternoon of the same day upon which I sent him my seconds, Baron Carl von Lichtenberg left Paris. So quietly had the whole affair been transacted at the Opera that not till noon the following day did my guardian hear of it.
He was rather pleased at first. In those days a young man could not have been said to make his début till he had proved his courage. Besides, my supposed insult to the Baron had been much talked about; and the affair between us, to use the Vicomte's expression, was like an abscess that required opening.
But when he heard of the three months' condition he was less pleased.
"Why three months?" said he. "In Heaven's name, are not forty-eight hours enough for any man in which to put his house in order! What business can he possibly be about which requires three months to attend to? I don't like the look of this," he finished. "The Lichtenbergs are a mad race. But as you have accepted the condition you must abide by it."
How widely the old gentleman would have opened his eyes had he known then the reason why Baron Carl von Lichtenberg required three months in which to put his house in order before the duel! But he knew as little as I of the mysterious event towards which I was being driven—I, a living man, with a will of my own.
I had fully made up my mind that death lay before me. Swords were the weapons chosen by Von Lichtenberg, and I was an expert swordsman, but my sword would never pierce Carl von Lichtenberg. Of that I was determined.
The old fatality which had attended the relationship of the Lichtenbergs and the Saluces was coming to a head. Yes; I was condemned to fight, but Fate could not condemn me to kill.
If this Baron Carl von Lichtenberg were in reality little Carl, then Von Lichtenberg had foreseen the duel; it was with this in view that he had attempted my assassination. "Peace, Von Lichtenberg," said I to myself. "No harm will come to your child through me, unless he flings himself on my sword. Even then I would let the weapon drop from my hand." And I said this not from special goodwill to the living or the dead, but just because I refused to be the instrument of Fate.
I preferred to be the victim, and for this I was prepared; nay, I felt almost certain that I should remain on the ground; and all through that summer the thought filled me with a vague melancholy, a mist that made the landscape of life more beautiful, its distances and its beauties more grand, its trivialities more futile.
Only when we come near the end do we see life as it is, and things in their just proportions. I had seen the splendour of society, the pomp of Royalty, and that thing men call the glory of the world. Did I regret to leave all this? It never even entered into my consideration. It was nothing to me. Nothing beside the passionate appeal of summer, the cry of life that came from all things bright and all things fair; from the roses of Saluce, from the trees of the forest, and the birds I loved.
Ah! that glorious summer! Etiolles was a fire of roses, and the deep, dark heart of the forest a furnace of life. The bees in the limes and the wind in the beech-trees, the chirrup and buzz of a million happy insects, filled the air with a ferment of sound, whilst in the open spaces the pools lay blue as turquoises under the vast blue dome of summer.
I spent most of my time with Franzius and Eloise. We would take our food with us, and spend long days exploring the forest, which, like some mysterious house, had ever some new room to be discovered, some passage which was not there yesterday, some window opened by fairies during the night, and giving upon a new and magic prospect.
They knew nothing of my impending encounter, nothing of the mystery that surrounded me. Happy in their love, they did not guess my sadness, and I, though their happiness filled me with pleasure, could not in the least grasp it. Never having loved, I could not see the paradise which surrounded them.
The blindest people on earth are the people who have never loved, the people who have not yet lived.
But I could not see the paradise that surrounded them; and so the summer passed on, and June drew near July.
Every few days I would go to Paris, moved by an unrest for which I could not account.
One day—it was the 26th of June—I had just reached the Place Vendôme, when Beril informed me that my guardian wished to see me.
I found the old gentleman in his dressing-gown, sorting and arranging papers.
"I am leaving Paris," said M. le Vicomte, "for my estates in Auvergne, where I have to put some things in order. From there I am starting on a visit to England."
"To England! Why?"
"My doctor has ordered me rosbif," replied the old gentleman. Then, rising, he opened the door of the room suddenly, and looked out.
"Beril has the habit of applying his ear to keyholes," he explained. "No, my dear Patrique; it is not the state of my health that is moving me to this journey, but the state of France. You know the story of the rats and the sinking ship?"
"Yes."
"Well, call me a rat."
He went on sorting his papers.
"Now," he continued, "here is a list of the shares in which I have invested your money. All good, solid English securities. Take it. Our lawyer has all the bonds and scrip. I am taking them with me to England. My address will be Long's Hotel, in Bond Street, London. What do you propose to do? Follow me there, or remain in France?"
"First of all," I replied, "why are you going like this? Nothing is threatening France——"
"Oho!" said my guardian. "And where have you been studying politics? Down amongst the rabbits at Saluce?"
"I read the papers."
"Just so, and I read the times. I have been reading them for fifty-seven years. But that is not all. Patrique, do you know that we have a mysterious friend, who interests himself in our affairs?"
"I was unaware of the fact."
"Well, the fact remains. Now, what I am going to tell you is very secret. I cannot even give you the name of our informant, as I am pledged to an oath of secrecy. But the news has come to me through the German Foreign Office. News has come to me that France is in vital danger." He rose, trembling with excitement. "News has come to me that a thunderbolt is going to fall on France, not from heaven, but from there—from there! from there!" He almost shouted the words, pointing with a shaking finger in a direction which I took to indicate Germany.
I have never seen anything more dramatic than the Vicomte's gesture—the shaking hand, the intense expression, the fire in his old eyes, as he stood with one hand grasping the dressing-gown about him, as a Roman might have grasped his toga, the other pointing to the visionary enemy.
Then he sank back in his chair.
"Well," I said, "if danger is threatening France, I remain."
"That is as you please," replied he. "I go."
"But why go so soon? Surely you might wait till events are more assured?"
"Yes," replied he, "and then they would say I had run away. As it is, I do not run away. I simply depart before the event."
"But morally——"
"There are no morals in politics."
The terrible old man was certainly right in that.
I now see what he foresaw. Not only was France not fit for war, but Paris was not fit to meet defeat. He foresaw it all, the Commune, houses torn to pieces, the Column Vendôme lying on the ground, the muffled drums, the firing-parties, the trenches filled with dead. He foresaw it all, yet made one great mistake. He imagined the whole of France to be as rotten as Paris. But then he was a boulevardier, and for him Paris was France.
"Well," I said, "I am not a politician, so the morals of politics do not affect me. France has been my mother: if she is threatened by calamity, I will remain with her. I have eaten her bread; my father and my grandfather fought in her wars; every penny I possess comes to me from her; and were I to leave her now I would feel dishonoured. Besides, I have business to attend to. You remember the appointment I have to meet on the 5th of July."
I really believe the old gentleman had quite forgotten about the duel.
"Ah!" said he. "Lichtenberg." And he struck his knee with his fist. Then he got up and paced the room in deep thought. Then, turning to me, he smiled.
"Yes," he said, "I had forgotten. This affair will keep you in Paris; but when it is over, please to remember my advice and my address in England."
"When it is over," replied I, "I may be dead."
"Oh, no," said the Vicomte; "you will not be dead. At least"—and here he smiled again—"not in my opinion."
He departed for Auvergne next day, he and Beril, and a pile of luggage. A number of people saw him off from the station, including myself.
They did not see a rat leaving a sinking ship: they saw a jovial old gentleman, with a cigar in his mouth, entering a first-class carriage, a nobleman departing to visit his estates. He was to be back in a month, so he said; and the last I saw of him was a jovial red face, and a hand waving a copy of the "Charivari" to the little crowd of friends he had left on the platform.
There was a touch of humour in that; and I could not help laughing, as I turned home, at this man, so great in some ways, so little in others, so kind, so heartless, so bad, so good; and such a perfect "shuffler." He was by nature, above all things, an escaper from difficulties. I could not help remembering how he had shuffled out of the painful duty of breaking the news of my father's death to me; how he had shuffled out of the responsibility of my education and bringing up; a hundred other instances occurred to me, leading up to this last business of shuffling out of France at the first scent of disaster. I am nearly sure that had he been with the army he would have found some means of shuffling it out of the trap at Sedan; at all events, I am perfectly certain he would have escaped himself.
What perplexed me was the problem as to how he had obtained his news from the German Foreign Office. Little as I knew of the methods of the Chancelleries of Europe, a fool would understand that such vital, such awful information could not escape from the innermost sanctum of the Berlin Chancellerie—that is to say, if it were real. I was thrown back on the hypothesis that it was false—a canard let escape purposefully, one of Bismarck's wild ducks that were always stringing in flight across Europe, set free by that marvellous man, the only man of his age, or any other, perhaps, who could bring his country in touch with war for some political reason, and then fend her off unhurt.
I returned to the Place Vendôme, where I found Joubert in a despondent mood. The departure of Beril had taken from him one of his interests in life. He had come to look upon his daily fight with Beril as an accompaniment to the digestion of his daily bread. The two old fellows had grown almost like man and wife, as far as nagging goes; they had hurled boots at each other, squabbled perpetually, vilified each other, and once had come to blows. Now that the separation had occurred, the great blank caused by it appeared in Joubert's face.
Joubert had many good qualities; among others, he was a born and perfect swordsman. When quite young, and stationed in Paris, he had put in a good deal of his spare time at Carduso's School of Arms, then situated near the Chinese Baths. He made a little money this way, instructing young bloods in the art of self-defence; and he had learnt many tricks from Carduso, that magician of whom it has been said that he was born with a rapier in his hand. I owed a good deal of my own proficiency with the sword to Joubert, who, even when I was a child, had shown me the difference of carte and tierce with my little cane.
To-day an idea struck me.
"Joubert," said I.
"Monsieur!" replied Joubert.
"Attention."
"Ah, oui, attention," grumbled Joubert, going on with his business, which happened to be the brushing of a coat. "I'm attending to the moths that have got in your overcoat."
"Leave them alone, and see here." I took a pair of foils from the wall, and presented one of them by the hilt.
"Catch hold. I want a lesson."
"There you go, there you go!" said Joubert, putting the foil under his arm, and finishing the coat. "Always when I am busy, and monsieur's clothes——"
"Never mind monsieur's clothes," I replied. "I want a lesson. See here: do you remember telling me a trick of Carduso's——"
"A hundred. Which one?"
"A trick of pinking a man in a certain place in the arm, where the big nerve runs, so that his arm is paralysed, and he can't go on fighting."
"Mais oui," said the old fellow, bending the rapier with the button on the tip of his boot.
"Well, show me it."
"Aha!" said Joubert, his eyes lighting up, "la monsieur going to fight?"
"Yes; it has come to that, Joubert. It seems that a man cannot live quietly in this Paris of yours without fighting for his life like some beast in an African forest. But I don't want to kill my man—only to put him out of action."
"And why not kill him?" asked Joubert. "Mordieu, what is the use of fighting, else? Why take a sword in your hand if you only want to pay him compliments?"
"Never mind. I don't want to kill him."
"And who is the gentleman whom you desire to scratch?"
"I will tell you that the morning of the affair, the 5th of July. We meet in the Bois de Boulogne. I will let you drive me, and you will see the business."
"Good!" said Joubert. "If one cannot watch lions fighting, let us then watch cats. Attention!"
Joubert was a bit over seventy, but he had the dexterity and almost the quickness of a young man. The spot to be reached is just over the bone half way down the arm. A nerve—I think they call it the musculo spiral—winds round the bone here. If you can pierce it, you entirely demoralise your opponent. Just as a bullet-wound in the hand reduces a strong man into the condition of a hysterical woman, so does a touch here.
The button of Joubert's foil sent a tingle down my arm, proclaiming that the spot had been reached.
Then I returned the compliment.
We practised for half an hour, and again on the next day.
And day followed day, till the 4th of July broke over Paris, cloudless and perfect.
I was up early, and at ten o'clock I called upon De Brissac at his rooms, the Rue Helder.
"Ah!" said he, "I'm glad to see you."
"How so?" replied I, for his manner indicated something more than an ordinary greeting.
"Well, as a matter of fact," replied he, "I heard last night—in fact, it was generally spoken of on the Boulevards—that you had arranged the matter amicably with the Baron von Lichtenberg."
"That I had arranged the matter?"
"People say you have apologised to him."
"I apologise? Why, my dear sir, it was he who insulted me! He struck me on the shoulder with his glove. How, then, could I apologise?"
"Not for that, but for the occurrence at the Mirlitons. So it is a canard?"
"The wildest."
"Ah, I thought so. And I think I know who set it flying—De Coigny."
"I would not be surprised; he is an old enemy of mine."
"I am certain of it," said De Brissac, "For M. de Champfleury, who is acting with me also as your second, told me that the report came to a friend of his from the mouth of M. de Coigny."
"De Brissac," I said, "bring with you another friend—someone not indisposed to De Coigny—to-morrow."
"Why?"
"M. de Coigny——" Then I stopped, for the determination I had come to was of such a nature that I thought it best to leave the declaration of it till we were on the ground.
"Why?" asked again De Brissac.
"Oh, just as a spectator. It will be worth his while, for, if I mistake not, there will be something worth seeing to-morrow morning at seven o'clock in the Avenue of the Minimes, just by the pond, for that is, I believe, our place of meeting."
De Brissac bowed.
"I will bring a friend," said he.
Little did I think of the surprising thing that friend would see; and little did De Brissac dream that the duel in which he was to take part would be noticeable above all other duels in the history of duelling even unto this day.
"Till to-morrow, at seven, then," said I.
"Till to-morrow," replied De Brissac.
Then I took my departure.
The Vicomte, before starting on his visit to Auvergne, had cleared his money and his property out of Paris as far as possible, but he had left the hotel in the Place Vendôme "all standing," as the sailors say. To have removed his furniture, his horses, and his equipages would have been to declare his hand; and if by any chance the storm had not burst and France had emerged from her difficulties, the man who had taken shelter, or, in plainer words, taken flight, would have found a very curious welcome on his return to the beloved Boulevards. He had foresees everything, even the chance of success, and he had prepared for everything, always with his mind's eye on failure.
So I had a stable full of horses at my disposal, and a house full of servants; all the bills were paid; there was unlimited credit, and I had ten thousand francs in my pocketbook, which he had left with me in case of eventualities.
I returned from De Brissac's to the Place Vendôme, ordered out a britzka and a pair of swift horses, and told the coachman to take me to Etiolles.
I wished to shake hands with Franzius and kiss Eloise again. I had also determined to tell them of what was to happen on the morrow.
We passed through Bercy, and retook the same road I had taken that morning in May when I had gone down to make arrangements for Eloise's reception at the Pavilion. It was the same road, but dressed now in the glory of summer.
Heavens! when I think of that road, so peaceful, the houses wearing such a contented look, the flowers in the garden, the little children playing on the doorsteps; that road so soon to resound to the tramp of the German hordes, and the drums of war, the rolling of artillery and baggage-wagons—when I think of that scene of peace and what followed!
And now it is all so far away, so many summers have re-dressed that road again; and what of it all remains? Only an old story with which Father Mabœuf bores the drinkers at the Grape Inn, of Champrosay; a tale which old men in Germany tell the grandchildren; a song or two. Scarcely that.
When I reached the Pavilion, Franzius and Eloise were not there. Madame Ancelot said they had taken money and food with them, and "gone off." They often did this, sometimes for a couple of days: the gipsy that was in Franzius' feet required a change. This strange pair, who were now more than ever like lovers, would "go off," spend days in the open, and stop at village inns at night. Franzius had infected his companion with the love of freedom. He was now famous. Another man in his position would have been at Biarritz or Trouville, basking in the social sun, but the only sun desired by Franzius was the sun of heaven. He refused to be lionised. A Bohemian to the ends of his fingers, a gipsy to the soles of his boots, brown as a berry with the sun and open air, carrying his violin under his arm: had you met him on a country road, you would never have suspected him to be Franzius, the composer of "Undine," who, had he chosen, could, with a few sweeps of his bow on a concert platform, have gained two thousand francs on a summer's afternoon.
"They did not say when they would be back?"
"No," replied Madame Ancelot; "but they won't be back to-day, or maybe to-morrow: they took a ham with them."
"Ah!"
"And a chicken. It was in a basket that madame carried. They went a way through the woods, but that leads everywhere; and one can't say whether they passed last night at Champrosay or at some cottage. For myself, I believe they sometimes sleep in the woods, and don't trouble about houses at all."
To sleep in God's open air seemed the last act of madness to Madame Ancelot, who, a peasant born and bred, was accustomed, by experience and from tradition, to sleep in a bedroom almost hermetically sealed.
I had myself suspected the Franzius' of sleeping on occasion in barns and hayricks, but I said nothing.
I was depressed at not finding the two people I loved most on earth, for it was now quite beyond chance that I would meet them before to-morrow morning; and after to-morrow morning—— Ah, well—after to-morrow morning——
I left the Pavilion and walked into the château gardens. These gardens, beloved by Eloise, kept our house in the Place Vendôme supplied with flowers. They were very old. M. de Sartines and M. de Maupeon had walked here amidst the roses, discussing State intrigues; the full skirts of the Duchesse de Gramont had swept that lawn; and on that stone seat, under the great fig-trees' cave-like shelter, the Princesse de Guemenée had sat amidst brocaded cushions, and there had received the news of the Duc de Choiseul's disgrace; and far beyond that went the history of these walks, these lawns, these fountains playing in the sun; these old, old walls, warmed by the suns of two hundred summers; rich red walls, moss-lined, to which the peach-trees still clung as they had clung when La Vallière was still a girl, when La Fontaine was still a man, and Monsieur Fouquet held his court at Vaux.
No poet has written such lovely things as Time had written here in those three lovely books—the rose garden, the sunk garden, and the Dutch garden of Saluce; books whose leaves in summer were ever being turned over by the idle fingers of the wind. Years of desolation had completed their charm, just as years of death the charm of some vanished poet's works.
Peopled with ghosts and flowers, voices of fountains and voices of birds, walking there alone on a summer's day one would scarcely have dared to call out, lest some silvery voice made answer, or some white hand from amidst the rose-bushes, some hand once whiter than the white rose, some voice once sweeter than the voices of the birds.
"And Marianne de l'Orme, how is she—the Austrian, and she whom they call the Flower of Light? Diane de Christeuil, Colombe de Gaillefontaine, Aloise de Gondalaurier, sweet-named ghosts: where are ye?"
"Who knows?" would reply the breeze in the rose-bushes. "They are here, they are here," the birds in the trees.
Here had walked, in times long past, the ladies of the house of Saluce. This family, from which I drew half my being, had for me a charm and mystery beyond expression. I was a Mahon, all my traditions were Irish; yet I was linked with this family, of whom all were dead, this family whose stately history went back into the remote past.
I had never seen my mother; I had never seen a living Saluce; they were all vanished. Nothing remained but their pictures and their names, yet I had come from them in part. They were my ancestors, and my likeness had walked the earth, in the form of Philippe de Saluce, over two hundred years before I was born; and my likeness in the form of Philippe de Saluce had—— We know what he had done.
The doors of the château were open, and some workmen were busy in the hall, repairing the oakwork. They were talking and laughing, and their voices had set the echo chattering in the gallery above.
Marianne seemed mocking them; and as I gave them good-day and examined their work her voice seemed mocking mine.
Then I left the men, and came upstairs to look at the place once again. I passed from corridor to corridor, and at last found the turret-room whither I had come that day with Eloise.
It was just the same, everything in exactly the same place, even to the books on the table. I examined them: some were quite modern, drawings by Gavarni and De Musset's poems; some were more antique.
Amongst them was a work in gilded boards, the history of the Saluce family, written by one Armand de Saluce, in the year 1820, and dedicated rather fulsomely to the then head of the house.
He was some poor relation evidently, Armand, and his language was very flowery; and from his little book one might have imagined the Saluces a family of saints and lambs.
I turned the pages this way and that, till I found what he had to say about Philippe.
Philippe de Saluce, according to Armand, had died in consequence of an unfortunate love-affair.
It did not say he had drowned his fiancée—that he was a murderer.
With the book in my hand I fell asleep, lulled by the drowsy warmth of the room, and the softness of the cushions of the window-seat.
When I awoke the light had changed, and, looking at my watch, I found it to be nearly six o'clock.
I rose, put the book on the table, and came downstairs.
The workmen had gone, and they had locked the door!
Not for a few moments did my position realise itself to me.
Every door I knew to be barred and locked; every window was also barred on the ground floor, except those that were too narrow for a man's entry or exit. No one would come till the morning. Madame Ancelot would think I had returned to Paris by train, and send the carriage back. I was trapped in the château of Saluce; and at seven o'clock to-morrow I had to meet Von Lichtenberg, or be dishonoured for life!
A nice situation, truly!
I laughed out loud from pure rage and vexation, and the echo above returned my laughter mockingly.
In my despair I tried all the doors, uselessly; they were solid as the doors of the Bastille.
Then I remembered a window that was not barred—the stained-glass window of the banqueting-room. It was fifteen feet from the ground, but had it been more I would have risked it.
I went to the banqueting-room, and stood before the window, my only way to freedom and honour. It was a lovely creation of stained glass. The arms of the Saluces and the arms of the noble families with whom they were connected stood there, the Lichtenbergs amidst the rest. The evening light, shining through the stained glass, repeated the colours vaguely upon the polished parquet of the floor. The light, shining through the tender colours of the glass, brought with it an indefinable sadness. To break this thing would be like striking the dead, dishonouring the past. An act of vandalism beyond name.
This window was more than a window: it was a barrier between me and my fate. The arms of the Lichtenbergs, the Saluces, the Montmorencies, had drawn themselves up before me; it was as if they would stand between me and the encounter of the morrow, but only as a menace. They could offer no real opposition to my physical acts; they could only say, "Take warning!"
Then, with the brutality of your kind-hearted man, who, condemned to kill an animal, and loathing the business, strikes fiercely and blindly, causing more destruction than necessary, I seized a heavy bronze bar from the fireplace and attacked the window. The blows echoed from the roof—smash! smash!—and the chattering of falling glass came from the garden-walk outside; the leadwork which had held the glass fragments together bulged out, and had to be broken out by incessant blows, which brought down shower after shower of glass fragments from that part of the window which lay above the line of my attack; and lo! when I had once entered on the business, all remorse fled, and a fury for destruction rose in my heart that I had never felt before, nor had I even suspected my own capacity for the feeling. So, perhaps, Philippe de Saluce felt when he destroyed his lover in a sudden accession of fury. I do not know, but I know that from behind some veil in my mind a new man stepped out, as Monsieur Hyde stepped from the soul of Monsieur Jekyll, and that I smashed and smashed for the pure pleasure, and from the vicious lust of destruction.
Condemned to act by Fate, I revenged myself after the fashion of a tiger. Then, tearing a brocaded curtain down from its attachments, I spread it over the glass-splintered edge of the sill, crawled over it, lowered myself, dropped, and was free.
As I stood on the garden-path, looking up at the ruin I had accomplished, I heard footsteps.
The workmen were returning.
"Ah, mon Dieu, monsieur!" cried the chief ouvrier, "we had forgotten you. Not till five minutes ago did Jacques remember that monsieur had not left the house when we bolted the door and came away; so we returned, running all the way from Etiolles."
So my destruction of the window had been in vain, it would seem! Not so; for, just as at a first debauch the demon of drunkenness enters a man's heart, so at this orgie of destruction did the demon of destruction enter mine.
"Joubert," said I that night, as I went to bed, "you have everything ready for to-morrow?"
"All is ready," replied Joubert.
"You will call me at half-past five."
"Yes, monsieur. And your promise?"
"My promise?"
"To tell me with whom you are going to fight?"
"Ah, yes! Well, I have two affairs on to-morrow morning. I am going to scratch Baron Carl von Lichtenberg on the arm, and I am going to drive my sword through M. de Coigny's heart."
"Von Lichtenberg!" cried Joubert. "You are going to fight with a Lichtenberg, one of that accursed lot!"
"I am going to fight with M. de Coigny. We have been enemies for years; he has mixed himself in this affair; he has offered himself up as a sacrifice——"
"Mon Dieu!" cried the old fellow, drawing back, "is it you that are speaking, or the devil?"
I was sitting up in bed; and in a mirror across the room I saw the wan reflection of my own face, and started at the expression of wrath and black hatred portrayed there.
I had hated De Coigny for years, but not till now did I know my own capacity for hate. Thus we go through life for years not knowing, till some day some hand draws the curtain back, holds up the mirror, reveals the other man, the Monsieur Hyde who has hidden himself at birth in the heart of Monsieur Jekyll.
"Half-past five!"
Joubert was standing by the window, my bath-towels over his arm. He had drawn up the blind, and the light of early morning filled the room. I could have cursed Joubert, for he had awakened me from a most lovely dream.
In a full blaze of sunlight I had been walking in the gardens of Lichtenberg with Eloise; we were children again, and little Carl was marching before us, beating his drum. Past the fountains, past the Running Man carved in stone, we went, then into the shade of the forest, led by little Carl towards some great but indefinable happiness.
"Where are they?" I murmured, half unconscious that I was speaking, and rubbing my eyes as if to bring back the happy vision.
"Who?" asked Joubert.
I did not answer him. Who, indeed? Those children for ever vanished.
I dressed rapidly, and breakfasted. I felt both nervous and excited, exactly as I had felt on the night of the production of "Undine."
Then I sat down to write a line to Franzius and Eloise.
I had divided my property, in case of my death, leaving half to my guardian and half to Eloise. The will was with our lawyer, and I said so in a postscript to my note. When I had finished, Joubert appeared.
"The carriage is at the door."
I sealed the letter, and handed it to him.
"In case of accidents," said I, "post this."
Joubert saluted, and put it in his pocket without glancing at the superscription.
Joubert was grave. He had never saluted me before, except in a spirit of half mockery—the way one would salute a child.
I had been a child in his eyes until now, but now I was evidently a man, his master; and nothing seemed, up to this, to have divided me so sharply from my childhood and my past as this suddenly begotten change in Joubert's manner; and as I stepped from the hall-door on to the pavement I felt that I was stepping for the first time into the world of manhood; that all had been play with me till now, and that now, this morning, the grim business of life had begun.
Joubert got on the box beside the coachman, and we started.
The early sun was bright on the trees and houses of the Champs Elysées; the trees of the Bois de Boulogne were waving in the early morning breeze; all was bright and all was fair; and it seemed a pity—a thousand pities—to have to die a morning like this, to shut one's eyes for ever, and never more see the sun.
As we drew near our destination, I felt exactly as I often had felt in childhood when at the door of the dentist's: a strong desire to return home, coupled with a strong repugnance to face what had to be done.
The avenue of the Minimes has vanished. It was a lovely place, tree-sheltered and leading by a pond where the green rushes whispered beneath silvery willows, making a picture after the heart of Puvis de Chavannes. It opened out of a broad drive, and was a favourite spot for the settlement of affairs of honour.
"We are first," cried Joubert, turning his head.
I stood up. Yes; there was no other carriage; in fact, we were ten minutes before our time—a great mistake, for a ten minutes' wait in an affair of this description is one of the most unsettling things possible for the nerves of a man. We drew up near the entrance to the Avenue des Minimes, and, getting out, I paced up and down, for the early morning was chilly, though it gave promise of a glorious day.
Ah! here they came—at least, some of them. A carriage rapidly driven was coming along the drive. There were three gentlemen in it, my seconds, De Brissac and M. de Champfleury, and a tall personage who turned out to be Colonel Savernac, the extra friend whom I had asked De Brissac to bring.
We had scarcely exchanged greetings when another carriage arrived, containing De Coigny and Baron Struve—who were the seconds of the Baron Carl von Lichtenberg—and Dr. Pons, the surgeon.
The seconds of either party bowed one to the other.
De Brissac took out his watch.
"What time do you make it, M. de Coigny?"
"Five minutes to the hour," replied De Coigny.
"Ah! I make it the hour. My watch is set by the Observatory clock. Still, perhaps it may have gone wrong. Make it, then, five minutes to the hour. And hi! there! Move on those carriages. We are as noticeable as the front of the Opera House; and should a mounted gendarme come this way there will be trouble."
"Monsieur," said Joubert, jumping down as the carriages moved off, "you promised."
"Yes," said I, half to Joubert, half to De Brissac. "I promised. You may remain as a spectator—at a distance."
"A servant!" said De Coigny.
"No, Monsieur de Coigny," I replied; "a faithful friend, and a soldier of Napoleon."
De Coigny turned on his heel, and began talking to Dr. Pons, who stood with a mahogany case under his arm.
"Notice," I said to De Brissac. "De Coigny has turned his back upon me; but within an hour's time, if I do not fall by the sword of Von Lichtenberg, I will require him to turn his face to me."
"You are going to——"
"Kill him," I replied.
De Brissac shrugged his shoulders, and looked again at his watch.
"I make it five minutes past the hour, M. de Coigny."
De Coigny looked at his watch and nodded.
"By the way," I heard Champfleury say to one of my adversary's seconds, "has anyone seen anything of M. le Baron Carl von Lichtenberg during the last three months?"
"I have not," replied the gentleman addressed, "nor have I met anyone who has. The Prussian Embassy people do not know anything of his whereabouts: he has had leave of absence."
"Rest assured," said De Coigny, "he will arrive. He is not a coward."
"All the same, he is late," said De Brissac.
I looked at my watch. It was now ten minutes past seven, an inexcusable delay on Von Lichtenberg's part, unless, indeed, some accident had occurred.
Five more minutes slowly passed; the sun had now completely freed himself from the mists of the Bois; the light struck down the path; it struck the mahogany instrument-case under the arm of Dr. Pons, and the hilts of the rapiers which De Brissac was carrying concealed in the folds of a long, fawn-coloured overcoat.
"At twenty minutes past," said De Brissac, "I shall declare the duel postponed. I shall take my principal home and I shall demand an explanation, M. de Coigny."
Scarcely had he spoken than Dr. Pons, who had been looking along the drive in the direction of the Champs Elysées, cried: "Here he comes."
A closed carriage, drawn by two magnificent Orloff horses, had entered the broad drive and was advancing at full speed. I do not know how the weird impression came to me, but the closed carriage drawn by the black Russian horses suggested to me a funeral-carriage; and before it, as it came, the sunlight seemed to wither from the drive.
A few paces from us the coachman literally brought the horses on their haunches, the door of the carriage opened, and a lady stepped out.
A girl of about eighteen, an apparition so exquisite, so full of grace, so bright, so unexpected, that the men around me, used to beauty, world-worn and cynical as they were, said no word, and remained motionless as statues, whilst I clung to the arm of De Brissac.
For the girl was Margaret von Lichtenberg—Margaret von Lichtenberg, little Carl, Baron Carl, all these apotheosised! And as I looked, a voice—Eloise's childish voice, heard long years ago—again murmured in my ear:
"Little Carl is a girl."
Then I knew that it was she—the woman so mysteriously bound up in my life; and as a man drowning remembers his whole past, in a flash of thought I remembered all: Von Lichtenberg's mad attempt to assassinate me, his dying words; the apparition of little Carl that had lured me into the gravelpit and lamed me for life; Baron Carl von Lichtenberg and his pursuit of me; my fight against Fate; my own words: "I will not—I will not! I am a living man with a will of my own; no dead Fate shall lead me or drive me." But I had never thought of this. I had played against Fate, and now I felt dimly that I had lost. I had not suspected this card which the dealer had slipped up his sleeve, and which now appeared to confound me, this lovely being, whose voice I now heard addressing De Coigny:
"I have come on behalf of Baron Carl von Lichtenberg. There is no longer a Baron Carl von Lichtenberg. He is dead."
"Listen," whispered De Brissac, clutching my arm. "This is very strange! I would swear it was the Baron Carl himself speaking. And she is like him. It must, then, be his sister."
"On his behalf," she went on, "I apologise to M. Patrick Mahon; and I am commissioned by him, M. de Coigny, in return for all the lies and evil words you have spoken about M. Mahon, to give you this." And she struck De Coigny on the face lightly with her gloved hand.
Then I woke up, and I felt the blood surge to my face as I stepped forward. She turned to me, with her lips half parted in a glad smile; our eyes met. God! in that moment how my whole being leapt alive! Bursting and rending its husk, my imprisoned spirit broke free, as a dragon-fly breaks free touched by the sun's magic wand. I heard myself speak; I was speaking coldly and distinctly, addressing De Coigny, and yet all my soul was addressing her in delirious unspoken words.
"M. de Coigny," said the voice which came from my lips, "we are, I believe, old enemies. I have forgotten all that, but the Baron Carl von Lichtenberg's quarrels are now mine; and if your craven heart will allow you to hold a sword, I beg to take his place."
What then followed is like a dream in my mind. I heard the seconds consulting. I heard Dr. Pons' voice speaking in a tone of relief: "So then we are to have some music after all!" I held two warm hands in mine, and I heard myself saying: "Yes, yes, you will stay here. I shall not be long. Oh, no; I shall not be killed! I will return. To be killed would be too absurd now. Wait for me."
Then, leaning on De Brissac's arm, I was walking down the Avenue des Minimes, and now, sword in hand, I was fronting De Coigny.
* * * * *
He was backgrounded by the willows, all silvering to the breeze, and his hateful face filled me with a fury that rose in my throat and which I had to gulp down. He was the only thing that stood between me and the heaven that had just been revealed to me; he was there with a sword in his hand, as if to bar me out and cut me off for ever from it. He was everything I hated, and the power of hate had suddenly risen gigantic in my breast, shouting for his blood.
Then we fought, and I found myself commanding myself, just as a drunken man commands himself to stand straight and be cool. Sometimes I saw his face, and sometimes I saw it not, yet ever I knew that I held him with my eye as a fowler holds a bird in his hand.
Had anyone been wandering by the pool of the Minimes, he might have fancied that he heard the cry of a seagull—a single, melancholy cry; for it is crying thus that a man's soul escapes when he is stricken through the heart.